modifications

Enhancements and repairs to our coach.

Velocity Truck Centers for engine air heater repair

As we were arriving in Phoenix, we got a Check Engine light on our dash. Never a welcome occurrence!

Error codes on dash

Looking in the BlueFire app, it showed more details of the codes; clearly a short of the engine intake air heater:

BlueFire faults page

Later in our stay, we started the engine again to see if the codes were still there. They were, so I contacted NIRVC to see if they could fix it. They referred me to Velocity Truck Centers, which is a Cummins dealer, and has an RV department.

Travel route, heading south then back north afterwards:

Travel route

Our appointment was for 7 AM; we considered arriving the day before, since they had a few full-hookup spots, but decided to just go very early in the morning. Probably a good thing, as their RV department was very busy that day; there may not have been a spot for us.

We toaded up just before sunrise:

Toading up early in the morning

Toading up early in the morning

Sunrise:

Sunrise

Exit to the truck place:

Exit

A hot air balloon in the distance:

Hot air balloon in the distance

Arriving at the truck service center:

Truck service center

Velocity Truck Centers:

Velocity Truck Centers

The RV waiting room was so crowded that one couple brought in camp chairs:

Crowded waiting room

We decided we didn’t want to hang out there, so went to Chick-fil-A for second breakfast:

Chick-fil-A for second breakfast

Then some chores, and to Starbucks to spend the next five hours:

Starbucks

They completed the work in the afternoon; the issue was a metal-wrapped line intermittently touching the heater relay, causing a short. They secured the line, and replaced the relay, since it had been damaged by the arcing. Just over one RV Buck (about $1,300) to fix.

Heading back to the RV park after the work was complete:

Heading back to the RV park

Arriving back at Paradise:

Arriving back at Paradise

Back to our site, which looks a bit weird without the RV there:

Back to our site

Back to our site

A hassle, but I’m glad it was a relatively easy fix.

Replacing closet light

One of the lights in our rear closet stopped working properly; very dim, and only half working:

Closet light not fully working

Plus blinking:

Blinking

I unmounted it from the ceiling:

Unmounted from the ceiling

Then replaced it with a new one, bought from Tiffin:

Replaced light

Remounted on the ceiling:

Remounted on the ceiling

Done:

Done

An easy fix.

RV improvements

I’ve previously posted about the modifications we’ve done to our 2017 Tiffin Allegro Bus 40SP motorhome (including annual summaries), but I thought it’d be interesting to list all of the improvements (as opposed to repairs) in one place, with links to the corresponding blog posts (where available):

That’s a lot of improvements!

Tiffin motorhome

RV maintenance

I thought it might be helpful for other RV owners to write up a list of RV maintenance tasks, grouped by frequency. Of course, these are for our 2017 Tiffin Allegro Bus 40SP motorhome; other RVs may have different requirements, and may not have some features like water softener, dishwasher, etc. But most items would apply to any RV. If I missed anything, or you have any corrections or other comments, please let me know!

  • Weekly:
  • Monthly:
    • Run the generator under load (e.g. with ACs running) for an hour; good for a travel day.
    • Empty air tank drain valves.
    • Clean dishwasher rim and filter.
    • Spray electrical cord contacts with DeoxIT.
    • Wash coach exterior with Wash Wax All or similar.
  • 3-Monthly:
    • Backflush water softener.
    • Replace house and fridge water filters; I have 3-stage filters plus the built-in one and fridge filter.
    • Lubricate window slides with Plexus.
    • Lubricate entry door hinges with silicone lube.
    • Invert fire extinguisher and shake to loosen dry chemicals.
    • Remove shower drain cover and in sink to remove hair.
    • Check Aqua-Hot antifreeze level; should be at HOT level just after shutting off; top up if needed.
  • 6-Monthly:
    • Replace ceiling AC filters (two different types).
    • Sanitize fresh water tank.
    • Vacuum dust under fridge; a couple of screws and clips to remove panel under front of fridge.
    • Clean dryer vent from outside.
    • Polish wheel rims with Purple Polish.
    • Apply 303 Protectant to tires.
  • Yearly:
    • Replace dash AC filter. Accessed via generator compartment on rear wall.
    • Make sure emergency exit in bedroom opens easily.
    • Get waste tanks professionally cleaned.
    • Get roof seams and joints inspected at service center.
    • Get engine, generator, chassis lube, slide-outs, and Aqua-Hot serviced.

I hope this is helpful, Let me know of any updates!

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Magnum inverter reset

Our coach has an inverter, which is a device to convert battery power into 110 volt electricity. It also manages charging the battery from the campground pedestal power.

One day the Magnum inverter panel in our coach reported an “Unknown Fault”:

Unknown Fault on the Magnum inverter panel

The fault and voltage display kept changing, with garbage values:

Unknown Fault on the Magnum inverter panel

Time to apply an old computer maxim: “when in doubt, reboot.” I looked up the instructions on how to reboot the inverter, in its manual under “Performing an Inverter Reset”:

Performing an Inverter Reset

Here’s the Magnum inverter unit in the basement; in our 2017 Tiffin Allegro Bus 40SP motorhome it is mounted on the ceiling of the frontmost main storage compartment, on the driver side:

Magnum inverter unit

So I just needed to turn off the power at the pedestal, then hold down the button (below the green light in that photo) for 15 seconds. That did the trick.

2025 modifications

Happy New Year! 🎉

As we begin 2026, let’s look back at 2025, as is my tradition on this blog.

I will have a series of blog posts reviewing topics from last year. I typically schedule my posts following a pattern: Modification Mondays, Travel Tuesdays, Whereabouts Wednesdays, and To and Fro Thursdays and Fridays (okay, those last ones are bit of a stretch). So I will post my annual summaries in that order too (though not on those days), starting with modifications today.

We have done a number of modifications to our 2017 Tiffin Allegro Bus 40SP motorhome, to make it more comfortable as a full-time home, to improve the features, or to repair issues. This is a summary of some of the changes done in 2025; also check out the changes from 2024, 2023, 2022, and 2021.

You can also see all of these summary posts together via the Modifications Summary tag, with the earliest posts at the top, or the latest posts at the top.

For each modification topic I include a link to the corresponding blog post, and a sample picture; see the post for details. (Tip: you can click or tap on either the link or picture to go to the corresponding post.)

You can see all of the modification-related blog posts via the modifications category, with the earliest posts at the top, or the latest posts at the top.

Humidifier and water distiller:

Distiller

Broom hanging grippers:

Broom and mop on wall

Girard replaced window awning:

New window awning

Shower soap dispensers:

Shower soap dispensers

Extra pantry shelf:

Pantry shelves

Custom desk tweaks:

Desk

Polished and replaced exhaust tips:

Aqua-Hot exhaust tip

Power steering fluid leak repair, engine bracket replacements, underside of coach:

Behind the front wheels, with air horns and generator exhaust

Clock in bathroom:

Clock

Peeking behind the wet bay:

Pipes

Override Tecma macerating toilet controller with this one weird trick:

Toilet wires

Loose mudguard above rear wheels:

Mudguard above rear wheel

Using a sewer tote tank and macerator pump to dump waste tanks from the back of our truck again:

Dumping at dump station

Using magnets to hold a cupboard door out of the way:

Magnets joined to hold the door

Compact garbage bin fits next to toilet:

Garbage bin

Mirror head replacement:

New mirror head

AC replacements:

Carrying new AC up to roof

Moved toilet paper holder in half bath:

Toilet paper holder

Replacing light under kitchen sink:

Light

Flushing the gray tank:

Wet bay

Exploded AC squirrel cage:

Broken squirrel cage

Polishing wheel rims and headlights:

Purple metal polish

We were stuck! Slide-out failed to retract due to leaking piston:

Capped hydraulic hoses

Replacing cover on vent fan lid lift motor:

Cover on motor

RoamLink cellular service:

RoamLink

Dashcams:

Dashcams

Starlink Mini mounted on our truck:

Starlink dish in magnetic mount

Entry steps stuck:

Disconnected motor

Oregon Motorcoach Center repair of hydraulic slide-out:

Fridge connected to electricity

I hope you found these posts interesting and useful.

Oregon Motorcoach Center repair of hydraulic slide-out

We took our coach to the Oregon Motorcoach Center in Eugene, Oregon, for them to fix a few issues, most importantly the broken hydraulic slide-out.

Our front driver-side slide-out got stuck back in mid-June, when we were staying in Youngstown, New York. You can read about our adventures of diagnosing the issue and manually pushing the slide in. In late July we also went to HWH in Moscow, Iowa, the manufacturer of the hydraulic piston, but while they weren’t willing to do the repair, they did sell us the needed part.

All the way across the other side of the country from New York, and many month later in mid-October, the Oregon Motorcoach Center (OMC) was able to fix the issue.

We dropped our coach off at OMC, and stayed (with Paladin) in a nearby hotel. A hassle, but much nicer than hanging out in their waiting room. When they said they’d need a bit longer to fix all of the issues, we headed down to Ashland, where we had planned to camp, and stayed in another hotel.

Oregon Motorcoach Center

Here’s the piston we got from HWH:

HWH ram

HWH ram

Disconnected hoses, which I labeled to enable to the techs to reconnect:

Disconnected hoses

Here’s our coach in the OMC workshop:

Coach in workshop

HWH had thought that we’d have to drop the fuel tank in order to replace the piston, but OMC determined that that wouldn’t be feasible, due to the shape of the tank and how it was positioned above the front axle. But they came up with an alternative (and better) solution: they removed our house batteries, and cut a hole in the back of that compartment, and were able to reach the piston that way. They added a plate over the hole when they finished.

Since they had to remove the batteries, they plugged our fridge directly to the shop electricity; very nice of them:

Fridge connected to electricity

The working slide when we picked up our coach:

Working slide

So nice to have that working again! Much bigger inside now.

While there, they also replaced the entry step motor, as previously mentioned, and replaced a connector in one of the headlights. Both good fixes, but the slide was the big one. Four months without that working was frustrating, but at least we were still able to travel.

Entry steps stuck

Our entry steps have been dodgy for a while, making horrible noises when extending and retracting, and sometimes not fully retracting until they are nudged. I tried cleaning the tracks and lubricating several times, and even got a couple of techs to look at it, without improvement.

Recently, it’s been getting worse, where it sometimes wouldn’t move at all until I tapped the motor with a hammer (a recommended workaround). So it was clearly on its last legs.

When departing our home base, it did this again. I had bought a replacement motor, but it was too awkward for me to get to it in order to replace it, due to a cover plate partly over the motor. We had a service appointment coming up, so I figured I’d get them to replace it for me. I managed to get the steps to retract by tapping the motor, and rather than risk them getting stuck out again, I disconnected the motor, and secured the steps in place with a ratchet strap (probably not necessary, since the motor was still engaged with the step gearbox, but better safe than sorry).

Here’s the step motor:

Step motor

I disconnected the motor, a simple plug:

Disconnected motor

And added a ratchet strap to hold the step in, just in case:

Ratchet strap holding the step in, just in case

In order to get in and out in the meantime, I had also ordered some metal and wooden steps, which we used at our next campsite:

Temporary wooden steps

The good news is that the aforementioned service place, the Oregon Motorcoach Center in Eugene, Oregon, was later able to replace the step motor, and it is now working like new again. It’s certainly nice to have this issue resolved.

Starlink Mini mounted on our truck

We sometimes explore areas without cell service, as we travel around the US… plus we are exploring New Zealand in a van. 

We really enjoy using Starlink with our coach, and wanted to bring a dish to NZ, but our gen 2 dish is rather bulky. We decided to get a Starlink Mini dish, which is much smaller, and has the router built in. It was small enough to fit in carry-on luggage for our NZ trip, and mounts on our truck and the NZ van via a magnetic mount, powered from a 12V outlet (aka cigarette lighter).

It isn’t needed all the time, so we can pause the dish when not needed. In fact, with Starlink’s current policies, they charge $5/month for Standby Mode, which has unlimited slow data (500 Kbps), so is still useful for occasional or minimal use.

Here’s the 12V power in our truck (the white USB dongle is a wireless CarPlay adapter):

12V power

The cable is routed out the rear window, which can still latch closed:

Cable out rear window

The cable is clipped to the roof, with a couple more clips on the edge to hold the cable when the dish is removed from the roof:

Cable and clips

The Starlink Mini dish is securely attached to the roof via a magnetic mount:

Starlink dish in magnetic mount

Handy!

Dashcams

If you’ve enjoyed my RV travel videos on YouTube, you may have wondered what I use to record them.

I use a dashcam, listed on Amazon as the “ROVE R2-4K Dash Cam Built-in WiFi 6 GPS Car Dashboard Camera Recorder with UHD 2160P, 2.4″ IPS Screen, 150° Wide Angle, WDR, Night Vision”.

I actually have four of these cameras: one in the coach windshield to record a timelapse of our travels, and a second one next to it to record real-time, in case of accident; one in a side window to record a timelapse of campground activities (which I occasionally post, but is usually not that excitng), plus a fourth in our truck, again recording real-time for accidents.

Here are the two in the coach windshield; the one on the left is the one used for timelapses, and the one on the right is for real-time (the box between them is the Mobileye sensor):

Dashcams

The left one is attached via Command Strips to ensure it remains straight:

Dashcam

Not the fanciest dashcams, but they get the job done.