September 22, 2020 - Homer Repairs: Tire Leak, Hubcap Repair, Door Light Replacement

In May I purchased all new tires for Homer. The day after bringing it home one tire on each of the rear duals was flat. I took it back and they found one had a bad valve stem and one had a leaking valve stem extension. I gave them another valve stem extension I had on hand to fix that problem. A couple of weeks ago before, heading out to the lake, I showed Alexa how to check the air in the tires. This is very important to keep the tires aired up properly in motorhomes because of the weight on the tires. We found that one of the rear dual tires only had 60 lbs. of air in it rather than 75 lbs. meaning it had a slow leak. We aired it up and went to the lake. Today I decided to check out the leaking tire which was back down to 60 lbs. It was the driver side outside tire that was leaking. I jacked Homer up and pulled the wheel off for an inspection.  On dual rear wheels it is very hard to get to the valve stems to check the air and to fill the tires. So on Homer there are extensions on each tire valve stem that come out and attach to the hubcap. This makes it very easy to check air pressure but the problem with these extensions is they are prone to leaking. Here is a picture of the wheel showing the extension from the front.

Below is a picture showing the extension from the back. The extension has a sharp bend in it so that it can get through that hole in the wheel to be accessed from the front.

 

The connection at the elbow above by the arrow was a little loose so I tightened it with a pliers the best I could hoping this is the cause of the slow leak. I will check it tomorrow to see if it holds air. If any air leaks off I will have to buy a new extension. Unfortunately you have to buy all four for the dual wheels so it gets rather expensive.

To get the wheel off you have to take the hubcap off. It is held on with two bolts which thread into a plate mounted on the wheel lug nuts with two thin nuts. Several things happened when I pulled off the hubcap. The first was that apparently the tire installer lost one of the flat nuts that hold on the plate and replaced it with a lug nut, which is three times as thick. The thicker nut would not allow the hubcap to seat properly against the wheel plate. Here is a picture of the original nut and the lug nut he put on there. You can see there is quite a difference in thickness.

I went to Buchheit's to see if I could buy a thin nut and I could not so I cut the lug nut in half and will use it. To help tire installers in the future I painted both halves red so if he dropped it he could find it.

The second problem I found is that one of the brackets that the air valve extensions connect to had come loose.  It was riveted on and apparently the rivets were pulled out when the tires were changed or it came loose from old age.  Here is a picture with an arrow pointing to the missing bracket. You can see the bracket sticking out on the opposite side.

The valve extensions are mounted through these holes.  Fortunately the bracket was not lost. It was being held on by the valve extension nut.  Here is a picture of the hubcap with the bracket missing. 

I took the hubcap and riveted the bracket back in place. Good as new. When I did that I noticed that the tire installer had put a pretty good sized dent in the hubcap. Clearly this was done by a tool or something being dropped on it. Here is a picture.

With a wooden dowel and hammer I pounded out the crease the best I could. Here is a picture.

One shouldn't have all these issues when paying $1,800.00 for new tires. They should do a more professional job but that is what you get. I had already reinstalled the front hubcaps which he installed improperly.

Interior light:

Yesterday John and I had looked at the small light fixture on the inside of Homer's entry door. The light comes on when the screen door is opened. It is very nice to have at night because it lights up the interior steps. The light fixture is only about 3/4 of an inch by two inches. The incandescent bulb in this little fixture gets very hot and over time it has melted the plastic fixture. Surprisingly it was still working. John thought he had an LED bulb and socket which would fit and he brought it by this morning. LEDs burn much cooler than incandescent and use less power as well. We cut the wires to the small fixture and took it apart. Here is a picture of the bulb section. At some point it was going to short out I'm sure.

Here is a picture of the fixture with the LED socket and bulb installed and a piece of black plastic over it to help reflect the light downward.

Here is a picture of the fixture re-installed over the door with the LED light burning. A nice improvement. Thanks John.