Furnace repair and beds

Last time we had the Travco out in cold weather, the furnace fan was not starting on its own and required a helping hand to get it spinning. Not good at night while you are sleeping, but luckily at the time we had shore power and electric heaters on board. Anyway, I took the blower until out, it has a universal motor in it. It works on either AC or DC, so regardless which way you supply power it always turns in the correct direction. Unless of course the brushes are stuck. As the oil for the bearings got old, it got sticky. Apparently in the past someone had over oiled the motor, and so the oil had made its way to the brushes and as it got old and sticky it gummed them up so they would not advance and maintain contact with the commutator. So I cleaned the brushes and their tubes and hopefully I am good to go for another 44 years! Oh, just as a note, one of the brushes had the following number on it, 2189. might be a part number? Anyway, I plan to take the rig out in the next month to go camping at Devil's Den. I am going to remove one of the two counter tops, the one behind the driver and put a homemade tri-bunk in its place. I have ordered three 30x72" foam mattresses. I am going to cut down bed frame rails donated from family and weld or bolt them together. Can't really start building until I get the mattresses.

Storage for Genny

It has always been my procedure to run an engine's carb bowl out of fuel if possible, before storing for a period of time.
Motorcycles, lawnmowers, even the 440 on the Travco. (I turn the electric fuel pump off an wait the minute or two for it to die)

I was going to put a shut-off valve on the Kohler to do so, until I realized I could run the genny, pull and hold-up the priming lever on the fuel pump until it died from fuel starvation. I thought I would share this with those fellow Kohler L600/L654 owners. Don't forget to return the lever to the normal lowered position when done.

'66 Travco (California) & '67 Travco AC Electrical Wiring

I have posted some pictures here of how our two Travcos have input power connected to them.
Both Travcos have Kohler 6.5C63 6.5KW water-cooled generators.

The '67 has a 240VAC 4 pin receptacle on the genny and the Travco has a 4 pin plug to insert into it.




The '67 plugged into the Kohler genny.






The worse for wear power cord receptacle to plug the '67 RV into "park" power. The other end of the cord should be a standard 30 amp 3 pin RV style plug. Not shown is that the two 120VAC legs of the receptacle are shunted together.

The '66 built for California has a lockable compartment on the side opposite the generator to access the power connections.




The 3 pin twist-lock plug from the generator (240VAC) and the power input receptacle in the background on the '66. (120V leg, 120V leg, neutral, case is ground)


The '66 with a 30 amp park power cord inserted. Not shown is that the two 120V legs are shunted together inside the plug. (Generator output cord laying beside it)


The end of the 50 amp cord for the '66 that I made. This end matches 50 amp park service.





Ideally, the 3 pin twist-lock on the '66 should be replaced with a proper 4 pin twist-lock that has separate neutral and ground. Then you could use the 4 wire, 4 pin 50 amp cord to connect to a 50 amp park power outlet. If wired like the '67 it would have a 4 pin receptacle to match the RV's plug.