Jayco Fixes

In between caravan trips it’s time to see to a few fixes in the Jayco Silverline, some that have been on the to do list for a while and others that pop up unexpectedly.

This caravan, like all of our previous, is second hand having been bought from a caravan yard in South Australia. We are very happy with it and the service we got when we traded in our older van but there is one thing missing when you buy second hand and that is the handover you get where you learn all about the ins and outs of the van. Not that getting all the information at once means you will remember it all if and when something goes wrong. Other caravanning friends and caravan forums are a great source of information when you have tried all theories and are still stumped.

We recently had one of those moments when our caravan was parked at home and unattached from any power source, yet the brake lights were on. After much head scratching and trying different ideas, it was a question to a forum which gave a reason to try, possibly a flat battery for the caravan’s breakaway system. The breakaway system is the safety device fitted to the caravan and connected to the car via a cord from the A frame of the van, which in the event of uncoupling when you’re moving, applies the electric brake to the caravan. The battery for the system is located in the van and seeing as our van is now around 4 years old we decided to replace the breakaway battery with a new one, as it would have been the original one that came with the van. It comes with a test light which means its condition can now be checked and trickle charged if needed, then replaced again in around 2 years’ time.

Thinking that was problem sorted – we were wrong. A quick trip with car and van to a repair shop and of course it wouldn’t misbehave when in the shop but at home, the battery would drain overnight. Finally that meant the problem was obvious as being the actual breakaway switch on the A frame of the van. Out with the old and in with the new and we are now good to go.

The other fix was another absolutely necessary one, to our wine glass holder system. Our Silverline came with a dedicated cupboard for wine glasses and the stems of the glasses clip into plastic holders for safe travelling. Looks great and sounds good in theory but being made of plastic, a couple of the lugs that hold the stems of the wine glasses in place, have snapped off so it has been with our trusty old method of carrying wine glasses, on a plastic coated wire rack. This system has worked for us in the past, when travelling half way around Australia and not one broken glass.

A few fixes and we are good to hit the road again in South Australia.

Cheers

Glenys

17 thoughts on “Jayco Fixes”

  1. Love your idea for storing glasses. Much simpler and it works. Better than my method of throwing plastic glasses into a too small supermarket mushroom container then slamming the cup door quickly. We recently had our Breakaway system replaced only to have it fall off a few days into our trip. Now a brush turkey has pecked away the pool noodles on the guy ropes. There’s always something isn’t there?

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      1. The circuit board that controls it isn’t damp or damaged is it? On ours the board sits on the floor and thus gets wet when a fitting leaks. I’d love to meet the person who designed it!!! Good luck with it.

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      2. Thanks for the tip but we’ve had the circuit board checked, all ok, and a hundred other things checked, tested, and blown out and the latest dilemma is now it will start on gas and not cut off so we’re resigned to free camping for a couple of nights and then into a park for a night. We will be home from this trip in a week so will hand it over to an expert to deal with and they’ll no doubt charge us accordingly! I think it’s time for actual caravanners to design a van where common sense helps to sole issues, there have been many campfire chats with friends lately over all the mysteries of caravan design and the different things that go wrong.

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      3. Good luck! We’ve been having the same happy hour discussions about van design. Those of us who’ve been sailors reckon vans should be designed by women yachties. Why? Because yacht interiors manage space better. Women, I’ll leave that up to you.

        Liked by 1 person

      1. Oh brrrr, that doesn’t sound like fun. We had some similar issues before lockdown when we were off the grid. You’ll be right.

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