HI-LO 2406 Fire
 

Hello All,
I want to share an incident that occurred 10/06/16.

I finished my "shake down" of my newly purchased 2006 2406 Towlight. I had camped out for several days to insure everything worked, and it did I was very happy with my find. Now the interesting part, as I was lowering the top I heard an awful pop and the front portion dropped a couple inches, I knew that was not good but how bad I wasn't sure yet, anyway I finished lowering the rest of the top and proceeded to the dump site. Upon arriving there, and starting to connect the sewer hose I heard this beeping sound which was my smoke detector, I was filling up with smoke!

I could not raise the top! Realizing I had a direct short, I was helpless because the top is resting on the battery compartment and I couldn't get to the cables, to disconnect, all I could do is call the FD and watch it burn till they arrived. The RV park guy had a small pair of wire cutters and we were able to cut the cables finally but not after a couple windows were broken out and water sprayed inside UGH! Now my problem is how to raise the top to survey the damage. I have not had time to really look it over, but I do see in the rear entrance side a broken cable hanging down. Any ideas? Frank

Ugh! Frank, I suspect the only way you could safely raise the top would be to use a farm jack on the corner where the top dropped. It sounds like a cable broke there. As for raising the rest of the top, if the hydraulic system is undamaged, you should be able to use the manual lifting lever that you should find in the front of the battery box and you simply insert that into the obvious opening at the front of the pump and move it back and forth to raise the top with the remaining cables, stopping to match the lift on the broken cable corner with the farm jack, at intervals, till the top is finally up.

You can get a farm jack at Harbor Freight, and I'm sure they are available from other sources too.

Good luck!

- Jack

Frank, so sorry to hear of the fire. We experienced the same thing several years ago in South Dakota, but our fire was the result of human error, a stove burner on very low and me forgetting to turn the gas supply off. By the time we reached the dump station things were pretty hot inside the trailer. I was able to raise the trailer, and other campers helped to apply water to the fire, but when the fire dept arrived the Captain said the trailer was totaled, which is what the insurance agent said a few days later. We had to leave the trailer in a salvage yard in Yankton, SD.:mad:

It is a poor design, it also shows up when you get a bad/dead battery as a result of a bad converter and then have no way to lift the trailer to replace the battery. Combining the pump box and the battery box makes it big. I say they should have tucked the pump under but left the battery out in a conventional box, or made some kind of side access to the compartment.

Jag70R
 

I am truly sorry to read about your fire. I'm hoping you have insurance. Keep us posted. Welcome to the forum.

Sorry to hear about the fire .

2406 Fire
 

Thanks to those that replied. Fortunately, I had just put the trailer on my insurance policy(Whew). I'm going to ask how you can access the hydraulics with the top resting on the battery box, can it be done? Frank

Frank, I'm pretty sure you have to lift the top enough to at least open the full door (a little over a foot?) If you can't do it with the manual crank, you could probably do it with two farm jacks and several lengths of 2x4 to maintain the lift on each end. Do it like this:

1. With 2 farm jacks on the front, lift it enough to put two short lengths of 2x4 between the front outriggers and the top. I think I'd probably limit the rise to 6", but even that might be too much. You don't want to break the guide blocks.
2. Then, repeat at the back end. You might be able to raise that a foot now, since the front is already up 6".
3. Repeat front and back until you get the top high enough, using longer and longer 2x4s to hold the height achieved.

Now, a "redneck" way if you don't use farm jacks would be to cut two 2x4's to the height of the front of the top to the ground, put them there, and then lower the tongue using the tongue jack to push the top up. Insert 2x4s between the outriggers and the top to hold that lift.

Repeat at the rear by raising the tongue. You could start from the lowered position, using longer 2x4s. Repeat this front and rear till you achieve the needed lift.

Again, you'll have to be careful not to lift too much, since you are not raising the top evenly.

Hope I'm making sense.

- Jack

Sorry to hear of your loss. Tough when one completes a successful deliberation and search and then has such a short time to enjoy.

On my 2404T (which is for sale and listed on this site) the battery box lid is split into two sections. You can access the pump and the manual lift pump. Insert the manual pump handle and pump away. If you have a broken cable as you suspected you will still have to use a high lift jack on that corner.

We have a 2310 Hi-Lo. It came with only 1 battery. This year I installed a second battery.I purchased a marine style battery switch on the outside of the battery box. The switch is waterproof, but I still installed it into a housing mounted the side of the box. I now have the option to switch from bat1 to bat2 or both. Or go to the off position and isolate the batteries from the trailer.
I will see if I can post a picture of the install.

good to know the issue - thank you for sharing. I can access my batter with the top down (there's a hinge in my cover) but I want to add a second battery to run an invertor for the electric mini fridge, and was going to be redoing the battery compartment. I will definitely make sure I can still access the batteries with the top down. Thanks for sharing, and I'm so sorry about your camper :(

Allison, unless your refrigerator does NOT operate on DC power, I would not try to operate it on AC through an inverter. The reason is that an inverter is not 100% efficient, so you would be using MORE power from the battery if you operate the refrigerator through an inverter than if you simply allow the battery to run the refrigerator directly, using DC current.

However, either one is going to drain the battery fairly quickly, since the refrigerator draws a heavy electrical load. It is much better to operate the refrigerator on propane if you are camped at a place without 120V electrical hookups. The refrigerator works very efficiently on propane and you can camp a long time without needing to refill the tank unless you are also constantly using it to heat water, cook and run the furnace. Even then, I find a 20# propane tank will last over a week without running out.

- Jack

Sounds like her standard 3 way fridge has been replaced with an electric only dorm room type fridge. From what I can tell from the off the grid sites, a battery will only run a small fridge like that for a day tops, maybe even only 4 hours or so on a standard battery. So maybe fine if it is just to keep it cool while traveling, then plugged in on destination. To much of a load for a weekend camping with no power.
On one of the sights somebody claims this fridge https://www.amazon.com/Magic-Chef-Re...iglink20599-20
with this inverter https://www.amazon.com/Cobra-CPI-880...k20599-20&th=1
with a standard car batter will run 12-14 hrs in 70-75 degree weather.
A deep cycle would bump that a few more hours, I bet 90 degree weather would cut it in half.

here is a guy who also runs a 115w solar panel setup and a smaller fridge but sounds like it runs the fridge indefinitely in cooler weather. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgIFlWRnJOo

yes - it's just to keep it cool while travelling. If I'm not going to have electric hook ups, we'll bring a cooler. I may try some solar panels down the road as well. I just can't justify the cost of a new 2/3-way fridge at this point. I've looked at used, and while cheaper, anything I've found is too tall! I have 54" if I take the top cabinet out, which is still pretty short.

So-----any indication yet where the short was or what caused it? It sounds related to the cable breaking but ..... why? Maybe not. maybe just a coincidence but it would be one heck of a coincidence.