May 22nd - Homer to the Shop

Homer was all ready to make a trip to Northeast Missouri on Sunday. We were headed up I-55 about 7:00 a.m. when the transmission started slipping in and out of neutral. It did this a couple of years ago and then again the other week after getting him out of storage. We decided to turn around and go home. We didn't want to take a chance on being a long way from home and needing a tow. We drove the car to visit our friends and had a nice visit. We just stayed with them instead of in Homer.

This morning I took Homer to the transmission shop in Cape Girardeau. The transmission slipped i and out of neutral several times in the first ten minutes of driving down there and then worked fine the rest of the way. This has been the pattern. It seems to be worse as the transmission heats up. Something isn't right and it needs to be fixed. I hope they can find it and I hope it isn't TOO EXPENSIVE . Transmission stuff is never cheap.

I have switched to Gioogle Blogger after several of the blog followers said they prefered it over Wordpress. Blogger is easier for me to use and is free. I was at the ponit with Wordpress where I was going to have to start paying to blog.

I am able to set the program so that ten people receive an email whenever I make a new post. I did that this afternoon for people who I know follow the blog and a couple of new ones. If  you get the email you must respond within 14 days that you want the emails. I would appreciate hearing from you if you get the notice to make sure I am doing it right. I believe there is a way to leave a comment on the blog that I can read.  If you do not want the email notices let me know, there are other names I can use. I am surprised that I am limited to ten names for this email feature.

May 17th - Replacing Kitchen Sink Sprayer - Nothing is Ever Easy

This morning I checked and found that over the winter all four air bags bled down and were empty so I filled all of them, forty pounds in the front and seventy-five pounds in the rear. I then checked the oil and noticed a missing grommet which holds the bug deflector screen onto the hood. I went to O'Reily's and got a pack of trim grommets to reattach it. I replaced both grommets while I was at it. This fix should last for many years.

When we bought Homer he still had the original faucets from 1993. The bathtub faucet was broken and the kitchen faucet leaked. I had both replaced at the RV shop in Cape Girardeau because I didn't have easy access to the new fittings needed to make the changes.

During the trip to Alaska we found that the new kitchen sink sprayer leaked at the handle anytime the water was turned on. We put up with it for the last several years. Kelly has asked me on several occasions to fix it and today was the day. I went to Buchheit's and bought a new sprayer and hose. It should have been an easy matter of unscrewing the old sprayer and screwing on the new one. Not so for me.

There is a fixed shelf under the sink which made it impossible for this old man to reach far enough back to get a wrench on the fitting to disconnect the old sprayer hose. The sink cabinet opening is less than a foot wide and it is over two feet back to where the fittings are hidden up behind the sink. After fighting it for an hour with different wrenches I decided to take the shelf out so I could get into the cabinet to reach the fittings. Another reason I wanted to take the shelf out was that the staples holding it to its support/mount had pulled out. At some point, with pots and pands bouncing in there going down the road, it was going to fall down. Who puts support/mounts above a shelf?

The shelf was put in when they built the cabinets and it wasn't made to come out. After fighting it for over an hour I decided I would have to cut it into two pieces to get it out. Here is a picture of the shelf. In the back you can see where the staples had pulled out.

You can also see that there is only about three inches between the shelf and the bottom of the trap for the sink drain. In jostling the shelf around trying to get it out I broke the drain pipe connection for the right hand sink. Now I had another project.

I should have taken the drain pipes out first but I didn't. Even after taking all the drain pipes out I still couldn't get the shelf out. I decided to make the cut in the shelf in the back where no one would see it and where there is less weight on the shelf. It was a challenge to get me, the saber saw, and the light through the twelve inch cabinet door and inside the cabinet far enough to reach where I wanted to cut. The cut I made wasn't straight under these conditions but I got it done. After making the cut the shelf came out.

I then disconnected the sink faucet and pulled it totally out along with the old sprayer. I installed the new sprayer, reconnected all the pipes and then checked for leaks. No water pipe leaks and no more leaking sprayer. Here is a picture of the new sprayer installed.

Here is a picture of the old sprayer I took out. It looked nice but was plastic junk.

I then took the shelf into the shop and glued it and screwed it to the flimsy support. The shelf board is made out of half inch fiberboard, which is crappy material that soaks up water like a sponge. I screwed another support board onto the bottom of the end of one part of the shelf to make a lip for the other portion of the shelf to rest on and to be supported by. The support board added 3/4 inch in length to the larger section of shelf. This ended up making it extremely difficult to get the shelf back in but I did finally get it back in.

Here is a picture of the cut made in the back of the shelf. Not bad. It is also covered by a light carpet to keep pots from sliding around so no one will ever know it has been cut.

Next I had to reinstall the drain pipes for the double sink. I got a kit from Buchheit's and luckily it had everything I needed. Here is a picture of the new drain pipes installed. No leaks.

RV manufacturers use the black plastic drain pipes and fittings, I assume because they are cheaper. The replacement is a residential kit and it is white plastic. I imagine the old black drain was original plumbing so 25 year old plastic breaking isn't unexpected.

What I thought would be about an hour job, just switching out a sprayer, ended up taking almost all day. I'm beat from contorting myself in and out of the kitchen cabinet a couple of dozen times in a hot RV sitting in the sun.

To finish up I filled up the water tank and turned on the fridge for our trip on Sunday to Northeastern Missouri to visit friends for a couple of days.  We are set to go.

May 2019 - Keeps Raining

I want to get Homer out of storage, dewinterized, and the leaking tire fixed but it just keeps raining. Hopefully tomorrow. We are wanting to take him on a trip to Northern Missouri in a couple of weeks.