I thought I would share highlights of our recent trip to St. Louis. I will focus on the operation of the RV since I made multiple upgrades and wanted to verify the effects they had on comfort, drivability, and convenience.
SOUND AND HEAT INSULATION: The cab floor was insulated for sound and heat abatement.
https://www.jaycoowners.com/forums/f...tml#post957747
Result: NO MORE HOT FOOT [DW is happy]. Cab much quieter (although you could not hear a pin drop). Noise now is mostly road noise.
Further improvements: although the dog house was not insulated and the temperature it attains is not objectionable I think that is a good idea. The sides of the house got warm and a candy bar melted when left in one of the trays. I also have material left over.
SUSPENSION:
I installed a HELLWIG SWAY BAR and SUMO bump stops [
https://amzn.to/3i8TVRG.
I also tightened the Hellwig helper springs to the 2" spec. My RV has Jayride Plus.
Result:
My
first ever experience in driving the RV any distance was on I80 from colorado in the winter. As we entered I80 crosswinds were 40-80 MPH. That leg from Cheyenne to Utah was nothing less than terrifying. My white RV seats were a light shade of brown by the time I returned
. I vowed to never subject myself to this ever again.
With the suspension changes, this trip had a completely different driving experience. That said, the wind was not nearly as bad as the previous trip so we need to keep that in perspective.
Result:
1. The house does not TIP nearly as much when subjected to crosswinds and passing trucks. The most notable change is that forces on the house do not tip the house, instead, it pushes it side to side.
2. The house does not tip when going around corners making it easier to navigate close by objects and tight turns.
3. I drove most of the time with both hands resting on, rather than death gripping, the steering wheel.
I am considering adding SUMO bump stops to the rear ...OMG another $500. I am not sure about a trackbar.... another $700!
Steering stabilizer ... just not sure??
What do you think is the ONE thing I should add???
DRIVELINE:
The quieter cab revealed a newfound problem. At 65MPH a low-frequency howling can be heard. This continues to get louder up until about 70MPH. The DW immediately noticed this noise. This made driving annoying as I wanted to drive at 65 and 70 feels too fast for this beast. I had to set the cruise at 63 so that as it varied from 63-64 it kept the speed below the resonance point.
I spent a lot of time toying with this problem while driving, checking the speed and RPM at which it occurs. I concluded that the resonance only occurs at 65-70 when the truck is under load. At these speeds, without load [going downhill] the noise would stop. This leads me to research known problems with the driveline. I measured the driveshaft angle and suspect they are set up improperly. Lots of info on this problem in this forum. I contacted the dealer and Jayco and as a result, Jayco will pay for me to take it to the Ford dealer to have this checked and/or adjusted. Evidentially
L&W engineering will consult with my Ford dealer on this problem. I Will report back after.
REAR CAMERA:
I cleared the camera of water and it worked properly during the trip. They will replace it this week. I still want a way to control these cameras independently from the turn signals. Every time the radio is off and the turn signals turns it on I get ANNOYED again at Jayco engineering. I am thinking of some kind of panel within reach of the driver that is interfaced with the camera controller.
POWER STEPS:
The power steps started operating intermittently. By this, I mean that as it retracted it would "stutter" like something was binding. I lubed the mating parts without any change. Then one morning as I started to work on testing the control signals it MAGICALLY was working. It worked the rest of the trip. This is the second time this has done this. I plan to build a harness, controller, and motor tester so I am ready for the next time. You can get pigtail cables on amazon for this but they are ridiculously priced.
LEVELING SYSTEM:
Second stop the leveling controller backlight came on with no display information. This happened before and I knew enough that the system may work in spite of the panel not showing any data. Indeed the auto-level function worked with only a backlight on the display. I think the backlight being on proves the panel has 12V so I think there is some intermittent firmware problem in the controller. The leveler worked the remainder of the trip.
SPARE TIRE:
Thank god I did not have to test my spare tire kit.
https://www.jaycoowners.com/forums/f...tml#post959746
The spare is stored above the cab in a plastic bag on top of a piece of cardboard used to slide it forward & back. I had to take it out when we had grandkids staying with us. It required a grunt but it was doable. We had no issues with this setup but it did provide a significant peice of mind.
BATTERY MONITOR:
The battery monitor was very useful. Adding shorter charging cables cleaned up the connections to dash accessories. I could not find a way through the firewall for the connection to the battery switch in the engine compartment. With great anxiety, I ran a sheathed wire above the engine and through the doghouse seam into the dash. I used some Killomat to hold it to the firewall above the motor. I had to pull off the dash [not very difficult] and wire in the panel. The panel has fuses in line for both voltages in case of a short. There was no problem with this setup so far. Pictures attached
COUCH REMOVAL:
We removed the couch because it is AWFULLY uncomfortable. We stored one bike and a fold-up ebike in that space. I used the seatbelts and their brackets to secure the bikes. We stored fold-up lounge chairs on the bed which we used when watching TV. All in all, it worked well and the chairs can be used both inside and outside. I will attach some better hold-downs directly to the slideout base to make hold-down easier. Picture attached
STORAGE BAYS:
While cleaning out all the storage bays after the trip I noticed that the bottoms of the plastic trays were sagging. I imagined that over time the bottom of these storage bins could crack from the weight and vibration. Does Jayco understand that this RV goes through significant vibration when in operation?? Anyway, I reinforced them with cross braces hoping to distribute the loads. A strip of aluminum might be a better solution. Pictures attached.
KITCHEN SCREEN:
One kitchen screen broke at the corner. Once again these plastic parts are not made robust enough to handle vibration. Will add this to the warranty repair list.
EMERGENCY WINDOW:
As many have said it would be nice to be able to open this window for cross ventilation. We opened it and held it there with a fork! I am going to investigate a replacement for the fork and a screen that can be velcro'd over the opening.
SCREEN DOOR:
Multiple screws in the door were loose. I added some silicone [what I had] and tightened them.
UNDER STEERING WHEEL KICKPLATE:
The cluster F*&% of wires under the steering wheel continues to get in the way of the Ebrake lever. When releasing the brake the release handle can get caught in the wires and also forces the end of the panel to come loose. I tried tying them and routing them better but it seems that there just is not enough room for that bundle.
BELT NOISE:
The RV now has + 8K miles on it and I do not hear the belt vibration. I ordered the parts to install the idler anyway.
DOORSTOP:
My cheezy door stop saved our screen door in the ST Louis winds. Also, the modification to the screen latch to enable opening it without pulling back the cover slide was quite convenient.
AIR CONDITIONING FLOW:
I measure the flow from the air conditioner. DW did not think it was that loud, it measured at 48db. I have not opened it up so I don't know if I am a lucky one that had proper ducting. In any case, I am going to keep ducting improvements on the to-do list.
MORE SHELVES:
I realized that at the back of the clothes hanging closet there is wasted room where lightweight shelves could be added!
STORAGE BIN LIGHTS:
The cover got knocked off one of them. They are filament bulbs,,,, really!
They are 921 lamps. I am going to try these:
https://amzn.to/3i6pk75
BEDROOM SIDE LIGHTS:
The sidelights over the bed areas blue and although perhaps romantic useless for reading. Best I can tell the bulbs [LED wafers] are not replaceable
. I may replace it with these and a USB outlet.
https://amzn.to/2SOrG00
Linear Mode
