May 2021

The week of May 9th we had our first campout of the year with the Carri-Yals club. It was held at Whittington Woods campground at Rend Lake. It was a little chilly all week long but luckily we had an activity room we could use to have our meals in. The cooler weather made for great campfires.  Here is a picture of the group after touring the Information Center at Rend Lake. Celina is missing because she left early to attend her grandson's graduation in Oklahoma.

Getting back home I got to work again on the carburetor issue with the generator in Marge. I have dumped several bottles of carburetor cleaner in it over the last two months with no improvement in performance. It starts and runs fine but surges whenever the load is changed. I had a local mechanic look at it and he determined that it definitely is a carburetor issue. (Thank you ethanol.) 

The generator is out of a 1985 motorhome so getting parts is a real problem. There have been several different carburetors used over the years on this size generator. After much searching on the internet, and studying the carburetor while on the generator, I finally found "Walbro" stamped on the carburetor and contacted that company. They said that that carburetor hasn't been made for 35 years. I would need to send them the number stamped on the carburetor flange to determine a rebuild kit. They didn't have any kits anymore but could tell me what kit to order if I could find one on the internet. They told me where to find the carburetor number. I couldn't see the number anywhere so I had to pull the carburetor off to find the number.  Here is a picture of the carburetor. The number I needed was stamped on the very bottom edge.

I emailed the carburetor number to Walbro and they told me the kit I needed. Luckily I found one on the internet and ordered it immediately because they only had two kits left. I received the kit in a few days and I am now waiting for the mechanic to pick the carburetor and kit up for rebuilding. The carburetor will need to be boiled out then rebuilt. I'm hoping he can get started on it this week sometime because we will be leaving for two weeks to go fishing in Minnesota.

Grandson Kellen graduates eight grade on Friday in California and on Saturday he will fly into St. Louis to go with us to Minnesota. We will pick him up at the airport and head north. It will be great fun. Big fish pictures to follow!

April 2021

The end of March I had Marge washed and waxed in Florida. Our RV site in Florida is under a huge oak tree. The whole winter leaves drop, then pollen pods drop, then acorns. This all makes for an ongoing mess on Marge's roof and sides. This was the first time I ever let anyone else wash or wax her. Two guys did it in four hours. It takes me four days or more. Of course they didn't buff it, etc. like I do but it will provide protection for about six months.

The trip home from Florida was uneventful except for a huge traffic delay about 30 miles south of Atlanta that slowed us down an hour. We never did see any reason for such a lengthy delay of traffic. The delay put us in downtown Atlanta at rush hour. While traffic was bad at least it moved at a decent pace. 

We stopped for the night north of Atlanta at Cabella's and stayed on the parking lot. This worked out well since when leaving in the morning we didn't have to go through Atlanta rush hour. We arrived home around 3 p.m. and spent the next hour unloading all the food and clothes out of Marge. 

After spending several months in Marge there are always things that need to be repaired, improved, etc. While in Florida the porch light quit. I did a post on its replacement. In Florida I did not have the proper materials to seal it properly. I have removed it and sealed it at home. 

One of the things that has been bothering me is the lenses on the "scare" lights on each side of the fifth wheel have yellowed considerably from age making the entire RV look "old". I ordered new ones and installed them. Here is a before and after picture. 

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Over the course of the winter the LED lights I installed several years ago over the sink burned out. I wasn't impressed with their lack of longevity. Aren't LEDs supposed to last 50,000 hours? Not these. I'd be surprised if they had 500 hours on them. I ordered different ones. I also learned from the installation of the old LEDs that they generated too much heat to be boxed in. I want something bright for this area so I ordered LED flood lights that are made to go on the front bumper of an off road vehicle. I mounted these externally using the brackets they come with. I installed them both on the wooden mounting box I had built some years back but I didn't like that because the light is still in back of you when you are working at the island. To remedy this I attached a wooden arm so that one of the lights extends over the island. We will try this set up for a trip or two. If we like it I will make an nice "L" shaped wooden box for the lights to be mounted to permanently. Here is a picture of the new temporary setup.

I still can't get the generator to run right. In fact today it burned up my converter/charger so I will have to buy a new one. I have the name of someone locally who may work on these generators. If that fails I will pull  it out and buy a new inverter generator. It won't be nearly as convenient but it will work for the limited times we use it.

A couple of years ago neighbor John in Florida gave me a folding table with a plastic top. Something had burned a hole in the top so I patched it with Bondo. My Bondo repair cracked so I worked on it again. This time I broke out the burned area and placed screen in the hole to help hold the patch. I also spread the patch out wider to strengthen it. We will see how it holds up.  When I patched it last time I painted the patch beige to match the rest of the top. The beige showed every little spot so we decided to paint it gray. We will see how this patch and this color hold up.

We didn't take the big under cabinet fridge to Florida this year and decided an outside fridge is quite handy. The under cabinet fridge is large, old, and heavy. It was hard for me to load and unload so I bought a used mini-fridge the other day for us to take next year. It is much easier for me to handle and is plenty big enough for our cold drinks. Here is a picture of it cleaned up and ready for action.

I'll keep you posted on the generator and converter/charger.