September 15, 2020 - Campout at the Lake and Newly Discovered Homer issues

Saturday we went out to the lake lot to camp for a few days. We had a great time, the weather was gorgeous. I caught a nice Bass but threw it back. Kelly caught a nice Bluegill and threw it back as well. (We didn't fish hard.) I took two rods and one broke. 

Before leaving today we needed to dump the sewer holding tanks. When doing so I discovered that the pipe strap was gone that held the sewer pipe to a 2 x4 brace from the floor above. I have no idea how long this strap has been missing but it is important to have the sewer drain pipe secured and not bouncing going up and down the road. It could crack or worse yet cause the holding tank to crack.

This afternoon I crawled under Homer to study the situation. Here is a picture of what I found. You can see on the first picture where the pipe strap broke off on one side. The second pictures shows the other side where it broke off under the "L" bracket holding the cleanout hose fitting. 

The 2 x 4, which is screwed in from above, was loose as well. I have no way of getting to the top of the 2 x 4 it from above so I decided to add an "L" bracket to give it more support. Here is a picture of the "L" bracket installed.

From underneath all I could screw into was the sheet metal floor. It was the best I could do because I didn't want to drill deep holes and maybe hit an electrical wire or a water pipe. I then got some pipe strap and installed it around the sewer pipe with a piece of rubber to cushion it.  Here are pictures from each side.

I spray painted the strap so that it blended in more and to protect it from rusting.  Here are pictures from each side.

I am really glad that I caught this problem before any damage to the pipes or the holding tanks. That type of repair could be big money. This I fixed with hardware around the shop.

While fixing the pipe strap issue I found another problem in the immediate area. There was a safety ground just dangling near the sewer pipe 2 x 4 mount.  The sheet metal it was screwed to had rusted away. Here is a picture.

I don't know why this safety ground is in this area under the kitchen cabinets and only secured to the sheet metal floor. Less than a foot away it disappears into a wire loom so it clearly has a purpose. I was able to get the bolt out, grind the area to bare metal, and reattach it with a new screw.  Here is a picture

I then spray painted it to protect it from rusting for a while. I still need to do something to close up the rusted out area. I'll think about that. Maybe a little piece of metal inserted in there and held in place with JB Weld.

Believe it or not I then found a third issue in the same area. The prior owner installed a sewer hose carrier to store the sewer hose in a tube under the motorhome. I accidentally pushed against it while under Homer and it moved. I soon realized that the outside mounting bracket was not attached to Homer as it should be. I discovered one screw hole but no screw on either side. Here are pictures. It is hard to tell how long this has been loose as well.

I attached it with self-drilling screws. Here is a picture all secured.

All the issues on Homer fixed I moved to seeing if I could get the leaf blower to start. It died on me out at the lake and I couldn't get it restarted. I took the air cleaner off and spayed some carburetor cleaner in and pulled on it several times. It caught once and that was it, even though I pulled many times. In fact upon pulling the rope, it totally frayed so that it would not got back into the housing for another pull.  Here is a picture with the frayed cord hanging out.

My daughter Alexa bought me this Weedeater blower at least fifteen years ago. It has worked flawlessly and never refused to start until today. I made a bracket several years ago to repair the handle that broke and put new tubing to the carburetor.  It has served me well but it is clearly not worth repairing. At a minimum it would need the carburetor taken off and cleaned or replaced, a new start rope, and a new air filter. It is being retired to the dumpster. I have another much newer blower I purchased when we had the house in St. Louis. It is only about eight years old and will have to step up the plate.