Jayco Outback

Last year i purchased a hawk outback, wish i didn't. We used it on three occasions & only one was offroad, though in saying that it was only the dirt road to shallow crossing near Batemans Bay. After arriving home and cleaning the van we noticed that the wall near the door had come away from the cabinet. Upon inspection we found that the two were joined by a crappy plastic bracket which had broken leaving the external wall flapping in the breaze. Also the step to the bed collapsed due to poor design. We bought this van to do some simple offroading but I fear it would have fallen apart. We sold it not long ago to go back to a camper trailer. In my opinion they should be called JUNKO not Jayco.

Good luck
Mick

Just purchased an outback swan and the first time i used it the step to the bed broke. the cheap mongrels pop riveted the hinge into the ply step. I may only be a dumb electrician but even i know that pop rivets and wood dont mix!

Thanks Anthony. Yeah I gave it a good going over today. Replaced the wheelbearings and greased up the spring hangers. The preveous owner had a special made toolbox made for the back that is large enough to put tent poles and a second spare in (obviously don't want too much weight in there). See rig pic.

My biggest problem is the they have replaced the "American" inverter/charger with a Projecta unit because it failed, but I can't work out what the wiring does. The battery doesn't seem to be getting charge. DO you know where you can get a wiring diagram for these??? This is my first "van" so having 240v in there also is making me nervous about playing with wires.

Yeah we have the bed flies but they aren't bagged so you have to feed them on each time you want to use them...takes a couple of minutes each end.

Well I hope you enjoy your holiday mate. The places you are going are fantastic. You could spend a month in the Flinders region easily.

Your dead right about the way you drive dictates how any van will hold up. You can do anything if you have the time and patients.

Yeah my family is over the moon about the Jayco, so shoul dbe plenty of good times ahead.

G'day Hughesy

On the power supply. I have the manual (if you could call it that), which came with our Dove and has a wiring diagram. I will try to PDF a copy and email to you if interested.

Our American power supply died (twice) and replaced under warranty with a Setec ST-20 power supply.

The following is provided with me not knowing your knowledge of things electrical, so my apologies if I am stating the obvious etc.

On the charging problem. I don’t know if the following info is of use but we bought our Dove with the battery option, which the Jayco fitted. They may follow a standard approach to fitting the battery option.

With ours, the battery box was fitted under the seat nearest to the front of the Dove. Following the 12volt positive and negative wire from the battery, the wires went through a hole in the floor, travelled towards the back under the floor, and then came back up through the floor where the power supply is fitted. The positive wire went to a switch (which is a standard 10amp domestic light switch) with the other side of the switch the positive wire plugged into the 12volt power supply charge output.

A couple of possible causes of no charge are. The battery is dead flat and the charger may not be able to supply a high enough charge current to start charging, meaning that the charger is cutting out due to overload. When our battery is dead flat I use a higher capacity car battery charger to get the battery up to about 90% charge and then let the power supply in the camper to finish the battery charging.

Another possible and simpler cause could be that if you have a switch installed between the battery and the charger, you will need to turn on the switch to allow a charge current to get a charge voltage to the battery.

On the bed flys. We also had to thread on the bed flys on each time we set up camp. Our bead flys have the side and end mesh walls. I found a mob in Victoria, Alpine Canvas, who for $180 would sew bags into the existing bed flys. I dropped the beds flys to them and picked them up a week later. Then all I had to do was slide the bed flys (now in a bag) onto the tracks at each end and then screw a short self taper screw into the track at either side and through the rope to fit then permanently.

Sorry for the long draw out message. Cheers Anthony

Thanks Anthony, you have described my setup exactly!! Can you send me an email and I'll chat off the forum about it, cause I'd love to get some more info off you and your experiences.

My email is jason_hzj75 AT hotmail.com

Let me know if you havn't got the email with pdf of the jayco wiring dia to the above email, sent a couple of days ago.