July 18th - August 2nd - Repairing Marge

Since getting home from Newfoundland I have been working on repairing things on Marge that needed to be fixed and making some changes (improvements) we deemed necessary after traveling in her for six weeks.

Major problem:

A major issue is that the slide out on the driver side moved and is wearing badly on the outside wall. Here is a picture of the back and front of the slide out. The red arrows point to where the wear is taking place on the wall. In the second picture an arrow also points to the seal that is falling off (even after I glued it back on during the trip). I can't fix this myself so I made an appointment at 3R RV in Union, Missouri, to get it fixed next week.

Next issue:

Last fall 3R RV put a new AC unit on Marge and it has acted up on occasion by the compressor kicking off, grunting, and then kicking back on when it should just be continually running. I'm hoping they will replace the whole unit it under warranty but the problem is it probably won't act up when it is there.

First improvement:

For years I have been stuffing the umbilical cord, which makes the electrical connection between the truck and the RV when underway, into the open area of the trailer hitch when not connected.  I decided to install a hook on the side of the hitch to hang the cord on. I didn't coiling the cord in the hitch because this often bent the cord at the plug. You can see this in the picture. I like this setup a lot better and should have done it some time ago.

Sewer Smell Issue:

An issue that has arisen on occasion in the past and rose again on this trip is a sewer smell in the bathroom from time to time. We have had this happen off and on over the years. I thought I had it corrected by the installation of a 360 Siphon vent cap on the roof. The siphon cap is designed to pull the sewer gases out of the holding tank by using the wind. It has worked well but periodically we still had a major sewer smell. I thought this trip that maybe we were getting a smell periodically due to fewer dumps of the waste tank or that there was a chance that the sewer vent was stopped up. When we got home I got a hose and ran water down the vent pipe on the roof. If the pipe is not stopped up the water should just run down into the holding tank. Before I could get off the ladder to check the tank drain for water I saw water running out of the bottom of the camper. This should not happen at all. Even if the vent pipe is blocked up, the water I was putting in should have backed up the vent pipe and out on the roof, not into the camper anywhere. I shut off the water and I crawled underneath but could see nothing. I then proceeded to move everything out of the storage compartment and remove the side wall to get a look at the vent pipe itself.

I turned the water back on and crawled into the storage compartment with a flashlight to see where the water was coming from. It was running down the pipe toward the tank but then just running off the bottom of an elbow. I crawled further into the basement area to feel where the water was coming from. As I felt around the pipe I found a hole on the back side of the pipe and then another smaller hole on the front side of the pipe. The water was just hitting the hole in back and running out the pipe rather than down into the tank. Not much water should ever get down the vent pipe because it has a cap on it to prevent water getting in. The vent pipe's purpose is to vent any sewer gases outside. It should be solid not have any holes in it. Holes let sewer gases out. In this case it was letting sewer gas get into the basement area and then they would migrate up into the bathroom above. Here is a picture of the vent pipe with my flashlight in back of it. The holes couldn't have been from drilling that hole in the wood in back of it because the holes in the pipe were two different sizes with the largest one being over a half inch in diameter.

These holes had to be in this pipe from the factory. The only thing I can think happened is that someone picked up a piece of pipe with these holes in it and installed it without looking it over. Crazy!!! Anyway a project I thought would take about a half hour (flushing water down the vent pipe to unclog it) ended up taking most of the day by the time I pulled everything out of the storage compartment, took out the wall, covered the holes with Eterna Bond tape, and put the wall and cargo back in.

Next project:

Last year we purchased two recliners to replace the reclining love seat which we found uncomfortable. The recliners are rocking recliners so they are not the wall away type. When we arrive somewhere we have to pull them out to use them then push them back when we pack up. It is always a guess as to how for to pull them out and how far to push them back in. They didn't push all that well on the carpet and just getting in and out of them regularly causes them to move around so that they end up rubbing on each other and on the side wall.

I decided to make a wooden runner for the chairs to sit on with cleats to keep the chairs in line, to stop them when pushing them back for travel, and to stop them at the right distance when pulling them out so we can fully recline. I used plywood and 3/4 inch cleats for this project and varnished it so they would slide easily. Here is a picture. All you see is a little of the plywood base. It seems to work great but we will need a trip under our belt to make a final assessment and maybe some adjustments.

Next project-improvement:

Marge has a foldout couch for guests. It looks nice and sits nice, but it is terribly uncomfortable as a bed. Here is a picture.

The first reason it is so uncomfortable as a bed is that the foam mattress originally laid on a stretched black fabric attached to the sides with springs. It was like sleeping on a hammock with metal supports in the  middle of your back. Here is a picture of the fabric stretched over one of the metal bars.

A couple of years ago taking my friend Bob's idea I covered the entire bed area with 5/8 inch plywood. This provided a firm surface so that the metal supports were not pushing up into your back. Being a foldout the plywood had to be installed in hinged sections. It was an improvement.  Here is a picture.

You will notice, however, that the bed surface is not flat. It goes up and down because of the support legs below. I thought about cutting a piece off of each metal leg to take the hump out but was a little leery of doing so being afraid it might compromise the bed in some other way. I consulted with my friend Bob and we decided that the best thing to do was to put a block under the foot end so that the surface would then be flat, even though that would cause the foot end to be higher than the couch end.

Surprisingly it took an inch and half block of wood under the foot legs to get the hump out. Here is a picture of the block of wood under the legs. It will be stored under the couch when not in use.

Here is a picture of the mattress surface with the board under the foot legs.

While the foot end (on the right) looks higher, when it has weight on it the end levels out. Guests will have to sleep with their head at the foot end. It is the best I can do to improve a piece of junk foldout bed. If it remains too uncomfortable we will not use it and carry a blowup mattress instead. Unfortunately a blowup mattress takes up more room.

Our next trip will be a couple of days in Northern Illinois for an RV rally. We will take Homer, he needs to be exercised.  The end of September we will take Marge to the Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque, New Mexico.