Re-Wiring My 1989 Fleet

[rich]

Hello All,

I know there are a few other guys on here that recently bought old fleets. When I bought mine, nothing worked except the light over the sink. When I pulled the face of the cabinet off it was clear to me why nothing was working. There was one main power wire that every component was tapped off of and one main ground wire also repeatedly tapped off of and it had been cut. So I grabbed some 14 gauge jumper wire, a test light, some common pins and an ohm meter and got to work. It didn't take long to make different components kick on using the jumper wire and with a few continuity tests I figured out which wires were running what. I bought a 6 circuit fuse box from Marty at ATC who was very helpful with some wiring suggestions and went to work.

Step one was to rewire the main feed from the battery to the camper. I had been told that under the carpet in the front drivers side corner I would find the wiring and an inline fuse. However when I pulled up the carpeting there was no wiring and no fuse. I then removed the ice box and still no wiring. The wiring is in the wall cavity from the time it enters the camper to the time it pops out into the main cabinet under the stove to the small fuse box that was originally installed. Determining that the only way to get to that wire would be a pretty serious gutting job I decided that no company in their right mind would have installed an inline fuse in an inaccessible wall panel. So hoping that my no fuse assumption was correct I left the main feed because the wire was good and I didn't want to gut the camper to get at it and set about rewiring the rest of the camper.

This is the original set up with just the two fuses, one power and ground going to interior lights and one power and ground running the water pump, furnace and exterior flood lights. It was only grounded to the battery and had no ground to the frame of the camper. Needless to say it is less than ideal. Add to that a little back yard mechanic work that happened along the way before I got her and you have an electrical mess.

The original wiring mess for the water pump switch, flood light switch and thermostat

10 gauge power wire for furnace wire nutted to a 14 gauge power wire on furnace. The ground wire was cut on the furnace as well.

This is the new fuse box installed. It has the hot and ground from the deep cycle battery coming in and it also has a ground to the frame which I tied in to the 110 frame ground behind the water tank (more on that later).

I have four color coded circuits so it will be easy to trace out problems in the future. Yellow to the interior lights since it already was yellow. Blue to the water pump, red to the furnace and white to the exterior flood lights. I have a spot for two more circuits which I plan to use one for some in cabinet LED's and one for an inverter in the future. The ground wires are also color coded. They are all black but they are in positions corresponding to their hot wire on the circuit board and they have blue, red or yellow electric tape at points along the wire so you know which ground it is. This system has everything working properly except the furnace ( more on that later). The 15 amp fuse is for the furnace.

 

[Buckshot62]

I am subscribed to this thread.Want to do the same to my fleet.Ours has two fuses under the driversside window with romex on the outside.I can do the mechanical but not electrical sooo will follow this closely.
Thanks for starting this Rich.

 

[rich]

Great, I have a full description and a bunch of pictures but when I went to post it it told me I had posted too many pictures so now I need to separate it out into several posts. I should have that done and posted today.

 

[rich]

I took a quick break from the heat inside the camper to install a new scissor lift and crank handle to make the roof vent work, clean the vinyl with some 303 and to patch a few holes in the vinyl with some clear vinyl repair. The stuff is toxic as hell but looks like it seals real well and actually does dry clear. I am going to give it the hose test today and will report on how well it actually works.

Here is a shot of my wife with the dog hard at work on the camper project just like she promised.

I re-ran the wire up under the counter with loose staples and wire ties because I plan on putting in some of the SMEV appliances (thanks for the idea PODS) and a new counter top, so I don't want to have a heck of a time pulling the wires off of the counter top for that.

I love the color coding, so much easier than what I went through to figure out where everything is going.

New switch wiring for the water pump and exterior flood lights with the switch wiring tied together. I left the hot outs to the water pump and flood light in the original wiring because they were in good shape and would have been a bear to redo. The hot ins are in the new color coded wires.

I ran the new furnace power and ground and the water pump ground up behind the counter support. I used wire ties so if I need to remove that support it will be easy to disconnect the wiring from it. It is much cleaner than the original install that had all of these wires just dangling from the counter top down to the access hole and in the way of getting at the water pump and tank.

 

[rich]

This image is of the original 110 AC ground. It is hard to see because the vent hose for the water tank is in front of it. However, you can see the bare copper wire going on top of the white 110 wire. That provides ground to the 15 amp load center in the camper for the 110 AC power. Behind that vent hose for the water heater in this pic you can barely see some metal. That is a rivet through the wall, presumably to the frame and has a screw clamp for the copper ground wire. I put a 14 gauge ground for the camper fuse box into that same screw clamp which means that the 110 AC and the 12V DC are sharing a ground to the camper. I couldn't think of any reason why that is a bad idea but I am no electrician by any means. So if anyone has a reason that is bad please tell me soon because I am taking this thing out this weekend. It was a bit of a bear to get back there and insert the wire but not as much of a bear as getting to the frame to create a new ground to frame for the DC fuse box.

These are a couple shots of the full cabinet with the re-wire complete.

The original set up had the power wire and fuse box out in the open where you could hit it with a pan or something and get shocked. It's 12v so no biggie but could still short things out so I installed a fuse box cover for the new box.

These are a couple shots of fuse box cover. I bought a standard one that was big enough at a local rv store but then had to break out the coping saw and customize it to fit the incoming wires from the camper.

 

[rich]

Here is a shot of the completed fuse box with new cover installed.

I am very happy with the results. I have everything running but I have two questions left.

1. The stock overhead lights have two bulbs and a 3 position switch, one with one bulb on, one with the other bulb on and off. Why is there not a position to have both bulbs on at the same time or have both of mine broken somehow?

2. I am still having some furnace trouble. Now that I have power and ground going to it, if I leave the thermostat plugged in the fans run constant on. I unplug the thermostat which kills the power feed and the fans obviously go off. That is how I have left it for now as there is no need for the furnace this time of year anyway. However, I'd like to get it working. I think it might be a bad 20 year old thermostat. Any trouble shooting suggestions? Also, it appears like it should be a self lighting pilot on the furnace on an 89 Fleet, is that true?

Thanks for the help guys and I hope the pics help any of you planning to fix the wiring on your old Fleet.

 

[rich]

Hi Buckshot,

If you are having trouble ferreting out the wires and where they go this pictures should tell you most of what you need to know although if you had the inline fuses under the carpet at the drivers window then yours may be set up a bit different. What year is yours? Is it the Fleet 78" wide or the fleet II, skinnier like an eagle or ranger model?

In this image you can see in the back of the cabinet below the sink a yellow and black wire combo. Those are the power (yellow) and ground (black) for your interior lights, if you stand in the camper and look at the rear lift panel you may see them running into the headliner at the right hand side behind the lift panel. They run all the way to the original fuse box so I re-used them and just put new quick connects on them for the box. I had to extend the ground a bit, it wasn't long enough. If you look between the water tank and furnace plenum you will see the water pump. It has a ground wire that ties into the main ground. Cut it where it ties in and run it's own ground all the way back to the panel. The water pump red wire (power) goes up to a switch. The switch is hot in hot out. So you just have to run a new hot from your new fuse box to it. I left the old hot out to the pump because it was still working and would have been a bear to replace. The second switch is also hot in hot out and runs your rear flood light. That wire can be traced just over the door frame heading to the left where your flood light is. I left the hot out to the flood light because again it would be a bear to replace and just ran a new hot in from the fuse box. These are the wires taped together in pairs in the picture. In the completed shot you can see them color coded, blue for the water pump hot in and white for the flood light hot in.

The only other wires there are for the furnace (dc wires anyway, I left the AC alone) There is a hot in from the fuse box which I replaced and a ground wire which was tapped in to the one ground wire previously. I pulled that out and ran it's own dedicated ground back to the fuse box. The two blue wires you see coming up out of the hole from the furnace run the thermostat. I left those for now but we'll see what happens with the furnace problem. At the end of it everything had it's own circuit with a hot and it's own dedicated ground except the rear flood light. I never found a ground wire coming off of it and didn't want to fish one through so I let it just ground to the main fuse box. Feel free to e-mail me any questions. I'd be happy to help.

 

[Buckshot62]

Ours is an 86 fleet.79"wide.I guess carpet was removed by P.O.Haven't tried to hook up battery yet.Does yours have a fridge or icebox?Thanks for the help and pics.

I'm guessing yours has an icebox also after looking at the pics.

 

[rich]

Ours is an 86 fleet.79"wide.I guess carpet was removed by P.O.Haven't tried to hook up battery yet.Does yours have a fridge or icebox?Thanks for the help and pics.



Mine is an '89 with an ice box. After all of the fridge nightmare stories on here and living in a vw bus a long time ago with a nasty pilot light fridge, I'm pretty happy to have a nice low tech ice box.

 

[pods8]

I know there are a few other guys on here that recently bought old fleets.


Another thing to consider for those older rigs is how well the wood bottom paint is still holding up. My 10yr old rig (which has lived in the PNW) was showing some weather checking and such, I just recently sanded it down and repainted it with a polyurathane porch/floor paint. I'll throw a thread up in Oct about it when I pull the camper off and insulate the bottom for winter (hoping the floor won't be so cold on the feet when camping in snow).

2. I am still having some furnace trouble. Now that I have power and ground going to it, if I leave the thermostat plugged in the fans run constant on. I unplug the thermostat which kills the power feed and the fans obviously go off. That is how I have left it for now as there is no need for the furnace this time of year anyway. However, I'd like to get it working. I think it might be a bad 20 year old thermostat. Any trouble shooting suggestions? Also, it appears like it should be a self lighting pilot on the furnace on an 89 Fleet, is that true?


You could just install a digital thermo and toss the mechanical one.

 

[rich]

Another thing to consider for those older rigs is how well the wood bottom paint is still holding up. My 10yr old rig (which has lived in the PNW) was showing some weather checking and such, I just recently sanded it down and repainted it with a polyurathane porch/floor paint. I'll throw a thread up in Oct about it when I pull the camper off and insulate the bottom for winter (hoping the floor won't be so cold on the feet when camping in snow).



You could just install a digital thermo and toss the mechanical one.



Good idea on the new undercoat for the camper. Mine is looking pretty good because the PO had it on the same truck without removing it for 20 years, so the underside really didn't see too much weathering. The siding is another matter but I am going to be re skinning it in October with some ATC siding which should make a huge difference.