Problems, problems. So many problems! Pretty much every system on this bus has issues that we\u2019ve slowly been unwrapping like so many unwanted birthday presents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tank sensor hookup<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n We knew this hadn\u2019t been hooked up yet when we bought the bus. The fresh water and gray water tanks need to have sensors attached to them so that you can tell when the tank is full, 2\/3, 1\/3 or nearing empty. The bus came with a little panel (not wired up), some weird-looking bolts, and a few handfuls of colored wires \u2013 but no instructions, and nothing that looked like a \u201csensor\u201d to our inexperienced eyes. It turns out that KiB is NOTORIOUSLY TIGHT-LIPPED when it comes to telling its customers how to hook up their sensor panels \u2013 why, I have no idea! Searching the internet produced many other unhappy people who also have no instructions with their RV water sensor kit. Eventually, we !gured out that the \u201csensors\u201d are actually just the weird bolts (\u201cprobes\u201d) screwed into the sides of the plastic water\/gray tanks \u2013 there\u2019s a ground probe at the bottom, and the water level is indicated by which of the probes makes a current. We also finally sorted out the mystery of the wire colors after discovering this YouTube video<\/a> \u2013 BLESS YOU, SIR.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In short, here is how it goes (our sensor has hookups for full, 2\/3, 1\/3 and empty):<\/p>\n\n\n\n The sensor panel itself has multiple colored wires coming out of it, depending on how many items it can sense. Our had wires for fresh water (blue), gray water (gray), black water (black or brown) and galley (black or brown). Galley is for RVs that have an extra outdoor kitchenette. As we have neither a black tank nor a galley, I don\u2019t know which is black and which is brown. The final wire is red, and that is what you attach to 9V power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Leaky plumbing<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n After installing the sensors and hooking up the pump, we turned the whole thing on and discovered that the connections leaked considerably Given that all connections (and the 100 gallon freshwater tank) are Bad batteries & charging<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The bus came with 3 deep cycle batteries, hooked up in parallel and connected to a complicated electronics control panel that allows them to be charged up by shore power, a gas generator, or the bus\u2019s own alternator when the bus is being driven. The deep cycle batteries had been let to run dry (as a matter of fact, the starter battery had also been allowed to die \u2013 more on that later!) and our attempted reconditioning of them didn\u2019t work very well. For sanity & boondocking, we are going to need to buy new batteries, ugh! None of the charging was working properly either \u2013 the alternator was not charging up the batteries as advertised on our long drive back from NorCal. At a rest stop, Zanj switched around how alternator was hooked up so that the batteries charged as they should, but we later realized that the hookup for successful battery charging when driving results in the starter battery being drained when the bus is off. We\u2019re not sure what the wiring mix-up is as yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
supplement with your own wire as it\u2019s unlikely your tank is right next to to the sensor panel.)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
located under the queen bed, and given that we are trying to get out of an existing moldy environment, this was really bad news. Zanj !gured out that the hose clamps were too wide and not clamping properly, and since Home Depot was out of the right size clamps and we were too impatient to order the right size, he simply bought a braided faucet connecter and thus eliminated a whole bunch of leaky elbow joints. BRILLIANT. I love Zanj.<\/p>\n\n\n\n