nothing special motorhome thread

[jdavidsmi]

Nice! I like the scenery! Looks like a neat place to visit.

I know all about the damage a squirrel can do. Our motor home is stored in our yard, near the pecan trees, when we were getting ready for our annual trip to Florida, family reunion. I found the squirrels had chewed through the brake line, ABS wiring, hydraulic jacks hoses, and the negative cable from the battery. What a mess, and it all happened with in a month’s time. Lucky enough that I was able to get all the parts quick enough that our trip was not delayed.

I enjoyed the picture of your trip, looks like you had fun.

[Nothing Special]

I know all about the damage a squirrel can do....

I've been fortunate. We've had a wire chewed on a boat motor once, and we've cleaned a lot of nests out of various vehicles. But this is the first time I've had significant rodental damage to a vehicle. And it wasn't really that significant once we knew what we were dealing with.

Nice! I like the scenery! Looks like a neat place to visit.

Eastern and northern Minnesota has a lot of this. Woods, rivers and lakes. It really is a beautiful area. Western and southern Minnesota is more prairie / farm land. Beautiful in it's own way I suppose, but not a place that tends to be a destination.

Sounds like a very fun, and laid-back, trip.

And the Bronco would have been in the way, so all's well that ends well. Now you have time to do it right.

Definitely a nice break. But now back to work!

[Gary Lewis]

I know all about the damage a squirrel can do....

I've been fortunate. We've had a wire chewed on a boat motor once, and we've cleaned a lot of nests out of various vehicles. But this is the first time I've had significant rodental damage to a vehicle. And it wasn't really that significant once we knew what we were dealing with.

Nice! I like the scenery! Looks like a neat place to visit.

Eastern and northern Minnesota has a lot of this. Woods, rivers and lakes. It really is a beautiful area. Western and southern Minnesota is more prairie / farm land. Beautiful in it's own way I suppose, but not a place that tends to be a destination.

Sounds like a very fun, and laid-back, trip.

And the Bronco would have been in the way, so all's well that ends well. Now you have time to do it right.

Definitely a nice break. But now back to work!

How long to the Bronco's outing? And what is left to do?

[Nothing Special]

How long to the Bronco's outing? And what is left to do?

No, I wasn't so rude as to not answer Gary. That discussion continued in my Bronco thread. But now "the Bronco's outing" has happened and we're home. The trip involved the motorhome, it was an adventure and it involved the Bronco, so I'll be covering it in three separate threads, starting with this one. I'll try to keep discussion in this thread focused primarily on the motorhome, with Bronco-specific discussion in my Bronco thread, and most of it in the Adventures/Trips forum.

So... a little over a week ago we headed off for southwestern Utah. We took parts of three days to drive out, spent 5 days there, and parts of three days to drive home.

We had rather poor weather the first couple of days, with this lovely scenic view as we drove through the mountains in Colorado:

It did improve on day three. Here's our "campground" that morning:

And here we are in our campground in Hurricane, Utah:

We didn't take any pictures on the drive home, so you'll just have to take my word for it that we made it!

The water pump in the motorhome failed on the drive out. Not the coolant pump on the engine (that would've been much worse), but the pump that lets us use water in the sinks, shower and toilet when we're not hooked up to a hose. That was a bit of a drag, but it happened in the morning of day three, after we had showered, so it wasn't as bad as it might have been. And I was able to get a new pump and install it before we headed home, so we had water on the drive back.

We did have a little more trouble with gusty cross winds than we do on most trips. It wasn't terrible, but it did make the driving a little more tiring.

Overall we averaged 7.2 mpg, just slightly worse than the 7.6 mpg we've averaged over the entire time we've had the motorhome. Not surprising with towing the Bronco through the mountains. But what was surprising was that our tankfuls in the mountains were actually our best mileage. Apparently the higher speeds on the plains (~70 mph) hurt the fuel economy worse than the mountains where my foot was often on the floor, but we were only going ~50 mph (or slower).

And that brings up the biggest motorhome-related part of the trip. I've mentioned this before, but it's really unpleasant driving this thing in the mountains. The 6.8L V-10 has no power without spinning fast, so we need to listen to it whining at 5000 rpm for long periods of time.

But worse than that is the absolutely horrible powertrain management system. I'm sure it's a system that "learns" as you drive, because it's absolutely schizophrenic. I can never predict how it's going to shift the transmission. Sometimes it downshifts really early and makes the engine scream before it needs to. Other times you are at 3500 rpm with your foot on the floor and you are slowing down because it won't downshift. Upshifts are a little more predictable, because it never does. It'll be at the rev limiter and won't hit the next gear even when it can pull it. I have to lift off the gas to get it to shift. And after pulling a smaller hill where it needed to downshift it'll stay in the lower gear after it's on the flat until I manually shift it from 5th to 3rd (there's no way to select 4th) and then back to 5th. Then it'll go to overdrive (5th) and stay there. OK, "never" is a bit of an exaggeration. But it's very common to have to go through this exercise to get it to upshift.

Also when using the speed control in the hills it will let the speed sag quite a bit as you go up a hill. I actually like that rather than have it always put the engine at 5000 rpm to hold the speed. But then as it gets back to the set point it doesn't back off on the throttle, so it overshoots by 5 mph or more. And as I noted above, it often won't upshift either.

If I knew of a good aftermarket chip that would fix this I'd love to do something about it. But with the small amount of time that I spend driving this in the mountains I really don't see me being able to effectively dial anything in, so it would have to be a solution that just worked right out of the box. And while, other than this, I really love this motorhome, I do dream about getting a torquier motor (godzilla 7.3L? diesel?) and a manual transmission (a motorhome with a manual? I did say it was a dream!)

OK, so that's the highlights of the motorhome part of this trip. Otherwise it was pretty uneventful, which generally is good in a road trip! As I get time I'll put more in the Bronco and trip threads about the rest of the trip, so you'll have to wait for that!

[Gary Lewis]

No, I wasn't so rude as to not answer Gary. That discussion continued in my Bronco thread. But now "the Bronco's outing" has happened and we're home. The trip involved the motorhome, it was an adventure and it involved the Bronco, so I'll be covering it in three separate threads, starting with this one. I'll try to keep discussion in this thread focused primarily on the motorhome, with Bronco-specific discussion in my Bronco thread, and most of it in the Adventures/Trips forum.

So... a little over a week ago we headed off for southwestern Utah. We took parts of three days to drive out, spent 5 days there, and parts of three days to drive home.

We had rather poor weather the first couple of days, with this lovely scenic view as we drove through the mountains in Colorado:

It did improve on day three. Here's our "campground" that morning:

And here we are in our campground in Hurricane, Utah:

We didn't take any pictures on the drive home, so you'll just have to take my word for it that we made it!

The water pump in the motorhome failed on the drive out. Not the coolant pump on the engine (that would've been much worse), but the pump that lets us use water in the sinks, shower and toilet when we're not hooked up to a hose. That was a bit of a drag, but it happened in the morning of day three, after we had showered, so it wasn't as bad as it might have been. And I was able to get a new pump and install it before we headed home, so we had water on the drive back.

We did have a little more trouble with gusty cross winds than we do on most trips. It wasn't terrible, but it did make the driving a little more tiring.

Overall we averaged 7.2 mpg, just slightly worse than the 7.6 mpg we've averaged over the entire time we've had the motorhome. Not surprising with towing the Bronco through the mountains. But what was surprising was that our tankfuls in the mountains were actually our best mileage. Apparently the higher speeds on the plains (~70 mph) hurt the fuel economy worse than the mountains where my foot was often on the floor, but we were only going ~50 mph (or slower).

And that brings up the biggest motorhome-related part of the trip. I've mentioned this before, but it's really unpleasant driving this thing in the mountains. The 6.8L V-10 has no power without spinning fast, so we need to listen to it whining at 5000 rpm for long periods of time.

But worse than that is the absolutely horrible powertrain management system. I'm sure it's a system that "learns" as you drive, because it's absolutely schizophrenic. I can never predict how it's going to shift the transmission. Sometimes it downshifts really early and makes the engine scream before it needs to. Other times you are at 3500 rpm with your foot on the floor and you are slowing down because it won't downshift. Upshifts are a little more predictable, because it never does. It'll be at the rev limiter and won't hit the next gear even when it can pull it. I have to lift off the gas to get it to shift. And after pulling a smaller hill where it needed to downshift it'll stay in the lower gear after it's on the flat until I manually shift it from 5th to 3rd (there's no way to select 4th) and then back to 5th. Then it'll go to overdrive (5th) and stay there. OK, "never" is a bit of an exaggeration. But it's very common to have to go through this exercise to get it to upshift.

Also when using the speed control in the hills it will let the speed sag quite a bit as you go up a hill. I actually like that rather than have it always put the engine at 5000 rpm to hold the speed. But then as it gets back to the set point it doesn't back off on the throttle, so it overshoots by 5 mph or more. And as I noted above, it often won't upshift either.

If I knew of a good aftermarket chip that would fix this I'd love to do something about it. But with the small amount of time that I spend driving this in the mountains I really don't see me being able to effectively dial anything in, so it would have to be a solution that just worked right out of the box. And while, other than this, I really love this motorhome, I do dream about getting a torquier motor (godzilla 7.3L? diesel?) and a manual transmission (a motorhome with a manual? I did say it was a dream!)

OK, so that's the highlights of the motorhome part of this trip. Otherwise it was pretty uneventful, which generally is good in a road trip! As I get time I'll put more in the Bronco and trip threads about the rest of the trip, so you'll have to wait for that!

Yep, you replied - in the right thread. I asked in the wrong thread.

But it sounds like you had a fairly successful motorhome trip. Having a problem like the water pump was sorta normal when we had a camper, and with something as large as you have things happen.

But speaking of our camper, it was carried on our 1972 F250 w/a 390/C6 combo. Boy, did I dream of having a manual transmission!!! So I know what you mean, although the 390 did have pretty good torque. Still, a ZF5 would have been a dream come true.

I would think there must be a chip that would allow you to program the shift points on the auto. Surely?

[Nothing Special]

Yep, you replied - in the right thread. I asked in the wrong thread.

But it sounds like you had a fairly successful motorhome trip. Having a problem like the water pump was sorta normal when we had a camper, and with something as large as you have things happen.

But speaking of our camper, it was carried on our 1972 F250 w/a 390/C6 combo. Boy, did I dream of having a manual transmission!!! So I know what you mean, although the 390 did have pretty good torque. Still, a ZF5 would have been a dream come true.

I would think there must be a chip that would allow you to program the shift points on the auto. Surely?

No problem with you having asked here. It's all fluid and the discussion happened, so it's all good. I just realized that in this thread it looked like I had ignored the question. I didn't want someone thinking that if they weren't around for the original discussion.

As to finding a chip that would let me program shift points, I don't think I want that. I want something that "just works." I don't know how to tell it what I want, so I'm afraid that if I needed to do the programming I'd end up with a lot of iteration to try something, and then try to fix what I hadn't done right the first (or second, or third, or...) time. That would be OK on a project vehicle, but I wouldn't have any opportunity to test drive this in the mountains except on a vacation, and I don't want to be programming my shift points on vacation.

The problem with "just works" is that the word "just" never works. Any time you ask "can't someone just..." the answer is "no", there are always other things that need to be done too. So I'm doubtful that anyone would be able to program a transmission to always shift when I want it to (and not shift when I don't). And equally doubtful that I'd find it if it existed.

And I know that Ford had a team of experts that put hundreds (thousands?) of hours into the horrible system that they thought was the best they could do. So can an aftermarket company come up with something better? I'm doubtful of that too, but I'm hoping someone did.

[jdavidsmi]

No problem with you having asked here. It's all fluid and the discussion happened, so it's all good. I just realized that in this thread it looked like I had ignored the question. I didn't want someone thinking that if they weren't around for the original discussion.

As to finding a chip that would let me program shift points, I don't think I want that. I want something that "just works." I don't know how to tell it what I want, so I'm afraid that if I needed to do the programming I'd end up with a lot of iteration to try something, and then try to fix what I hadn't done right the first (or second, or third, or...) time. That would be OK on a project vehicle, but I wouldn't have any opportunity to test drive this in the mountains except on a vacation, and I don't want to be programming my shift points on vacation.

The problem with "just works" is that the word "just" never works. Any time you ask "can't someone just..." the answer is "no", there are always other things that need to be done too. So I'm doubtful that anyone would be able to program a transmission to always shift when I want it to (and not shift when I don't). And equally doubtful that I'd find it if it existed.

And I know that Ford had a team of experts that put hundreds (thousands?) of hours into the horrible system that they thought was the best they could do. So can an aftermarket company come up with something better? I'm doubtful of that too, but I'm hoping someone did.

I fully understand the noise of the V-10, and setting right next to the dog house boy it loves to scream. Everything I have read about this engine says it’s designed that way. So I have added insulation to the dog house, it help a little. Doesn’t matter how much you prepare something seams to break, our last trip out the generator quit. A couple of years ago the plastic coolant tank started leaking, took half a roll of duck tape so we could get home. That reminded me I need to get a new roll, and a new package of zip ties. But it hasn’t stop us. I stopped carrying about the gas mileage it’s going to be around 7mpg regardless of what i do.

But the views are wonderful

And sometimes it’s hard to find a parking spot.

Glad everything worked out with the water pump, and overall y’all have a enjoyable trip.

[Nothing Special]

I fully understand the noise of the V-10, and setting right next to the dog house boy it loves to scream. Everything I have read about this engine says it’s designed that way. So I have added insulation to the dog house, it help a little. Doesn’t matter how much you prepare something seams to break, our last trip out the generator quit. A couple of years ago the plastic coolant tank started leaking, took half a roll of duck tape so we could get home. That reminded me I need to get a new roll, and a new package of zip ties. But it hasn’t stop us. I stopped carrying about the gas mileage it’s going to be around 7mpg regardless of what i do.

But the views are wonderful

And sometimes it’s hard to find a parking spot.

Glad everything worked out with the water pump, and overall y’all have a enjoyable trip.

I somehow forgot about this thread for my last two motorhome trips. They were cool trips that warranted their own threads, so I've already posted about them. But I thought I'd get this thread caught up.

In October we drove down to Southern Missouri Off Road Ranch (SMORR), towing the Bronco to do some 'wheeling. The 'wheeling is covered in this thread, and I don't have any pictures of the campground or motorhome, so I'll just give a few stats.

It was about 650 miles down and another 650 back. We left around mid-afternoon and put in about 400 miles and 7.5 hours the first day, spending the night in a rest stop near Kansas City. We did the last 200+ miles the next day, arriving at SMORR a little before noon.

Driving back we started a little after noon (after 'wheeling in the morning), putting in 8 hours a ~450 miles before stopping in a rest stop north of Des Moines. We wrapped up the drive with about 4 hours for the remaining 200 miles.

Average fuel consumption was a little higher than normal, with only a 6.4 mpg average. Towing the Bronco always pulls it down a bit, and there were some smaller roads with more stop-and-go. Plus I was staying a little closer to 70 mph than I do sometimes.

There was no adventure or drama, which makes for a boring thread post, but it makes for a better trip. But the fun stuff was already covered anyway.

[Nothing Special]

I somehow forgot about this thread for my last two motorhome trips. They were cool trips that warranted their own threads, so I've already posted about them. But I thought I'd get this thread caught up.

In October we drove down to Southern Missouri Off Road Ranch (SMORR), towing the Bronco to do some 'wheeling. The 'wheeling is covered in this thread, and I don't have any pictures of the campground or motorhome, so I'll just give a few stats.

It was about 650 miles down and another 650 back. We left around mid-afternoon and put in about 400 miles and 7.5 hours the first day, spending the night in a rest stop near Kansas City. We did the last 200+ miles the next day, arriving at SMORR a little before noon.

Driving back we started a little after noon (after 'wheeling in the morning), putting in 8 hours a ~450 miles before stopping in a rest stop north of Des Moines. We wrapped up the drive with about 4 hours for the remaining 200 miles.

Average fuel consumption was a little higher than normal, with only a 6.4 mpg average. Towing the Bronco always pulls it down a bit, and there were some smaller roads with more stop-and-go. Plus I was staying a little closer to 70 mph than I do sometimes.

There was no adventure or drama, which makes for a boring thread post, but it makes for a better trip. But the fun stuff was already covered anyway.

The next trip is one we just finished, going down to Walt Disney World for me to run the Dopey Challenge (a 5K, 10K, half marathon and marathon, 48.6 miles in 4 days). Again, there's a thread on that, so I'll just hit the motorhome aspects here.

We took parts of 4 days to drive down. The first day was the long one, starting around 8:00 AM and covering 740 miles in 14 hours before stopping at a rest stop in southern Illinois. Day 2 was short, only going 200 miles in 4 hours to get to Lesley's brother in Nashville where we hung out a while. The next day was a little more aggressive again. After a later start we covered 500 miles in 10.5 hours, staying in a rest stop in northern Florida. That left us with 200 miles in 3.5 hours to get to Disney World a little before noon. Total miles for the drive down was around 1600.

Leaving Minnesota on New Year's Eve meant not being able to have water in the motorhome, so we couldn't use the bathroom or take showers until we got to Nashville. I was able to flush out the lines and fill the water tank at my brother-in-law's, so we had full functionality for the rest of the drive.

We stayed at Fort Wilderness Campground on Walt Disney World property, as we always do when going there. Here are a couple pictuers of our camp site

About the "48.6" magnet on the bumper, that was the total miles I ran in the event. And zooming in on it you can see the fine print!

Most people at Fort Wilderness Campground rent golf carts to get around the campground (Lesley and I use bikes). But some bring their own, and some are personalized a bit. I got a kick out of this one

Then of course since we were heading back to a Minnesota winter we had to winterize the motorhome before it was too late. Rather than try to do that at a rest stop somewhere I did it before leaving Disney. Which meant not having that functionality for the entire drive home. Oh well...

We covered the trip home in 3 days, with ~600 miles in ~13 hours on day 1 bringing us just into Tennessee, ~760 miles in ~14 hours getting us into Wisconsin on day 2, and a short 240 miles in ~4 hours getting us home around 9:30 AM on day 3. Fortunately a neighbor had cleared my driveway, so we were able to just back in and start unloading. We had received ~17" of snow while we were gone!

Speaking of weather, we had great weather for the trip. We left after some really cold weather with some snow (and right before the 17" of snow hit), but had relatively mild temps and only a short time with light rain on the drive down. We never even used the furnace driving down.

The first couple days we were in Florida were hot and humid (we ran the AC hard). Then we had light rain for one morning, but after the rain the temp and humidity dropped and it was quite pleasant the rest of our trip. It did rain our last night, and a little that morning, but stopped by the time I was winterizing the motorhome and breaking camp.

There were no weather issues to speak of on the drive home (although we did run the furnace both of those nights).

I suppose one other thing to mention from this trip is that we finally experienced Buc-ees. After seeing the signs and hearing people rave about it for years we finally tried to stop at one. We ended up just driving through the parking lot and leaving because there was no place to park a motorhome. Then we tried another. This time we founf enough open spaces that we could park way in the back (but there wasn't much room), so we did go in. We had the famed brisket sandwich, which I'd say was good for fast food, but not what we were hoping for based on the hype. And otherwise thought it seemed like a Wall Drug wanna-be. So sorry to any Buc-ees fans out there. It seems like an OK place to stop if you're in a car, but not worth the hassle of parking a motorhome.

We were back up to about 7.5 mpg average on this trip. We've done a little better at times when not pulling the Bronco, but I'm sure winter gas didn't help, and again I was pushing a little faster than I sometimes do.

[Gary Lewis]

The next trip is one we just finished, going down to Walt Disney World for me to run the Dopey Challenge (a 5K, 10K, half marathon and marathon, 48.6 miles in 4 days). Again, there's a thread on that, so I'll just hit the motorhome aspects here.

We took parts of 4 days to drive down. The first day was the long one, starting around 8:00 AM and covering 740 miles in 14 hours before stopping at a rest stop in southern Illinois. Day 2 was short, only going 200 miles in 4 hours to get to Lesley's brother in Nashville where we hung out a while. The next day was a little more aggressive again. After a later start we covered 500 miles in 10.5 hours, staying in a rest stop in northern Florida. That left us with 200 miles in 3.5 hours to get to Disney World a little before noon. Total miles for the drive down was around 1600.

Leaving Minnesota on New Year's Eve meant not being able to have water in the motorhome, so we couldn't use the bathroom or take showers until we got to Nashville. I was able to flush out the lines and fill the water tank at my brother-in-law's, so we had full functionality for the rest of the drive.

We stayed at Fort Wilderness Campground on Walt Disney World property, as we always do when going there. Here are a couple pictuers of our camp site

About the "48.6" magnet on the bumper, that was the total miles I ran in the event. And zooming in on it you can see the fine print!

Most people at Fort Wilderness Campground rent golf carts to get around the campground (Lesley and I use bikes). But some bring their own, and some are personalized a bit. I got a kick out of this one

Then of course since we were heading back to a Minnesota winter we had to winterize the motorhome before it was too late. Rather than try to do that at a rest stop somewhere I did it before leaving Disney. Which meant not having that functionality for the entire drive home. Oh well...

We covered the trip home in 3 days, with ~600 miles in ~13 hours on day 1 bringing us just into Tennessee, ~760 miles in ~14 hours getting us into Wisconsin on day 2, and a short 240 miles in ~4 hours getting us home around 9:30 AM on day 3. Fortunately a neighbor had cleared my driveway, so we were able to just back in and start unloading. We had received ~17" of snow while we were gone!

Speaking of weather, we had great weather for the trip. We left after some really cold weather with some snow (and right before the 17" of snow hit), but had relatively mild temps and only a short time with light rain on the drive down. We never even used the furnace driving down.

The first couple days we were in Florida were hot and humid (we ran the AC hard). Then we had light rain for one morning, but after the rain the temp and humidity dropped and it was quite pleasant the rest of our trip. It did rain our last night, and a little that morning, but stopped by the time I was winterizing the motorhome and breaking camp.

There were no weather issues to speak of on the drive home (although we did run the furnace both of those nights).

I suppose one other thing to mention from this trip is that we finally experienced Buc-ees. After seeing the signs and hearing people rave about it for years we finally tried to stop at one. We ended up just driving through the parking lot and leaving because there was no place to park a motorhome. Then we tried another. This time we founf enough open spaces that we could park way in the back (but there wasn't much room), so we did go in. We had the famed brisket sandwich, which I'd say was good for fast food, but not what we were hoping for based on the hype. And otherwise thought it seemed like a Wall Drug wanna-be. So sorry to any Buc-ees fans out there. It seems like an OK place to stop if you're in a car, but not worth the hassle of parking a motorhome.

We were back up to about 7.5 mpg average on this trip. We've done a little better at times when not pulling the Bronco, but I'm sure winter gas didn't help, and again I was pushing a little faster than I sometimes do.

Those sound like great trips. Especially with no problems.

That bumper sticker says it all.

And the golf cart is cute! Love the Ford emblem and 4x4 sticker.