Cat 3126 motorhome......IT'S ALIVE!!!!

Geeeeet some

Well...... i fired up the big class A this morning to take it up my driveway and.....uhhh.... ahem..... unload the tanks in the woods because the gauge said they were over half full...... i wasn't sure what they'd be half full of, but I didn't want it in the yard, just in case....... it was just water as it turns out. The plan was to then run fresh water in the tanks and freshen everything up...... but the Ole Girl had other plans, it died...... but this time it didnt crank right back up....... so I spent basically all day diagnosing why...... i DID conclude that it has nothing to do with the relay i was originally suspecting..... but i figured out that it definitely has something to do with the ECM..... possibly a bad plug or a connection between the ECM and the relay junction box at the front of the coach. I got it to crank up once after jiggle testing the connector on the ECM that actually receives the battery power....... but that was it. The indicator of all this is that the check engine light doesn't illuminate, thus theres no signal from the ECM......what a mess.... and getting at that plug requires pulling the starter......geez Louise.....Anyway stay tuned for more adventures of The Jesus Freak......

P.S. that 3G conversion is worth it.....

At least you have the common sense to not block the road , look up
Deoxit, works wonders for plug/connection pins you can't get into with a brush, follow up with electric safety solvent and nolox..
Looking forward to seeing moar adventures with j.f.

Clb said:

At least you have the common sense to not block the road , look up
Deoxit, works wonders for plug/connection pins you can't get into with a brush, follow up with electric safety solvent and nolox..
Looking forward to seeing moar adventures with j.f.

Click to expand...

It pulled over to use da baffroom.......lol....
And im privy to deoxit....... i have a different brand currently, but its gonna get a liberal spray of contact cleaner for sure.

Alright, I found it....... i repeat i found it......lol!!!

I was raining this morning, and i couldn't work under the thing..... so i redoubled my efforts to get to the ECM from the acces in the bedroom..... nothing like working on your caterpillar 3126 wadded up in a knot wedged under your bed!.......

after much tribulation I got the connector loose and was able to check for battery power, key on power and ground at all necessary pins..... i had it all at the connector and made a little tool to slightly tighten up the connector sleeves......everything looked good so far.....gave it all a spray of contact cleaner, though everything was super clean.

Key on.....CEL illuminates..... cranks up and runs..... whew..... maybe I got it..... nope..... it died.......so i had my 14yr old son sit in the driver's seat and watch for the CEL.....and to scream if it turns on..... since I was already partially contorted in the engine bay, and I knew what wires to look at from the connector, I started to follow and wiggle.....to no avail...... i had to get under the coach and continue following wires, but before I did..... I realized the wires had to go behind the battery tray, that slides in and out, i had it out..... i grabbed it and slammed it it...... my son yells from the cab....."ITS ON!!!"....... progress..... climbed under, behind the battery area, was able to easily trace the battery hot and ground wires to THIS connector.......

With not much effort a tug produced THIS effect......

So, it received a couple of heavy duty butt connectors and an application of electrical tape......all of which will be replace with the appropriate stuff buy the next owner....im kidding, I will make it pretty, but right now I used what I had on hand...

NOW.....it just runs......lol, Jesus is King, gents........ its an absolute miracle I got this thing home........ my suspicion is that the batteries being previously connected wrong fried this..... but i also have a suspicion this was an issue why it didn't run for him either....

Nice, fwiw...
Often times poped fues is short to ground, and burnt wires are bad grounds...
Now until you have the boy unfold you to stand up again, stay after it

Oh, I straightened right up when the CEL started coming on consistently...... but yeah, its all sorted out..... she's legit.... now I get to start diagnosing all the house stuff and checking plumbing, AC, etc......

Here's some interior pics..... you can see she was a leaker on the front passenger corner...... i was just in there spraying Odoban on it so we can clean it a bit more..... thats spot is rough, but yall know anything can be fixed.....the current thing is the fact that it will just crank up and run!!! @Nero has been a huge help with diagnostics.....thanks Nero!

the slides are out....

Following Nero's advice..... she got an air filter....... geez, what an air filter!!! $180 worth of air filter..... Nero pointed ot that a lot of class A's have engine failure from non-air filter maintenance. Specifically because the air goes in it from the very back of the coach..... thus sucking up ALL the dust..... i can testify that there was dusty powder on the WRONG side of the filter, but shes good now......

Monday we're gonna ride around town a bit and get the propane filled.....

Just for fun, if you stilll have the old housing, see if you can get one end off and see if that’s just a round Donaldson filter inside a fancy metal housing. Maybe you pop a couple spot welds and see a regular $40 Donaldson looking air filter and you get to change it six times for the same price and a little adhesive.

For instance, the old 6637 looks pretty familiar….

lotzagoodstuff said:

Just for fun, if you stilll have the old housing, see if you can get one end off and see if that’s just a round Donaldson filter inside a fancy metal housing. Maybe you pop a couple spot welds and see a regular $40 Donaldson looking air filter and you get to change it six times for the same price and a little adhesive.

Click to expand...

Unfortunately...... I made a dump run this morning and the old one was part of the dump run. Ill definitely study the next one....... but really, what would be superior is to pull a housing off a bulldozer or something so it could have a 2 stage setup..... there was a good deal of powder inside that filter, that a prefilter and regular filter could eliminate.