Getting Ready To Leave

 

The Hino had been serviced, she had her brakes refurbished, new pads, new brake drums, new bearings, new exhaust system, new filters, new shockies, new diff seals, everything checked over ready for a trouble free trip, at least for a fair while anyway.

She did look like this for almost 3 weeks, no wheels, up on blocks, not looking very good.

But eventually she was ready to go mechanically but the electrical system needed some work. I knew there were no fuses in the 12 volt house side of the electrics and this is a major safety issue. I can’t understand why someone would spend so much money in fitting out a bus like this, with an amazing fit out, all the best items you can get, yet then scrimp on the electrics. 12/24 volt electrical house systems need to be fused down near the batteries to protect the cables. If you don’t have these fuses in the system and you have a short circuit, it can easily lead to a fire. If you have fuses, a fuse will blow and everything is good, replace the fuse and if it blows again then you know you have a serious problem and you can track it down and fix it.  If you don’t have fuses, the cable heats up and burns anything it comes into contact with. This is especially important in a motor home as you have lots of vibrations and cables can rub, if they rub against metal and short out you’re in trouble.

Another problem we discovered with my electrical system as it was being sorted out, fused, rewired etc, was that the solar panels were disconnected down at the batteries, the cables were just coiled up and left. Strange, why would you have solar panels installed if you’re not going to use them. We discovered that the 25A solar regulator was borderline for the amount of panels on the roof and figured that there may have been issues with it so someone just disconnected them. So, a new 40A regulator has been installed in it’s place.

All good now except there are still a few teething problems with the new regulator, it’s not showing how much load is being used. I’ve had a couple of people look at it without any luck, it will just have to wait at least things work and it’s safe.