Grab a Flashlight and Crawl Under the Bus
If you drive a motorhome, today’s article is one you’ll want to bookmark. We’re going UNDER the bus. Yes, you’ll get your clothes dirty, but it might just save you thousands of dollars in repair bills. So grab your flashlight and put on some old clothes and let’s take a look at one motorhome service and maintenance chore you can do yourself.
Motorhome Service Inspections Are Critical
Every so often it’s important to do a visual inspection of the drive train, the engine and transmission from underneath the motorhome. This routine chore popped up on my to-do list today and turned out to be the perfect money-saving example of why it’s so vital to crawl underneath and look for problems between scheduled shop visits for motorhome service and maintenance.
Using my flashlight, I was inspecting the drive shaft, checking for any loose or missing bolts, zerk fittings, cracks or leaking. As I was panning the beam of light along the side of the engine, looking at the exhaust system, checking the muffler hangers, I noticed something out of the ordinary on the tube that runs between the air filter canister and the engine inlet.
What the…. There, plain as an eyeball looking back at me, was a hole in the side of the air inlet tube. I don’t know what exactly caused it, but I can speculate how it got there. The important thing is I found it. By doing so I probably saved myself some major cash outlay to rebuild or replace my engine. You see, this little hole is an opening that allows air and dirt to enter without first being filtered through the air filter. That dirt can cause severe internal damage to the cylinders and valves.
I patched the hole using some metal tape as a temporary fix until I can source a replacement tube or fabricate a more permanent patch. Had this not been discovered during regular servicing and left unattended to…well let’s just say…replacing or overhauling your diesel pusher’s engine is staggeringly expensive…and such repairs are typically not covered under warranty.
