Chinook RV

Just got back from a weekend camping with friends at a state park on Lake Michigan. The Chinook was great, and I think we had some envious neighbors. The Chinook is such a unique rig, definitely gets a lot of interest and attention.

Well, with some additional work last week I think the kitchen is "done", for the most part. Trim is installed, both for the walls and countertop to wall border. The halved pencil tile worked out great and I think it frames the counter nicely, while protecting the walls from spills. I purchased some oak to actually trim the countertop edges rather than reuse the old (too short) trim, but that's pretty low priority at the moment.

Here are the after pics:











Two weeks away from a boondocking weekend in the Manistee National Forest with another group of friends. My mission is to get the genset fixed and reinstalled, and the fridge working on gas again by that weekend. The project continues!

Looks very nice. Good job!

Happy to say the fridge and genset are up and running without any additional expense.

The thermocouple in the refrigerator is supposed to read 25-35mV when the flame is active. I was getting around 16mV which will cause the fridge to kick out and throw the "check" light. I noticed that the flame was not going straight up and over the thermocouple probe, so I decided to remove the burner tube and clean it out. As soon as I removed it this pile of rust from the flue fell out. Perhaps it is time to invest in a flue brush and clean the rest out.



After reinstalling the burner tube and thermocouple, I was getting a solid 29-30mV and the fridge no longer threw the "check" light. After fixing below:



On to the generator!

The genset did not turn over at all when we bought the Chinook. I removed it last year and freed up the crankshaft which seemed somewhat siezed, but have not touched it since. Finally got around to it last week. Started by changing the oil and spark plug for good measure. I hooked up a 12V battery and ran some fuel line into a jug, and success, it started! But then died immediately when I released the start button. Darn.

My attempts to troubleshoot the issue were successful and unsuccessful at the same time. After measuring voltages, the oil level sensor switch, and checking the connections I was able to successfully get the generator to run without holding the switch down (which bypasses the oil level sensor and other similar checks). However I am not really sure what I did to fix it. The generator hasn't likely run in a few years so perhaps there was some corrosion on the brushes, or something else that cleared up after I ran it manually repeatedly. Bad connection somewhere maybe, I'm not sure. In any case I plan to load test it for an hour in the garage tonight and if all looks good, it's going back in.

Very happy that I don't need to replace the carb, fuel pump, or other overpriced components from the Onan catalog.

Burrito, where are the test points when you check the voltage of the flame sensor? If I remember correctly, it only have one lead, so it is not a regular thermocouple, but a sensor based on flame rectification mechanism.

For the load test, you may want to connect the genset to the rig, and turn on the rooftop AC. If you have other load that you can use, even a hair dryer, it should be alright too.

chin_k wrote: June 18th, 2019, 1:18 pm Burrito, where are the test points when you check the voltage of the flame sensor? If I remember correctly, it only have one lead, so it is not a regular thermocouple, but a sensor based on flame rectification mechanism.

For the load test, you may want to connect the genset to the rig, and turn on the rooftop AC. If you have other load that you can use, even a hair dryer, it should be alright too.

At some point my control board was replaced with a Dinosaur P711. It connects with both leads on the thermocouple, so I measured voltage across the leads at the terminals while plugged into the board. The original Dometic control board for this generation fridge references one side of the thermocouple to ground which caused ground bounce issues, according to Dinosaur. I believe it is a standard thermocouple though.

I performed the load test last night. Agreed that the A/C would be the best test, but I wanted to do it before reinstalling just in case. Connected a 1500w electric heater and ran it for 45 minutes with no issues. Generator seemed to respond quickly to changing the load with no surging, bogging, etc.

If it has two leads, then it is thermocouple like you said. Mine is a standard Dometic, and I got the recall kit installed a few weeks ago.

Glad that you were able to the get genset up and running. Great job!

Fun little project completed this week.

I do some car racing a few times a year. This weekend I need to haul my car to the track, and I was hoping to use the Chinook. One problem was the hitch that looked like this when we bought it:





The prior owner(s) must have scraped this thing over the driveway a hundred times for it to get this bad. The reinforcement collar was gone on the bottom and half of the lower lip of the hitch end was worn away. After some debate I decided to reinforce rather than replace the receiver.

Started by removing the old collar, grinding the welds and using a chisel to break the rest away. I purchased two replacement collars to install in the place of the single original.

I set the position and installed the first collar. Used a MIG to weld the collar and also build up additional material where it had been removed from the bottom of the square tube. After that was filled I added the second collar and repeated the process. I welded the entire joint between the collar and the end of the tube and then ground the excess weld to leave a flat surface that was fully filled in as you can see below.

Double collars installed, rear collar welded to the tube.


Front (rear?) view.


Finally bent some rebar and welded to the bottom for a sacrificial skid member just in case it happens again. I've definitely scraped it on my driveway when not careful, hopefully this will prevent it from impacting the collars again. Finished everything with some black enamel and here is the result:



Installed a new 7 pin connector as the previous was ripped off at some point. Chasing the wires was fun, it's always interesting trying to figure out what someone else has kludged together in the past. Reinstalled the step and hopefully we will be good to go.

ASaucyBurrito wrote: July 10th, 2019, 9:06 am
Double collars installed, rear collar welded to the tube.

Nice! I like your double collar idea. Wish I knew how and had equipment for welding.

ASaucyBurrito wrote: July 10th, 2019, 9:06 amFinally bent some rebar and welded to the bottom for a sacrificial skid member just in case it happens again.

You mean "In case I ever drive the Chinook again," right? Somewhat kidding, but not totally.

ASaucyBurrito wrote: July 10th, 2019, 9:06 amInstalled a new 7 pin connector as the previous was ripped off at some point. Chasing the wires was fun, it's always interesting trying to figure out what someone else has kludged together in the past.

In my case the wiring was completely stock which meant it was Chinook's idiosyncracies I had to figure out. Like how they used Ford's trailer wiring harnesses to power the Chinook tail and running lights Didn't see that one coming.

Blue~Go wrote: July 10th, 2019, 5:16 pm You mean "In case I ever drive the Chinook again," right? Somewhat kidding, but not totally.

Ha, very true. It's inevitable, why kid yourself.

Blue~Go wrote: July 10th, 2019, 5:16 pm In my case the wiring was completely stock which meant it was Chinook's idiosyncracies I had to figure out. Like how they used Ford's trailer wiring harnesses to power the Chinook tail and running lights Didn't see that one coming.

Somehow I had a hodge podge of that and some "custom" trailer brake wiring. But your posts here on those idiosyncrasies made it much easier to figure out what was actually happening, so thanks for that! In any case I picked up my buddies trailer last night and everything worked, so at least I have that going for me, which is nice.

I have been able to avoid dealing with the trailer connector since the only thing I used so far is bike rack. However, eventually, I will need to take care of this.

SaucyBurrito, is the 7 pin adapter the standard type used nowadays? I assume I can get it readily from any auto part store, correct? The one I had used is the four pins ones.