We were having some issues with not having AC power in the motorhome when connected to shore power. At first I thought it was a problem with the transfer switch (switches between generator and shore power) but after removing the cover from the breaker panel I discovered that all the white (neutral) wires on the AC were burned for the last couple of inches. After poking around a little more I noticed that the main neutral wire coming in to the bus bar was loose either due to not being tightened enough at the factory or the copper wire compressing over time. Certainly the vibration of going down the road don’t help either. As the screw loosens the resistance at the connection increases until the bus bar and wire get hot enough to melt the insulation. Scary! Glad I found it before anything bad happened.
I bought a new bus bar at a local home improvement center and fortunately there was enough slack in the wires to allow me to cut them back to get to good, clean copper and insulation on all of them. After the repair all is fine.
Not a bad idea to add checking tightness of the screws in your breaker panel to the things you check in your RV. I know I’ll be doing that annually from now on.
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