September 23rd - Sewer Cap Fix and Reservations

Today the new sewer cap arrived in the mail. Actually two of them arrived because I accidentally ordered two. I tried to stop the order on one but was too late. At less than $3.00 each, it is not worth sending one back. I'll put the extra in my parts bin.

Here is a picture of the new cap with a "Made in USA" sticker proudly displayed on it. How often do you see that nowadays, particularly on something that only cost $2.97?

Here is a picture of the cap installed. It took less than two minutes to cut the old wire tie off , fasten the new rubber cord, and twist on the cap. The fit is quite tight so it should stay on for another 13 years.

Right after I installed the cap the LP Gas guy came to fill up the LP tank on Marge and the LP tank at the house.  Yesterday I filled the gasoline tank for the generator so, other than filling the water tank and putting in food and clothes, we are ready to head out early next Monday morning.

I made reservations for two campgrounds on the way out to Albuquerque next week. One was on the Indian reservation just inside Oklahoma and the other was in Amarillo. I took a picture of the campground address in Oklahoma for a reminder because they did not need a credit card to reserve. I forgot to put anything in my phone about the reservation in Amarillo figuring it would be on my credit card. But they are not going to charge the card until we get there. I forgot the name of the place so I had to get out the Good Sam Book and call a couple of campgrounds until I found the one where I made a reservation. Good thing I called because the reservation was not at the place I thought. We are staying at Amarillo Ranch RV Park. We will have to fill our water tank and dump our sewer tanks there so we are ready to dry camp in Albuquerque the next day.



 

September 19th-21st - Camping at Rend Lake, an Electrical Issue, etc.

Alexa and Aaron met us at Rend Lake Thursday afternoon. It was getting pretty warm by the time they arrived so I pulled out the fan and plugged it into the outside outlet, no power. I went inside and checked the outlets nearby. The one on Kelly's vanity and the one in the bathroom did not work either. I knew the bathroom outlet was on a GFI Circuit Breaker in the panel box so I checked it. I flipped it several times but it would not reset. I called my "electrical" friend John and he said there was no good way to check a GFI Circuit breaker but he had one. When we got home we could swap it out and see if we got power. A new GFI breaker is over $45.00. I didn't want to buy one if that wasn't the problem.

Not long after that Kelly told me that the microwave was not working. Strangely it was on a different circuit breaker. I reset the microwave circuit breaker. It appeared to be setting properly but still no power. These problems would have to be dealt with at home. Fortunately the air-conditioner and refrigerator were working.

Several weeks ago I purchased a cheap basket to sit on the floor of the shower to corral the shampoos and conditioners while on the road. Kelly said she liked the size of the basket but it needed to have holes in the bottom to let the water drain out. If we didn't do that about a half inch of water would accumulate in the bottom and it would get moldy between uses. Here is a picture of the basket before I drilled nine holes in the bottom. It should serve the purpose.

Friday Kelly took a shower and dropped the handheld showerhead. The showerhead is plastic and it broke off where it screws into the metal shutoff valve on the hose. This showerhead was advertised as one of those "super-duper" jobs that increase the power of the flow of the water so you use less. This is always important in an RV where you often have limited water supply. I must say it did work as advertised and we both loved it. Here is a picture.

Fortunately I had in a cabinet the old "super-duper" showerhead which we used before. It is an Oxygenics showerhead which also mixes air with the water to increase the flow. I was going to put it in Homer but never got around to it. I'm glad I didn't because we needed it this trip. Here is a picture of it.  It is metal so it should never break off like the other one.

Now I could take my shower.

Saturday after Alexa and Aaron left we packed up the camper and headed home. We did not have water or sewer hookups while there so we had to dump the tanks at the dump station before leaving. When I pulled up to the station and went to unscrew the cap off the sewer drain I saw that it was missing. Here is a picture.

The cap was on the pipe at home so apparently on the way over to Rend Lake it fell off somewhere. These caps are tethered to the pipe by a rubber cord. The rubber cord on this cap had broken a couple of years ago so I tethered it with the white wire tie you can see in the picture. I guess it broke off as well due to old age. The cap was old and did not fit tightly over the nubs so I'm not surprised it fell off. I'll order a new one. An easy fix. It has to have a cap to be legal going down the road.

After getting home and unpacking the camper I decided I had to find out why the microwave wasn't working. I was sure it had to be that the internal fuse had blown. I pulled it out and took the case off to get to the internal fuse to check it. IF I HAD BEEN THINKING, before going to all the work of pulling the microwave out, I would have just unplugged it and plugged something else into the outlet to see if there was power.

Once I had it out and apart I checked the fuse and it was good. Now what? I then ran an extension cord from the house directly to the microwave, plugged it in, and it worked. At that point I checked the microwave outlet and found it was dead. I put the microwave back together, unplugged the extension cord, and plugged the extension cord into the camper.  I then went to the fuse box and again flipped the microwave breaker, it seemed fine. I then flipped the GFI Circuit breaker for the other dead outlets and it "reset" just as it should. It hadn't done this yesterday. I checked the outlets that were dead before and they were all hot now.

What I then realized is that there had been nothing wrong with the breakers at all.  I had plugged the RV into the 50 amp receptacle at the campground and assumed that it was all working properly. It was not. One leg of the 50 amp outlet was not working so I was only getting electric to half of the camper. Luckily it was the half with the air-conditioning and refrigerator.

I then thought back to when I plugged the RV into the park pedestal. I used my Surge Protector and it showed a green and blue light, which means correct wiring. But it only showed it on one side. I had to get the manual out to refresh my memory that for two good lines of 110 volt power for a 50 amp connection it should light up green and blue on both sides of the surge protector face. I was only getting power to one leg, i.e. half the camper outlets. If I had been paying close attention when I plugged it in I would have noticed that and would have moved the RV to a different site. Oh, well, problem solved and we survived. I will definitely be more observant next time.   

September 17, 2019 - Marge Scrubbed by ME

Well, Sunday the professional detailers did not show up to give Marge a scrubbing. I emailed the company and they quickly responded with an apology. After several emails they were unable to get in contact with the local detailer they had hired for the job and had no alternative in the area. I had a choice of having it done this winter in Florida, or cancel the detailing and getting a refund. I opted for the refund. The no show was aggravating because we sat around all day waiting for them to show up, I had pulled in the slide outs, unhooked the electric, and moved the truck so they could do the job unobstructed.

Monday morning I decided that I should just wash Marge myself. Upon starting I realized she was REALLY dirty. It is hard to pick up dirt in pictures but here are a couple of "before" pictures.

The front cap always gets lots of bugs. Getting the ones up on the top white section requires me to stand on the second from top step of my eight foot ladder, which is a little precarious. I then have to scrub the bugs with a brush to get them off, then wash, then rinse. Last year I coated the cap with Polyglow which is a sealant. This helped in getting the bugs off but it was still a slow process of scrubbing, washing, rinsing, and moving the ladder multiple times. Up and down, up and down.

The area of the trailer behind the truck bed gets lots of dirt, bugs, and road tar. Here is a "before" picture.

All the black spots in the picture are tar left after I scrubbed the bugs off. I put some gasoline in a squirt bottle and worked on a couple of globs of tar at a time. When finished it all had to be washed and rinsed. A slow process. 

The front cap and lower area get the most road dirt and bugs and take the longest to clean.  The back cap doesn't get any bugs but it does get a lot of dirt which is picked up by the tires and swirled around the back. Here is a "before" picture of the lower part of the back cap.

The sides get road grime but also get a lot of streaks from dirty water running off the roof. Here is a "before" picture of one such spot with arrows pointing to the black streaks.

Unfortunately these black steaks don't come off with car wash soap. They have to be scrubbed with a cleaner like Awesome and then the area washed.

Monday I did the front, back, and door side. By then it was mid-afternoon and 93 degrees so I quit for the day. This morning I did the off door side.  Here are some "after" pictures.

Front cap

Lower front area.

Back cap.

Side area with no black streaks.

In the above picture you can see shiny and whiter areas where I removed some decals last winter because they were cracked and faded. I have ordered some oxidation remover with wax and hope that in one application I can bring back some shine and blend in the areas. Doing the two sides will be a several day project. 

For me trying to keep an RV clean and shiny is absolutely the worst part about owning an RV. Because they sit out so much they fade fast after a cleaning and waxing due to all the UV rays. Ours doesn't have clear coat like a car finish. If I ever buy another rig it would have full body paint, making cleaning and polishing a whole lot easier.

September 15th - Generator Fuel Line Leak and Marge Scrubbed

On Thursday I pulled the empty LP tank out of Marge and took it in to get filled. After doing that I was putting gasoline in the fuel tank for the generator in Marge and decided to run it for a while. I started it from the outside and immediately saw that the fuel filter, which I had just recently installed, was leaking profusely. It didn't leak when I installed it a couple of weeks ago!  Here is a picture. You can see the gas pouring out of the bottom even after the generator was shut off.

So much for cheap Chinese fuel filters. I went to O'Reilly's and got a GOOD Chinese fuel filter. It is metal, at least three times the size, and three times the price of the cheap one.  Here is a picture with the generator running and no leaks so far.

No more cheap fuel filters for me. I had two more of the cheap filters and threw them away so I wouldn't even be tempted to use them in the future on anything.

Today Marge was scheduled for a professional washing. They were scheduled to be here between 9:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. I even got an email yesterday reminding me of the appointment.  Guess what.  They didn't show up. I called the company but they are closed on Sunday. I sent an email but will also call tomorrow and hopefully get it rescheduled soon.  Marge really needs a bath!

Today I emailed my release form to be a crew member for one of the balloons at the Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque. I signed up to work all day for all nine days. (I may regret that but Kelly said "What else are you going to do all day?") Usually the pilots do not go up all nine days. I will see how it works out. I'm hoping to get to go up once. It is up to the pilot they said. It costs $650 to go up for a ride with the one outfit that does it commercially at the fiesta and you have to book in advance. I'm not paying that much.

We will be camping at Rend Lake next weekend with our oldest daughter, Alexa, and her friend. We are going to take both campers so Alexa can get some experience driving Homer. It is a little different than puttering around in her Honda Civic. It is supposed to be hot next week but there is a lake and a beach where we can get in the water. We have not "camped" in several years. For good or bad we have become RVers, i.e. travelers, rather than campers. We have some firewood here at the house but you aren't allowed to move firewood around anymore because of bugs and diseases. I have a lot of scrap lumber I have been hoarding. I will take a bunch of it to burn in the campfire and get it out of the way in my shop.  It should be fun. I may even stay up past 9:00 p.m.!

September 12th - Homer came Home and Got a Couple More Needed Repairs

I picked up Homer from the shop yesterday. He now has new front brake pads and rotors, new rear brake kits, new rear wheel cylinders, new water pump, and a new timing chain cover. Additionally he got an oil change and his license renewed.  He is good to go mechanically.

When I got him home I noticed the front lower corner on the passenger side of the house had pulled loose. Here is a picture.

It is pretty easy to see this isn't right. This lower corner cap is just a plastic transition piece. The white in the picture is the torn caulk. I think the corner just pulled loose from old age because there was no sign of anything having hit it or caught it at anytime. I jacked Homer up and got under there to make a repair. It was easy to push the corner back into place but it was quite another to get up in behind it to drill holes to reattach it to the supports, one of which had pulled loose from the floor above. It took close to two hours to get it fixed. Most of that time was spent crawling in and out to get different tools.  (I need a "runner". I used to do that for my dad.)  Here is a picture of the repaired corner.

I now have to decide if I want to re-caulk it. The caulk had been painted blue when the motorhome was built. I can't get blue caulk. If I re-caulk it I'll have to decide what color would look the least offensive. I may not even caulk it. It is totally on the outside so no possibility of any kind of leak to worry about.

Yesterday when I stopped to get Homer's license renewed I pushed the fob to unlock the doors. I was on the passenger side to get the paperwork and the door did not unlock. I could hear the actuator work and could see the button go up and down like it is supposed to. The door handle just did not unlock. I unlocked the door with the key, no problem. 

I decided this morning to look into this problem. My first thought was to spray the key with lubricant and work the key back and forth in the lock to make sure nothing at the key area was binding. I did that but it still didn't unlock with the fob. I then took the inside door panel off and worked the key lock with the key and used the fob button to watch how it all worked. Interestingly the key lock and the pull up button on the door do not work off the same rod. The rod from the key lock to the door lock was not moving at all when the fob activated the actuator even though the rod to the pull up button was working properly. 

There are only small cutouts in the door in this area so it was really hard to see if something had broken at the door lock to cause this problem. I really didn't want to take the door lock out and have all that mechanism with rods and actuator to deal with. I decided to just put it back together and use the key to unlock the passenger door as needed. I sprayed everything I could reach inside the door liberally with lubricant. It did not work for a while then all of a sudden everything worked as it should. I don't know why but I just put it back together and hope it keeps working.

We will put Homer in the shed since we are taking Marge to Albuquerque. 

September 7th - Marge Wheel Cleaning and Homer Repairs

Next Sunday Marge will get her first "professional" bath.  I noticed all the wheels looked pretty bad when I rotated the tires yesterday.  I know they will not polish the wheels as part of the wash next week so I decided to do it this morning. Here is a before picture of one wheel.

Here is an after picture.  

I am happy with the results. I used a wipe-on aluminum cleaner I had purchased when we had the pontoon boat to take care of. This stuff cleaned the wheels up nicely with little effort and no buffing.

The truck goes into the shop on Monday for an oil change and fuel filter change then it will be ready to go to Albuquerque as well.

Homer is still in the shop.  On our trip to Alaska and on a trip a year later to California I smoked the front brakes a couple of times on steep grades. This caused the rotors to warp a little which causes a vibration when I push on the brake hard. I lived with it for a couple of years because it wasn't dangerous. I decided to get them fixed after a recent trip. I always tell my mechanic to treat my vehicles like his own. Because of this he decided to check the rear brakes as well. When he did he found two broken brake springs and both brake wheel cylinders leaking. This is being fixed as well. I attribute the rear brake issue strictly to Homer's "old age".  At twenty-six years old things like this happen with vehicles.

  

Homer is also in for an oil change and an inspection so I can renew his license next month. Upon changing the oil they noticed that the water pump is leaking. This is good news and bad news. The bad news is it will cost about $400.00 to replace it. The good news is that they caught it while in the shop and the pump didn't go out on the road and possibly require a tow and us being stranded for a while somewhere.

The joy of owning vehicles. This is my month for spending money on them.

 

September 6th - Rotating Tires and Slide out Reinforcement

Today I decided it was a good day to rotate the tires on Marge. I try to do this about every 9,000 miles. I can only rotate them front to back because I only have two jacks and two jack stands to lift one side of the trailer at a time.  Since I was getting all dirty it was also a good time for me to crawl under Marge and inspect the frame reinforcement work which was just completed a couple of weeks ago.

I will honestly say I was shocked to see how much metal they had added to the trailer frame. Here is a picture of two of the five six inch tall "C" channel rails they welded to the frame from one side to the other. The arrows with black borders point to the new metal. The arrow with the red border points to the factory installed two inch cross member in this area of the trailer, which was clearly inadequate.

There are three other six inch "C" channel cross members welded further back from the ones in the picture toward the rear of the trailer. All of these are to support the weight and movement of the two opposing slide outs. 

When I pulled off the wheels on each side I also found three two inch box metal supports welded in three places. These supports were welded in where the two six inch stacked box metal frame parts meet. Here is a picture with arrows pointing to the new reinforcement metal.

I am sure this work has added well over a hundred pounds to the frame but it should not flex anymore when the slides go in and out. Apparently Carriage frames are not as rigid as they claimed. In their defense we have dragged this trailer over 44,000 miles since purchasing it. Use takes a toll.

I torqued all the lug nuts so Marge should be good to go to Albuquerque in a few weeks after she's washed and tanks filled. 

September 3rd - Getting Ready for the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta

I'm slowly getting things lined up for the trip to Albuquerque for the Balloon Fiesta the end of the month.  I took the truck (Moe) in today to have the front alignment checked after the rough roads in Newfoundland ruined the front tires. Sure enough he needed an alignment for $69.95. Here is a picture of Moe's front end with the new front tires and a fresh alignment. He goes in next week to get an oil, oil filter, and fuel filter change so all is fresh for the 2,000 mile trip.

Marge gets a professional bath next Sunday compliments of my daughter, Annie. Once that is done I need to take one of the propane tanks in to be filled, get gasoline for the generator's tank, check to make sure the furnace, water heater, and fridge all work on propane. We will then be ready to load up clothes and food for the trip.

Since so many people will be traveling to the Balloon Fiesta I thought there might be a problem finding a place to stay where we can fill up the water tank and dump our sewage tanks. We need to arrive with a full water tank and empty holding tanks. I decided to make reservations for our stops on the way out. It is a 1,000 mile trip we will make it in three days. Our first stop will be September 30th in Quapaw, Oklahoma. We will stay at the Downstream Casino RV Park.  Our second stop will be in Amarillo, Texas on October 1st. We will stay at the Big Texan RV Park.  We will pull into Albuquerque mid-afternoon on October 2nd. It will be interesting to see what the dry camping spots will be like. I am sure there will be a lot of dust on the big lot and lots of noise from generators at least during the day all week.

The new plug for the 30 amp cord arrived today so I installed it as well and checked it out before putting it away. Here is a picture of the new plug ready for duty.  Hopefully this one will last longer.

The parking at the Balloon Fiesta is dry camping so I won't need this cord or any other during that time. All electrical needs will be provided from the batteries and generator. The biggest challenge will be not filling up the holding tanks with waste water over the extended period of time. I believe there will be a honey wagon available if the tanks need to be dumped. (A honey wagon is a septic tank truck that comes around and pumps out your tanks for a fee.) It is hard to tell what that will cost. It is a captive group so they can charge what they want.  Kelly and I can be pretty conservative with our water usage when we want to. Maybe we won't need the service.