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.