New B190 owner in Arizona

[Yon-inlaw]

I've been lurking on this sight for awhile learning a lot about the B190. Figured it was time to join the community.

My wife and I have been given the honor of taking care of my mother-in-law's 1997 B190. She bought it new and has not really used it. There are some issues from being stored outside in Baltimore and then in Florida. We had the Ford dealer go over the chassis and make sure it was safe, new tires, etc.

Until we had the Airstream dealer go over the RV parts there was not even water in the tanks! We've been doing most of the work ourselves using information we've found on this site and we are almost ready for our first real RVing adventure. We found a propane place in Phoenix that did an excellent job replacing the propane tank.

Just a few little things left to fix and it will be ready to go - most major thing is that the water heater won't light. Used the information here and I think I have it narrowed down to the control board. Part of the headliner is coming loose - the section where the roof slopes down. I think I have a company that can re-glue that for us.

That's basically it - I am new to the whole RV world, grew up with my family tenting and eventually they bought a pop up tent camper, basically a tent on wheels! My wife grew up with Airstream trailers so she knows the routine.

[skater]

Welcome to the site!

That's pretty cool that she is the original owner.

[lido14co]

Sounds like you're about ready to hit the road. I highly suggest adding a rear anti-sway bar. It'll make driving a lot more comfortable. Welcome!


Cliff

[Minniemouse]

Water Heater help: We had our 1993 b190 for 8 years until a few weeks ago. Try this process:
1. Remove the gas line that goes into the hot water heater tube.
2 . Clean the spark ignitor with a wire brush, It may have rusted and would not have a good ground.
3. After cleaning, reinstall the gas line.
4. It should light.
We hope this helps!

[Yon-inlaw]

Thanks everybody for the tips. I am planning on the sway bar hopefully in the near future.

I'lll try the water heater suggestions once I get a chance. We have a week long trip coming up but other than one night we'll be in places where we have access to bathrooms etc with hot water.

Thanks again!

[Tucsonan]

Welcome to the site, in what part of Arizona do you live?

[Yon-inlaw]

Tucsonan - thanks, I am in Tempe.

[Tucsonan]

Glad to have another one in Az. I've seen 4 others near Tucson. One was a very early beige model in Sahuarita. May have been an Okanagan.

Hope to see you on the Highways!

[Yon-inlaw]

Ok, we are now back from our first "real" trip in our B190. Put almost 2000 miles on it and most everything worked well. Went from Phoenix to Colorado Springs and met some friends of ours from Iowa in CO Springs. They blew a wheel bearing and axle on their trailer on the way there and another wheel bearing on the way back - not an Airstream. We went to Las Cruces New Mexico and then back to Phoenix. We ended up driving through major rainstorms, wind and larger than pea sized hail! The antisway bar may move up on my to do list.

A couple things we noticed coming out of the cooler mountain areas into hotter New Mexico - the refrigerator had been keeping things around high 30 degrees to low 40 degrees on either AC or propane. It is a Norcold but not the 12v version. Once we got to New Mexico it was struggling to keep things at 70 degrees. Every once in awhile I noticed a smell like electrical contact cleaner but very very faint. Need to do some investigation now that I am home.

The other thing was a raw gas smell coming from the generator also as we came from the cooler temps to hotter. At one rest stop I started up the generator thinking maybe gas was bubbling/sloshing into the carburetor. Ran it for a few minutes and shut it off. Smell went away. Same thing when we pulled into our camp site.

Sorry about posting this here but mainly wanted to let everybody know our first real trip went well! Plan on getting out there more.

One last thing - always check your pedestal power if using campground power. When we pulled into our sight I tested as well as I could the 30amp circuit on the pedestal but had left some of my test stuff at home, we were staying at a reputable campground so I figured it would be ok to bring other things instead. Something didn't show up quite right on my surge suppressor/tester. Asked the campground escort and he said hundreds of people had used that power and didn't have a problem. Against my better judgement I plugged in and everything did work ok. A few days later we went to Pike's Peak and left the AC on for our dog, he couldn't go. Came back and the 190 was warm inside and the AC was not running. Long story short, it took 3 maintenance people from the campgrounds to go from telling me our van had an electrical problem to figuring out it was a bad breaker in the pedestal which caused everything to go off in the van. They gave me a 50amp to 30amp adapter to use for the rest of our visit there but the consequences could have been much worse if the AC had gone off in a warmer area or if the pedestal had failed in any other way - it was supplying 9v instead of 120! Moral of the story - take all of your test equipment and test multiple times before plugging in. If anything doesn't look right, don't plug in until it is fixed. We were lucky.