China Bomb Damage to Electrical on slides

[jeepman]

I have a 2013 Bighorn 3010RE and recently had blowouts on both sides of my fifth wheel while traveling to Texas. The unit has quite a bit of cosmetic damage to the wheel well areas as well as the wiring passing through the slide on the "expandable belt" that holds wiring conduit in place. Does anyone have a wiring diagram/photos of what wiring goes to what in the slides?

Thanks in advance,

Mike

 

[wdk450]

I have a 2013 Bighorn 3010RE and recently had blowouts on both sides of my fifth wheel while traveling to Texas. The unit has quite a bit of cosmetic damage to the wheel well areas as well as the wiring passing through the slide on the "expandable belt" that holds wiring conduit in place. Does anyone have a wiring diagram/photos of what wiring goes to what in the slides?

Thanks in advance,

Mike

Contact the factory Service Department (with your VIN), but their standard response has been that wiring diagrams aren't available. Ask them how they would go about repairing these electrical problems.

 

[lynndiwagoner]

It might be possible to inspect the damaged wiring at each end of the break to determine what goes where. I would use solder and shrinkable tubing at each joint. I'm not sure a wiring diagram would help much. Good luck.

 

[jbeletti]

Mike - did you get anywhere on this repair yet? Like Bill suggested, I'd call Heartland (Monday) to see if they can give you some help determining what's what.

As you've likely already found, all the DC wiring goes into the frame through one or more holes. Hopefully, somewhere back in the frame, the wires are undamaged to the point where you can splice into them.

If it were me, with the coach unplugged from shore power and the batteries disconnected from the coach, I'd likely:

1. Pull down the underbelly about 3 screws both directions from the point where the DC wiring enters the frame
   .
2. Pull all damage DC wiring ends back into the underbelly and out the bottom
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3. Flush cut all the DC wiring pairs at the same spot (as much length as you have good wire). Write down the jacket colors of all pairs
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4. Inside the slide, expose the location at floor level (likely under a cabinet/drawer) and locate what might be left of the DC wiring pairs
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5. Similar to a step above, flush cut each wire pair, write down the jacket colors of all pairs and to the extent possible, try to determine where they go / what they feed (DC lighting, DC power outlets etc.)
   .
6. Separate any coax cables (possibly 3 in total), flush cut them and splice in (F-connectors and F-81 splices) whatever replacement lengths of 2Ghz swept RG-6 coax you need.
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7. Source the same gauge (or heavier) stranded 2-wire zipcord in the length you need to replace all the DC wiring that was destroyed.
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8. As mentioned by others, consider using heat-shrinkable butt splices - at least for those made in the underbelly or outside. Try to avoid making any of these splices under the slideroom outside. Too much movement/flex of the wiring bundle.
   .
9. Protect the new wiring with 1/2" or 3/4" black split-loom
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10. Secure split-loom with tie-wraps

Good luck!


On edit:

If the AC wiring (black flexible cord) also got severed or damaged, you can likely get that at any of the home building centers. It's SJOOW type cord. It's spliced in junction boxes on the frame to Romex type wire (from the underbelly), runs through the Lippert FlexGuard and up into the slideroom floor and likely into an indoor j-box to make the transition back to Romex.

 

[wdk450]

To add to all the great suggestions Jim provided, I would invest in a wire tracker transmitter/receiver system like this: https://www.lowes.com/pd/Extech-Digital-Voltage-Detector/999990526 ( you will probably finder cheaper wire tracers on E-Bay). You could trace the wires from the circuit breakers/ 12 volt fusepanel to where they are broken off to maybe determine function, using the wire tracer. Alternately, you could trace from the non working devices back to their wire breaks.
I fear you are going to find repeats of the same color wires at the breaks, as there are only a few standard RV wiring colors. 12 volt DC ground wires can probably be interchanged if you aren't sure which is which, as they all go directly to the same electrical circuit spot. Neutrals on the 110 AC can't be considered all the same electrical circuit spot because of the GFCI circuit which compares current flow in the hot and neutral sides of that circuit to determine is a GFCI trip is warranted. Connecting the wrong neutral (white) wire to that circuit would defeat it's electrical shock protection.

It would probably help to have an inventory list of all non-working electrical (110 volt and 12 volt DC) devices before you start. This would require turning on power. Hopefully the circuit breakers and DC fuses would do their job in shutting off any shorted wires and preventing fire.

I wish you success in this big job!!!

Have you thought of contacting your RV insurance adjuster?