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My progressive industries hard wired surge suppressor began giving me an error while plugged in at home to my garage (20amp). It was telling me I had a ground problem and started resetting. When I used the bypass switch, everything appeared ok, but now I have no surge protection. So I began going thru the coach checking all known ground points in the wiring, in the breaker panel, behind the breaker panel, connections in the surge itself, connections at the multiplus, etc... Nothing found loose.
I then proceeded to check the dog bone adapter. Even replaced it with another one I had. Still a problem. Tried a different circuit in the garage. Still a problem. Starting to wonder if my 30amp power cord was at fault. Multimeter check showed continuity good on all three legs and no shorts. So I'm thinking, maybe the power inlet? Unscrewed the inlet to inspect it, the ground screw was so loose I'm surprised it didn't fall out.. Tightened it up and all seems to be good. The ground wire was inserted into the proper hole in the power inlet but was not tightened down causing what I believe was an intermittent ground. I will monitor this.
But that is not all and not the reason for this post. When I removed the 4 screws holding the inlet to the TT, the two top ones came out very easy and I discovered they were broke/cut? The two bottom screws were full length, being about 1 1/2" long. My first thought was to reinstall the longer screws in the top holes as I felt better having the top better secured (keeping water from getting past the gasket). But the longer screws would not go in. A quick examination of the hole and it looked like the two top screws were broke off?? So I started looking at ways I could get the broken screws out and found some "bits" that might work.
Then I started thinking about this again (and that's dangerous - lol) and looking at the "broken" screws again realized that they were both "broken" at the same length (about 3/4") which seemed very odd, just enough to go into the fiberglass skin of the TT, but not really enough to hold anything. Which leads me to the reason for this post. Could it be that the rear wall has a horizontal aluminum frame member just above where the hole was made for the power inlet and the top mounting holes for the inlet are in line with it? The factory didn't have a sheet metal screw handy and the installer simply broke off the wood screws??? Anyone have any insight to this??
I'm going to do a better inspection of this tonight when I get home. I got rained out last night.
Update: I was able to check this out better last night and found that the two top screws were indeed broken off inside. The breaks were such that there was not any part sticking out to grab. The top left one was put in at an angle that had part of the broken thread poking out of the hole made for the power inlet and the top right one was put in angled upward and slightly to the left. Still not sure how they broke but whatever...
I was able to get the broken pieces out by carefully enlarging the area around the visible end of the thread using a very small drill bit and a small pick to remove the debris. I took out just enough material around the broken screw to get a pair of very skinny needle nose pliers around it and slowly (with multiple attempts) turn it out.
My net step will be to fill in the holes made by the broken screws with JB Weld KwikWood. Once dried, I can redrill a pilot hole straight in and using new screws (obviously) re-secure the power inlet. The backing wood GD used is about 2" thick and the old screws only went in about 1/2 way. The new screws will be a little longer so that I bite into good wood as well as through the JB Weld.
I then proceeded to check the dog bone adapter. Even replaced it with another one I had. Still a problem. Tried a different circuit in the garage. Still a problem. Starting to wonder if my 30amp power cord was at fault. Multimeter check showed continuity good on all three legs and no shorts. So I'm thinking, maybe the power inlet? Unscrewed the inlet to inspect it, the ground screw was so loose I'm surprised it didn't fall out.. Tightened it up and all seems to be good. The ground wire was inserted into the proper hole in the power inlet but was not tightened down causing what I believe was an intermittent ground. I will monitor this.
But that is not all and not the reason for this post. When I removed the 4 screws holding the inlet to the TT, the two top ones came out very easy and I discovered they were broke/cut? The two bottom screws were full length, being about 1 1/2" long. My first thought was to reinstall the longer screws in the top holes as I felt better having the top better secured (keeping water from getting past the gasket). But the longer screws would not go in. A quick examination of the hole and it looked like the two top screws were broke off?? So I started looking at ways I could get the broken screws out and found some "bits" that might work.
Then I started thinking about this again (and that's dangerous - lol) and looking at the "broken" screws again realized that they were both "broken" at the same length (about 3/4") which seemed very odd, just enough to go into the fiberglass skin of the TT, but not really enough to hold anything. Which leads me to the reason for this post. Could it be that the rear wall has a horizontal aluminum frame member just above where the hole was made for the power inlet and the top mounting holes for the inlet are in line with it? The factory didn't have a sheet metal screw handy and the installer simply broke off the wood screws??? Anyone have any insight to this??
I'm going to do a better inspection of this tonight when I get home. I got rained out last night.
Update: I was able to check this out better last night and found that the two top screws were indeed broken off inside. The breaks were such that there was not any part sticking out to grab. The top left one was put in at an angle that had part of the broken thread poking out of the hole made for the power inlet and the top right one was put in angled upward and slightly to the left. Still not sure how they broke but whatever...
I was able to get the broken pieces out by carefully enlarging the area around the visible end of the thread using a very small drill bit and a small pick to remove the debris. I took out just enough material around the broken screw to get a pair of very skinny needle nose pliers around it and slowly (with multiple attempts) turn it out.
My net step will be to fill in the holes made by the broken screws with JB Weld KwikWood. Once dried, I can redrill a pilot hole straight in and using new screws (obviously) re-secure the power inlet. The backing wood GD used is about 2" thick and the old screws only went in about 1/2 way. The new screws will be a little longer so that I bite into good wood as well as through the JB Weld.
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