Interstate Maintenance & Upkeep

[Lily&Me]

Had the replacement turbo resonator installed today, and am delighted to never again have to deal with one of those plastic ones failing…wherever I happen to be at the time.

My chassis battery is almost 4 years old, so they put a new one of those in for me, before it up and fails at some point on the road.

And, my tires are also 4 years old with 43-45,000 miles on them, without pulling purchase paperwork to look, so going to get a new set of Firestone Transforce later in the spring and before my next trip.

Interestingly, the tires were all purchased at the same time and have been faithfully rotated, but the rear tires show more wear than the front.

Jon thought I could possibly get thru this season with them, but there is also some minor cracking of the sidewalls (?) so the prudent thing to do is to just replace them.

But, in a different month than this one.

Am awaiting a body shop appointment at Peterbilt to have the side running boards painted with Rock Guard, and the tread tape on those removed/replaced.

This will not be cheap, but it will be worth it on this 15 year old Interstate.

I will post pictures when that is all done.

Maggie

[Titus]

What tires are on it now? 45,000 miles and cracked sidewalls at 4 years does not sound right. Why Firestone Transforce? I have not seen them recommended, or even referenced, before. Consensus seems to be to go with the 'new version' of Michelin Defenders, called Agilis I believe.

[Titus]

Did they have to remove the bumpers to install the Rock Gard. I watched JC remove and replace the front bumper (thankfully under warranty) and it was a labor=intensive job to remove the double-stick tape. Rear bumper and side panels don't appear to be any easier. I would hope to not have to remove them, but skeptical of the resulting quality if they are not removed.

Also, were they able to do some sort of test to show that the battery needed to be replaced? 4 year life on it also seems unusually short. Do you know the type of battery used? Somewhere I read that the chassis battery is somehow unique (read expensive) but have not removed the driver-side floor panel to see.

[Lily&Me]

They are replacing Firestone Transforce with Firestone Transforce.

When I bought this Interstate nearly 4 years ago, the tires on it were 3-4 years old, I had to drive it home from Arizona and asked that the dealer have good truck tires put on it.

These are what he got, and I feel they have served me pretty well. My service guys recommend I get these again, and I have no reason not to.

Jon mentioned some slight cracking, nothing terribly concerning but in discussion about their wear it seemed the best decision was to replace them before I set off for summer travel rather than risk a problem on the road.

When in storage, my tires are covered, but when traveling 6 months or so out of the year they are not.

How that may figure in, I don’t know, but I have had enough repairs on the road to want to do everything I can to avoid that headache.

As to the bumpers, they did remove them to paint, I’m pretty sure, and Peterbilt did a great job with them.

I believe they will remove the running boards to paint, but am not certain.

Their body shop has always done a great job, so I anticipate more of the same.

I’ll post pictures of it here when done.

They did not test the battery to see if it needed replaced, but my records show it was replaced after I bought this rig in 2018.

It is an Interstate battery, 4 years old, and that seems about the lifespan of a battery, in my experience, for the Interstate or my Toyota.

Maggie

[Titus]

Maggie
Thanks for the response. Hearing that they are cracked at 7-8 years makes more sense. I need to get a quote as the Airstream plastic panels and bumpers are getting pretty ratty.
Spiderwebs patterns are especially bad on the back and rock chips on the front.

[Lily&Me]

Yep, my front bumper was covered with rock chips, and the Rock Guard has been a perfect solution to that.

I’ve quite honestly never heard of keeping tires 7-8 years.

Maybe it’s a Midwest thing, but 4 years or so is our best practice.

Maggie

[Lily&Me]

Picked the Interstate up from JX/Peterbilt a bit ago, and the Rock Guard on the side running boards and bumpers up to the front and rear bumpers coated with this last year look gorgeous.

They did an excellent job, and I am excited not to have to look at the scrapes, dings and rock chips any longer.

I will not be surprised if Airstream starts copying this, as it just makes so much sense for these rigs when they are used the way they are meant to be used…which is, to travel.

[Rocinante]

This really does look great, thanks for sharing. I spoke to our local Peterbilt shop about this. They haven't applied this particular coating before, but they're willing to give it a shot if we want to have them do it. It's on our list of things to consider after we get back from another summer of camping.

[Lily&Me]

Mike Schneider is in charge of the body shop at the Peterbilt here, but it was actually his guys doing the work who came up with the idea last year after the new bumpers they had ordered for me didn’t fit my rig.

Mike said they use this on trucks, and it was carefully dyed to match my paint.

So much more durable for these low areas that catch so much.

Not inexpensive, but an investment.

Maggie

[Boxster1971]

Maggie - nice work. That coating look like LINE-X which is very rugged and should last a long time. It is used in black on the lower panels of the new Interstate 24X.

Check this link of video from Nomad Vanz that offers a full coating of LINE-X in any color you like. It is expe$$ive.

https://youtu.be/ZOWRWz8h93g

[Lily&Me]

Thanks, Mike.

The Rock Guard runs the depth of the coating, which I know I am phrasing poorly , so if there is a chip in its silver it will not show up white underneath as with regular paint.

The curbside piece of this had some chips and scrapes on it, all covered by the Rock Guard.

The front and rear bumpers I had done last year show no chips nor dings at all, after 10,000 or so miles.

Not cheap, but an investment in current appearance and eventual resale value.

They’ve apparently been putting this on trucks for years, so why not little RV’s like ours?

Maggie

[InterBlog]

Heads up, my dudes (channeling the S4 finale of Stranger Things) —

Our starter has apparently failed. Right now it’s turning the engine over about 2 times out of every 3 attempts. The symptom is… nothing. Turn the key and there’s a faint click or “blup” noise but nothing actuates. Until it does, occasionally, at least for the moment.

You know the drill. Once one T1N Interstate has a part go out, others tend to follow suit. So you have been warned.

Husband ordered this one. We’ll see if the install solves the issue. It should be here within 5 days or so.

[73shark]

If the replacement doesn't fix it then I'd check the voltage at the starter and solenoid.

[DaveG]

Starter solenoid contacts

[DaveG]

hmm, tried to share this link to YouTube describing like issues ... must have bumped a button? One more try
Here is a link showing relays which may cause intermittent starter problems: https://youtu.be/DoyyRwLwfL4

[InterBlog]

Originally Posted by DaveG

hmm, tried to share this link to YouTube describing like issues ... must have bumped a button? One more try
Here is a link showing relays which may cause intermittent starter problems: https://youtu.be/DoyyRwLwfL4

This is an excellent video and I thank you for it.

I should also clarify our approach here because this is a good learning moment that reflects how much the world has changed in the past 2.5 years.

In the Before Time when a failure occurred, we would research the issue, watch videos such as that one, and proceed with an ordinary decision tree of the type predicated on a proven just-in-time (JIT) world. If cleaning cables and etc. did not work, then we would then order a starter, or do whatever else was logically indicated next. We would do it that way because we would have confidence in our ability to timely receive a starter, in the Before Time.

These days, it's more difficult to get parts quickly, and sometimes we can't get them at all. So we've essentially reversed our order of operations. We order the part first, knowing that there is a good chance of abnormal delays. Once the part has arrived, THEN we start the logical process of confirming whether that is actually the problem. And if it is not, then we return the part to the seller.

We are now so entrenched in this reversal of response actions that I don't even think to mention it. It reduces to a mindset of, "Quick - order the part NOW" and figure the rest out later.

And the next logical question is, "Why not split the difference, order the part preemptively, but then in the X days it takes for you to receive that part, walk through the other failure pathways to see whether the root cause lies with any of them?"

Answer: Because shortages and JIT failures have spread throughout our entire society to infect everything we do, leaving us with far less free time than we had up until the end of 2019. Just a few recent examples --

(1) It took my husband a month of dedicated work, at least 40 hours on top of his regular full-time job, to purchase a replacement for his failed 17-year-old daily driver, because it's now almost impossible to source a new car no matter how basic.

(2) It's going to end up taking me more than 40 hours of work (if not more) to replace my 5-year-old mobile workstation computer for the same reason of shortages. In the 2 years previous to now, I didn't even have the option of TRYING to get a new computer because of the worldwide chip shortage - none were for sale of the configuration that I need to run my business. And I've been working full-time (not part-time as before) for the past 9 months because America's vast labor shortages are affecting my industrial realm, to the point where I've had an abnormally large volume of contracting requests.

(3) I've probably already put 20 hours into my attempts to buy the type of generic mass-production trailer that has always been in stock in large quantities much like toilet paper. If we were in 2019, I would have simply driven to the retailer, paid the man, and driven straight away with the danged thing in tow, in a process that would not have exceeded 3 hours.

In short, the rest of life is parasitically consuming all our time, to the point where we don't have the leisurely option of cracking open our Interstate's engine more than one time. We will wait until the starter arrives, and tackle it all at once, because that's all we have time for. I feel like in everything we do in life, we are paddling frantically just to keep from being swept away in a current of chaos.

I'm not trying to be defensive, but your comment prompted me to reflect consciously on behavioral modifications that have become almost unconscious by now. I speak in shorthand without even thinking of it. We ordered a starter. It doesn't even occur to me to elaborate on the "welcome to 2022" procedure ahead of actually executing it.

[InterBlog]

Originally Posted by InterBlog

Heads up, my dudes (channeling the S4 finale of Stranger Things) —

Our starter has apparently failed. Right now it’s turning the engine over about 2 times out of every 3 attempts. The symptom is… nothing. Turn the key and there’s a faint click or “blup” noise but nothing actuates. Until it does, occasionally, at least for the moment.

You know the drill. Once one T1N Interstate has a part go out, others tend to follow suit. So you have been warned.

Husband ordered this one. We’ll see if the install solves the issue. It should be here within 5 days or so.

My husband replaced our starter yesterday and WOW, what a difference! It sounds like a normal motor vehicle when it starts up now. I thought sputtering and groaning was normal for a T1N Sprinter, but the motor may have been weak for the past 8 years. For once, the endless Sprinter wallet-snacking has produced an aesthetic as well as a functional improvement.

[DaveG]

Yay!

[InterBlog]

Originally Posted by InterBlog

My husband replaced our starter yesterday and WOW, what a difference! It sounds like a normal motor vehicle when it starts up now. I thought sputtering and groaning was normal for a T1N Sprinter, but the motor may have been weak for the past 8 years. For once, the endless Sprinter wallet-snacking has produced an aesthetic as well as a functional improvement.

We are on a theme, and on a roll, this year: Small motor failure.

We have known for several years that we have a ghost in the machine that would cause us to lose turbo from time to time. This could not be traced to any of the common causes, such as hose problems or a stuck EGR valve. The symptoms were failure of turbo to actuate upon start-up. The interim solution was to simply turn the engine off and back on again, and normal turbo would be restored. We wondered if perhaps there was a computer problem, but we could not narrow it down because it was not manifesting often enough, was not persisting when it did manifest, and it was throwing no codes.

So what do you do when a problem is intermittent and untraceable? You wait until it inevitably grows to such a level that it simply must reveal itself. A 15-year-old T1N Sprinter can absolutely be counted on to escalate the severity of any given problem that it is developing.

The problem proved to be an intermittent short circuit in the EGR’s valve’s MOTOR, rather than an issue with the valve mechanism itself. This is a tricky one because if you research EGR issues, what you will find is an endless procession of posts and videos talking about stuck, stuck, stuck, how to clean, replacement, stuck, stuck, and shoot me (or alternatively, someone please initiate a class action lawsuit) because my EGR valve is stuck yet again.

I never did find anything about an intermittent short circuit in the motor - I didn’t know that was a thing. I thought that a motor would either work or not work, but this one decided it would work 95% of the time before one pothole somewhere jarred the remaining wiring loose and it decided from that moment onward that it would work 5% of the time until the assembly was replaced.

Which it was, on an emergency basis in Knoxville TN, but with supply chain disruptions, EGR valves are in short supply right now, so the indie mechanic that I linked there sold us a used one - that was the best he could do. The “new” (reconditioned?) ones are a few hundred bucks, but with this lesson learned, I’m going to pick up a spare to carry in our kit at all times.

[Lily&Me]

I experienced what seemed to be a 12volt system failure this morning, which was ultimately only a 15 fuse where a 30 should be , but in the process of getting it resolved learned where my converter is located.

For those of us with these older models, my converter is behind the vented area directly underneath the fuse box…which is beneath my closet, at floor level.

This taken apart, the entire area behind the vent, around the converter components, was full of dust and dog hair.

I vacuumed mine out before it was reassembled, and thought I would alert others to the idea of cleaning this area periodically.

I had no reason to know where this was, before today, nor that it needed to be cleaned out…but, it does.

Maggie