June 22nd - Ladder Repair on Homer

The stainless steel boat bracket I ordered to repair Homer's ladder is made for securing rails on the decks of boats. I used one in another location on the ladder a couple of years ago and it has worked great. The bracket arrived today so I got to work. I drilled out the rivets that held the old bracket to the back fiberglass wall. Here are pictures of the bracket. The aluminum part was riveted to the wall. The rusty metal part is what is left of a round bolt bracket that went inside the aluminum tube that supports the ladder. The system is not very beefy but it lasted 27 years.

Upon drilling out the rivets I found there was nothing behind the fiberglass to screw into. Those two rivets took all the pressure of climbing up and down the ladder. Luckily one doesn't do it a lot.

In thinking about various kinds of anchors for the screws for the new bracket I finally decided that the only kind that would work was toggle bolts. They require a much bigger hole but grab well from the back side and spread the pressure well. I went to Buchheit's and bought two stainless steel screws and two toggle bolts. The toggle bolts come with bolts that thread through them. I couldn't find any stainless steel bolts that size so I bought stainless steel screws and slowly re-threaded them through the toggle bolts. I had to drill the holes in the wall much larger to accommodate the toggle bolts but the holes were easily covered by the new bracket. The fiberglass was thicker than I thought so the first screws I bought weren't long enough. I went back and bought longer ones. I also put putty tape behind the bracket to keep any water from getting into the mounting holes. Here are pictures of the finished project showing the old bracket on the left and the new bracket on the right.

I think it came out well. The new bracket connection is quite strong. This repair will long outlast me for sure.  I will now feel safer climbing up on the roof for inspections, etc.
To address the battery charging issues I ordered a new converter/charger. It should arrive in about a week. When it does I will install it and the new batteries. Homer should be ready to roll once again.

June 19th - More 12 Volt Electrical Work on Homer

Thursday I disconnected the new charger/controller and reconnected the original charger/controller. Here is a picture of it. It is 27 years old and a big heavy thing that buzzes constantly. It is not a smart charger. It charges whether you batteries need charge or not. It is simple but dependable.

I reconnected the CO detector and interior voltmeter, which quit working over the weekend as well. The CO detector is not beeping, as it did going down the road to Cuba, and the interior voltmeter started working again. After several hours on the old converter/charger it appears everything is working correctly. The interior voltmeter indicated 12.2 volts. I put a voltmeter on the batteries and they show 13.3 volts. I can't account for the difference. As time wore on the readings became the same. John came by and we checked all the connections for draws on the batteries and could find none.

The old converter/charger wasn't charging enough to get the batteries to 100%. We suspected a battery problem. Friday morning I pulled them out and headed to Fredericktown where I bought them.

Upon arriving at the store in Fredericktown I was told that I voided the batteries' warranties by cutting off the led posts to get them to fit into Homer. He tested them and they were severely discharged. He said cutting off the terminals could have caused this. I didn't understand how and he said that cutting them off was like cutting off a fingernail too close and it bleeds. He offered to put them on their charger and have me come back on Monday. I decided if that was all they were going to do I could do that at home and not have to make another 45 mile trip.  

It appears that I may have ruined these new batteries. Live and learn. Upon getting home I took JB Weld and covered each lead terminal to seal it off to see if that would help. Here is a picture with red arrows pointing to the sealed terminals. 

I then put them on a 10 amp charger for 24 hours at his suggestion. I hooked up a 12 volt battery to Homer that my brother-in-law loaned me. I hooked up the old converter and everything worked fine for hours although the old converter did not charge the battery to 100%. I then disconnected the old charger/converter and hooked up the new charger/converter.  The solid green light on the Remote Pendant indicates "boost mode." There was no difference. It is only putting out 12.3 volts, even on boost mode which should be 14 volts.

I even locked it in to boost mode and there was no change. I believe the new charger/converter is bad. I guess I'll order a new one after I see how it acts with the 6 volt batteries re-installed. More to follow on this.

Lastly, I discovered another repair issue with Homer last week. As I was climbing the ladder to the roof to put a new starter capacitor on the AC unit I noticed that one of the ladder brackets was loose. The round aluminum tubing is supported by a metal bracket inside. That part is then riveted to the wall of the motorhome. These parts rust away. I replaced on at the bottom a couple of years ago. Here is a picture with an arrow pointing to the rusted away bracket that is inside the aluminum tubing.

I used a stainless steel boat railing bracket to fix the bottom one and ordered the same bracket to fix this one. Once it arrives I will drill out the rivets and bolt the new one on.

June 18th - First Campout of the Season - Good and Bad

On Monday we took Homer to Meramec Valley RV Resort in Cuba, Missouri, for a couple of days of camping and family time with my sister, her husband, and two of their grandchildren. We had grandson Kellen with us so the cousins were able to have rare time together.

We hadn't driven long when the CO detector started beeping a pattern of beeps. It is old and I just figured it was beeping to let me know it needed to be replaced. I didn't think there was any other issue.

It was a two hour and a half hour drive to Cuba and when we arrived the automatic step would not come out. It works off the house batteries.  Last week I put two new six volt batteries in Homer. Upon checking the house batteries with a voltmeter they read 8 volts, instead of 12+ volts, which is needed for everything. This meant they were severely discharged. The batteries should have been kept charged on the trip by the truck alternator but apparently they weren't. I plugged Homer into the electric pedestal. It powered the converter/charger which converts the 120 volt AC to 12 volt DC needed for almost all interior electrical items. There was no change in the 12 volts. I then connected a battery charger I brought along to the batteries. I immediately had 12+ volt. The steps came out. I didn't know what was going on but things got much worse from there. The battery charger I used is an expensive one and is very sophisticated. It gives all types of readings of the battery conditions via three rows of LED lights.  Here is a picture of the charger hooked up.

It indicated that the batteries were severely discharged which didn't make sense to me. They were fully charged the day before and nothing was on during the trip except a small draw for the refrigerator control board.

I messaged my friend John and he suggested that something was drawing the batteries down. I disconnected the CO detector and the LP detector. At John's suggestion I also disconnected the new voltage meter which had quit working during all these weird electrical issues. Nothing else, other than the refrigerator was on drawing power. The 12 volt DC power for the refrigerator is merely for the control board. It draws very little, nothing like the draw needed to kill the batteries in 2.5 hours.

I tried different combinations of having the charger/converter plugged in and the external battery charger on, running things just on the battery charger, etc. We were getting power but the readings on the external battery charger were weird. We were getting ready for bed when all 12 volt electric went out. I went outside to check the battery charger and it was still charging. Then the florescent light came back on very dim and the refrigerator was blinking and clicking like crazy. I turned it off and then unplugged the charger/converter. The lights brightened up. Things then seemed "ok" so went to bed. I couldn't do much in the dark anyway.

I got up in the morning and turned on the hot water heater to take a shower. While the hot water heater runs on gas like the refrigerator it needs 12 volt DC for its control board. It lit then went out within a few seconds. It would not restart. I went outside unplugged the battery charger and plugged it back in and the water heater came on. The rest of the day the 12 volt system worked fine with the battery charger on and the interior charger/converter unplugged.

Despite these electrical issues we had a nice time. Daughter Alexa and her friend Aaron drove down for the day. The weather was cooler than we expected but plenty warm for the kids to swim in the pool.  Here are the three cousins in the pool - Jake, Loren, and Kellen.

After a nice steak dinner smores were in order. Here is a picture of some being made. Aaron was voted the best marshmellow melter.

Here is a picture of brother-in-law Jim relaxing  after we worked on the roof of his camper and fixed two of his interior lights.

Kellen taught everyone how to play "Kings in the Corner" and they played several rounds throughout the day.

 

Because of the bizarre electrical issues with Homer we decided to cut our trip a day short. When we were packing up I unplugged the electric and the refrigerator would not come on in the gas mode because the converter/charger was unplugged. I wasn't about to plug it back in. 

When I got home the batteries once again showed half discharged. That made no sense because absolutely nothing was drawing power.

More and more things were pointing to a problem with the charger/converter. I put this charger/converter in five years ago before we left for Alaska. It is state-of-the-art with a three stage charging system based on the needs of the batteries. A couple of weeks ago I thought it had not been charging correctly. I pulled it out and John took it home and tested it best he could. Everything seemed to be working properly. I reinstalled it. I will enlist John's help.

June 11th - New House Batteries for Homer

Yesterday after charging the house batteries in Homer all day they were not holding a charge. I purchased these two six volt batteries for Marge six years ago. I have tried to keep them going but they are just shot. I pulled them out this morning and loaded them in the car. Kellen and I headed to Ellis Battery where I had purchased them. Upon arriving I told the salesman that the batteries could not be more than 10 3/4 inches tall because that only left me a 1/4 inch to get the batteries into the compartment. He measured his batteries and they were taller. We then compared the new ones to the old ones and when he saw my old batteries he said he didn't have any of those in stock but the store in Fredericktown, Missouri, did. He called that store to verify that they had two in stock before I drove there. They did so off we went. It was a sixty mile drive to that store from Cape. When we got there he brought out the duplicates of my old batteries to load. They looked taller so I measured them. Sure enough they were a half inch taller. I couldn't use them. He said he had another battery that was the height of my old ones but were $15.00 more each. He brought them out. I measured them and they were eleven inches, a 1/4 inch shorter than the cheaper ones. I decided I had no choice. I had to figure out how to make them work so I bought them.

It was 1:30 p.m. when we got back home.  Despite the heat I decided to get to work on installing the new batteries. I used a bucket with boards on top to get a level place to position the batteries to go into the compartment. I knew they were too tall but I had to be sure. I needed to cut a 1/4 inch off each lead post and each threaded post to get them to fit. I used my Sawzall for this purpose. Fortunately just the other day I purchased some new metal cutting blades.  Here is a picture of the work area with the bucket and compartment area in the background.

Here is a picture of one battery with three of the terminals cut off. The red arrow on the left points to the lead terminal cut off. The red arrow on the right points to the threaded terminal, which is the one I use fortunately. There would be no way to get the batteries into the compartment if I had to use the lead terminals. The green arrow points to the uncut lead terminal to show you how tall they were. 

I got both batteries up on the bucket and boards. I then cut plastic strips from an empty milk jug. I wire tied a plastic strip over each terminal so it would not touch the metal compartment frame and spark as I pushed the batteries into place. (I learned that from prior experience even with the shorter batteries.) I connected the batteries in series to get 12 volts, then slowly pushed them into the compartment. It is very close quarters.  Here is a picture of the batteries installed. The red arrows show the distance between the top of the compartment and the top of the batteries. It is only about only about a 1/4 of an inch.

When I finished the job I found that apparently I had gotten battery acid on my shorts. Here is a picture of the result. (The second pair of shorts I've ruined in the last couple of weeks.)

Nothing is going smoothly lately. After finishing the project when I went to move the car the key would not come out of the ignition. I wiggled everything - the ignition, the gear shift, the gear shift button, etc. No luck. I called my friend John who had recently had the same problem in his vehicle. What he did to get the key out didn't work for me. He did a YouTube search and he figured out how to get the key out. The problem unfortunately repeats each time I insert the key. Off to the Chevy dealer in a week to see what is malfunctioning.

 

June 5th-9th - Homer Issue and Fuel Prices

On Friday, after installing the new hard start capacitor for Homer's AC unit and running it on the generator to test it out, I plugged Homer back into the 20 amp receptacle to keep the batteries charged. It immediately tripped the GFI. I worked my way from the outlet to Homer taking apart each extension cord to see if any one was the problem. It was strange because he had been plugged into this outlet before I started the AC work.  Everything checked out "okay" until I connected the electric power to the motorhome itself. The GFI tripped. I checked everything I could inside and could not find why it was tripping. I plugged Homer into the 30 amp outlet and everything worked. Either the GFI has gone wonky on me or there is a little electrical leakage somewhere inside Homer. I will check this out at a later date when it is cooler to work in there down on my hands and knees down at the electrical panel.

I reported a few days back that for the first time since I was a teenager I saw the price of diesel the same as gasoline. Today is another milestone - diesel is 20 cents cheaper per gallon than gasoline in Perryville. I haven't seen that literally for many decades.

Today I helped a friend get information and pictures together to sell his motorhome.  It is always a hard decision to sell something you enjoy but times and circumstances change.

We will have our first RV outing next week. We will be heading in Homer to an RV park in Cuba, Missouri, where my sister has a membership and keeps her RV. We will spend three days there and social distance with them. Grandson Kellen will get to see his aunt, uncle, and cousin. It will be good to get out and sit around at a different place and to see everyone as well. I will be praying for cool weather.

May 31st - A Small Chevy HHR Maintenance Item

Yesterday was a beautiful day and great for doing very little. While sitting on the deck I remembered that for over a year I have been wanting to check the condition of the cabin filter in our Chevy HHR, which is the vehicle we tow behind Homer and my daily driver. Until a few years ago I didn't even know cars had a cabin filter. What it does is filter all the air before it is blown out through the vents. In most cars it is located behind the glove compartment. I verified online that that was the location on the HHR. I released the clips on the glove box with a screw driver so it would hang down out of the way, released the clips on the filter cover, and pulled out the filter. Easy to get to. This is what it looked like laying on the driveway when I pulled it out.

It was almost black and full of debris sucked in from the outside. The HHR is a 2009 model and I am sure this filter has never been changed. I went to O'Reilly's and purchased a new one. I couldn't believe this 10 inch x 10 inch square of paper cost $29.00. Here is a picture of the new one. Quite a difference.

The AC should blow better now and for a long time to come.