Dometic RM 8501 Fridge probs

Just replaced our Dometic last fall after 10 years of faithful and reliable service in our 177. 

I am sure you lit your burners on stove or your HW to make sure you have propane?

Also, check the fuses that supply power from the 12v battery to the refer, they most likely are toasted and need to be replaced before proceeding further.

Couple things to check:  remove your rubber propane line that goes from the pressure regulator to your RM 8501 fridge.  Remove line at the regulator and note if there is any black gooey substance coming out.  I had this happen at about year 7 or 8 on mine and had that issue.  Replaced the pressure regulator ($ 20) and the hose ($ 12) and was back in business.

Remove your black chimney at the top of your cooling stack, takes a phillips screwdriver (1 screw - easy to see).  Remove the black piece and note the silver metal piece attached.  It should be clean w/o any debris attached.  At the same time take a can of compressed air and blow air into both ends of the stack.  It is a good idea to install screen on both of your vents - they remove via a pair of plastic tabs - either twist with your fingers or use a straight edge screwdriver 1/4 turn.  By installing that you remove the possibility of bees, wasps, or spiders entering and wrecking havoc with plugging your heat stack, combustion area or jet.

Mr. Scott,

2 things:

1) We had an issue a number of years ago going on some very rough roads and the furnace woudn't function after that - turned out that the ignitor had come out of adjustment - had to adjust the two ignitor probes to within specs.  After that it worked fine.

2) What year is your fridge.  If it is the older style (like the one I replaced) I have a spare mother board/display panel that is totally functional - comes with the red and green dot lights on the display.  I believe Dometic used that style until 2014 or so.  If that is what you have/want I will let you have this cheap.  I don't believe it is interchangeable with the newer style ones with the blue lights.

Mr. Scott

I was not very clear but what I meant was for you to look at the front of your display panel on top of your fridge.  Does the display only show blue lights (newer dometic models) or red and green dots (older models - in which I saved my old one and is available).  PM me and I can send some pics if you wish.

Curious as to whether your fridge is cold when running on 120 shore power.   If it is than it shouldn't be that difficult to fix you issues when on propane.  The red flag goes up when you say you don't smell any propane, which tells me that your regulator and/or hose is compromised by the black goo and need to be replaced. 

Concerning the ignitor on your furnace:  There is a specific distance the 2 probes need to be apart to work correctly.  I had no idea when we brought ours in for service what the problem was but was told that was the issue.  I would think it would be the same measurement as for the fridge but wouldn't stake my life on it.  Getting to the ignitor on the furnace is not an easy task either.  Paid $$$ for the tech to do it, he had to remove the whole furnace to get to the ignitor, and that was after removing the mattress and luan above it.