I own a 1998 Monaco Safari Trek motor home -- a Class A (boxy structure), gasoline-powered, recreational vehicle. I could go on for pages about all the little things that went into (or didn't go into) the construction of this vehicle. My friends joke that I am the only person they know who would disassemble a new motor home in order to fix it.
I went through a rough period where the engine would just quit, usually at very inopportune times. Or, the vehicle would start running lean, forcing the computer into an open-loop mode to keep the engine running. I think I fried a catalytic converter running it that way once.
The vehicle is equipped with OBDII (check engine codes), but it doesn't provide fuel pressure as a reading. The symptoms pointed to a plugged fuel filter or a bad fuel pump.
The fuel pump is located inside the gas tank, so it's not the easiest thing to service. I had it replaced once. I went to fill up with gas, only to have the gas start gushing out from the top of the tank. I guess it was a trick to get the gasket correctly placed for the pump, and you didn't know it was incorrectly placed until you tried filling the tank. So now I had a full tank (60 gallons) that had to be drained so I could work on the pump.
Worst of all, the fuel filter is buried up inside a chassis rail, right above a 12V DC distribution panel that has lots of hot, exposed cable ends. It's hard to reach, and there is very little space to work. There is barely room to get a wrench onto the nuts holding the fuel filter canister. Plus, when you loosen the filter, gas flows out over the power cables. It would only take a slip of the wrench to short out one of the exposed connections, sparking the gas into a nice little fire. There is no way to cut off the power short of disconnecting all the batteries and covering the solar panel with a blanket.
This was the worst possible place they could have located the fuel filter. Definitely Made by Monkeys.
This entry was submitted by David Lippincott and edited by Rob Spiegel.
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