15 to 20 volts ac on chassis (help)

[robertbrenne]

(HAVE FOUND THE CULPRIT!) TO MY VOLTAGE ON CHASSIS PROBLEM!
After crawling under the bed, into the cabinets, and under the trailer my wife asked if the 120 V connection could be bad? I said of coarse not! After checking the voltage from positive to negative and getting 120 volts I checked the voltage from those last two to ground and found that The ground was not grounding the hot leg.
I like the big orange cord plug (Intertec 4001038), but found it needs to have special attention to the connection cages and set screw. I tinned all legs of the cord before inserting tinned wires into the plug, "BUT" you must be so careful to make sure the capturing cage is around the wire and not sitting on top of the wire. You still can tighten the set screw down into the cage and the cage comes in contact ?? with wire but after 4 years of use and gravity working on the cord ground connection the ground slipped from under the cage (that had the tightened set screw), and "THAT IS HOW THE CHASSIS IS NO LONGER ELECTRIFIED".
Just be super careful the wires are in the clamping cage and not sitting on the wire.
Thanks Wife!

[uncle_bob]

Hi

Glad you found the problem. Grounded is way better than un-grounded !!!!

Tinning wires going into connectors has it's down side. You now have solid (the tinned part) wire joining up with stranded (the un-tinned part) wire somewhere along the way. The point they meet will get a lot of flex / strain. That makes it likely that those small strands will start to break. There are some other issues as well ...

Bottom line: the connector *should* be capable of working properly with the un-tinned wire.

Bob