April 28 - 30, 2024 - A Short Train Trip to Hermann, Missouri, for John's Birthday

Several weeks ago John said he wanted to take the train to Hermann, Missouri, for a few days to celebrate his birthday and asked if we wanted to come along. It sounded like fun. He arranged getting the train tickets and rooms in the "Inn at Hermannhof". We were up at 5:30 a.m. on Sunday for them to pick us up at 6:30 a.m. for the drive to Kirkwood, Missouri, to catch the train to Hermann.

When we got in the car John told us that Amtrak messaged him at 2:30 a.m. that the train was canceled due to a derailment but they would provide a bus to get us there. We arrived at the train depot, paid to park for three days, and, upon entering the train depot, were advised that they couldn't find a bus. Come back tomorrow. That wouldn't work for us since we had rooms reserved. We had a car so we would drive there. One lady there said that she had to get to Kansas City. She offered Carlene $500.00 to drive her to Kansas City. We hoped she found a way to get there. We took the "Lincoln Train" to Hermann:

We drove to Hermann, arriving much earlier than the train would have. We parked and went into the "Inn at Hermannhof" where we had reservations for the next two nights. We were too early for check-in but they allowed us to leave our bags there. We would be notified by text when the rooms were ready. Great.

We headed across the street to get something to eat at the "Hermann Wurst Haus".

We arrived at 10:00 a.m. They didn't start serving lunch until 11:00 a.m. so we settled for their "all you can eat buffet breakfast". It was $35.00 for the two of us. I should have looked at the buffet before paying for it. I won't make that mistake again. Each item was spooned out by a lady behind the buffet table. One item looked less appetizing than the next. If she hadn't told me what they were I couldn't have identified any of them except the bacon. The "biscuits and gravy" was gravy (with no meat in it) slopped over a square hockey puck, the "cheese and hash browns" were a mushy mess the consistency of oatmeal with absolutely no taste, the "scrambled eggs and ham" tasted like a month old quiche, and the "bacon" was so salty you could hardly eat it. The meal came with a drink. I got a bottle of apple juice, which was the best part of the whole meal. Awful, just awful.

After that lovely meal we walked down the street to the trolley yard. There you can catch a trolley which takes you to all the wineries for a mere $25.00 per person per day. It was Sunday and the trolleys were parked there but no personnel to be found. The trolley did not run on Monday but was supposed to run on Sunday. John called the office and they soon sent Patrick in a white van to collect our money and take us to the first stop on their route.

We first visited the "Adam Puchta Winery", the oldest family owned winery in the country. It was $14.00 for a tasting. Kelly liked their Norton and bought two bottles.  Randy Puchta was the Associate Judge in Gasconade County for a number of years and I met him several times at judge's training years ago. His grandson is operating the winery now. The trolley driver picked us up and kept the wine for us so we didn't have to carry it around from place to place. Convenient.

We next visited "Stone Hill Winery", the largest and oldest winery in the area going back 175 years. We skipped a tasting but took a tour of their wine cellars, which were all hand dug over a period of twenty-five years. The winery was started in 1847 just ten years after the town was founded in 1837. It grew exponentially until prohibition when the cellars were converted to mushroom growing and the buildings were allowed to deteriorate. In 1965 a local farming couple, with no wine making experience, purchased the property, and built it back up as an award winning winery. With 200 acres of vineyards its not the largest winery in Missouri but it has won the most awards. In 1979 the Carriage House and Stables were converted into a nice restaurant with a German menu. We made reservations for super on Monday, for John's birthday dinner. Here are some pictures of the cellars. Only a few of the old original barrels survived Prohibition.

Missouri was the largest wine producing state in the country prior to Prohibition.

From there we took the trolley to "Copper Mule Distillery". There are now several distilleries in the area to take advantage of all the tourist traffic. This place was known for their slushy whiskey drink. We didn't do a tasting there either but enjoyed one the slushy whiskey drinks.

From there the trolley headed to "OakGlenn Winery". It is high on the bluff overlooking the Missouri River Valley. A beautiful view. Kelly did a tasting and bought a glass of wine.

Up on this bluff was the only time we experienced bad weather, although we had expected it could rain all day. It drizzled just enough to force us up on the deck area to enjoy our drink. From there we caught the trolley to the inn and checked in. Here is a picture of one of the painted doors and our hallway. Exceptionally well done.

Our room on the third floor was outstanding, one of the nicest we have ever been in. Here are a couple of pictures.

The lady at the desk recommended the "Tin Mill Brewery and Restaurant" across the street for supper.

After relaxing in our rooms for a couple of hours we had a great meal there of prime rib followed by creme brulee dessert using coupons the Inn provided us.

Monday breakfast was provided at the inn. Breakfast is cooked fresh each day and each day it is different. It was fabulous.

The trolley does not run on Monday so after breakfast we drove to the "German School Museum", which is housed in be the old German School built in 1871.

It was a fabulous museum packed with German memorabilia. We loved it. I learned several things. The first is that barbers used to be somewhat of a doctor and would "bleed" customers with this tool called a "bleeder". I had never heard of that before.

Another interesting item was a wooden bowling ball. I never knew bowling balls were made out of wood at one time.

Another interesting item was a cast iron lamb cake mold. I took an interest in this item because my son-in-law makes a lamb cake every Easter using his grandma's sheet metal mold.

After a renovation the original clock in the clock tower still works and keeps excellent time. They had a list posted with phone numbers of who was in charge of winding it daily. Quite interesting. The final item that caught my attention was the wear on each side of the oak stair treads from years of students going up and down.

From there we drove around town looking at all of the old brick homes and to the RV Park. The RV Park is owned by the city and now has a waiting list of up to two years to get in. We stayed there about twelve years ago before it was so popular.

From there we headed to the "Hermann Riverfront Park" to watch the river, which was five feet over flood stage. The current was quite swift from flooding up north. A crazy amount of large debris was floating down river and a crazy amount was gathering along the shore. Here is a video and some pictures.

A picture of John and Carlene at the park.

From there we drove back to the Inn, parked the car, and walked to a couple of wineries and distilleries nearby to use coupons we were given for free tastings . We had a tasting and a nice Rueben sandwich at the "Hermannhof Winery". From there we walked down the street to our final whiskey tasting at the "Black Shire Distillery". Here is Carlene trying to decide which one to sample first! I thought they were all pretty good.

Back at the Inn we relaxed for an hour before heading to the Stone Hill "1847 Restaurant" for John's birthday supper. For supper there were several options for German dishes. Several of us had the "German Trio", which was sauerbraten, schnitzel, wurst, with red cabbage. Yum!

It was to a beautiful day for all of these activities and Tuesday morning it was beautiful for a drive home. Now we have to get the laundry done, the grass cut, and pack before leaving early Thursday morning for a two week long tour of Greece. A blog of that to follow after we get home.

April 12 - April 26, 2024 - REPAIRS: Edger; Fountain; LP Grill; HHR Handle; HHR Speaker Replacements

Edger repair:

I have a John Deere lawn edger that is at least forty years old. I bought it from the County at an auction for $35.00 about fifteen years ago. It has a Briggs & Stratton engine and the edger itself is built like a tank. It hadn't been used in many years. I originally got it running by soaking the carburetor in carburetor cleaner for a couple of days. After about a year it wouldn't start so I took it to the shop. They had to rebuild the carburetor because the diaphragm inside had dried out from old age. After a carburetor rebuild I was back in business. 

The edger worked fine until last fall when it started dying while in use. I noticed that the bolts attaching the intake manifold were visibly loose. After I tightened them it would run but the bolts would quickly vibrate loose again. I decided to take it apart thinking I would have to tap new threads into the engine block and install a larger bolt to keep the manifold tightly in place. I was not excited at all about tapping into the cast iron block.

Another time last fall the small wire which comes out of the engine block area broke off. I didn't have the correct size of solid wire for a repair but I was able to solder on a piece of stranded wire which I had on hand. In the process of soldering on a new piece of wire, the circuit board, where it attaches to the intake manifold, broke in half. I superglued it back together and luckily it had been holding. While making the current repair I broke the little circuit board again. 

In this picture the red arrow points to the small circuit board and the green arrow points to the wire repair. 

I again repaired the circuit board with superglue but this time I reinforced it by super gluing on a fiber washer. 

The intake manifold is not easy to get off. I had to unbolt the motor from the frame in order to lift the motor high enough for the fuel tank to come off for access to the bottom manifold bolt. 

When I pulled off the intake manifold I could see that the threads on the top bolt in the block were worn off. I was going to begin the tenuous process of tapping new threads into the block when I had an idea. Maybe the inner threads were still good and a repair could be made just by using a longer bolt. 

I bought a longer bolt and it seemed to tighten up fine. Unfortunately the bolts only come in certain lengths. I was reluctant to cut it off leaving a rough end due to issues with the threads in the block. The new bolt bottomed out in the block. It did seem to tighten adequately though so I added a couple of extra lock washers to take up the slack. The lower bolt hole went all the way through the block so it tightened nicely. 

In addition to having to get the gas tank off to get to the bottom manifold bolt, it is a bugger to get out because of close proximity to the manifold. A socket wouldn't fit it and a closed end wrench wouldn't fit it. With an open end wrench you could only turn the bolt about an eighth of an inch at a time. To improve this issue I bought an Allen bolt for the bottom bolt. An Allen bolt has a much smaller head, making it easier to get the bolt out in the future.  The green arrows point to the new bolts installed. I put heavy duty "Lock Tight" on all the threads before inserting the bolts. I painted the top bolt and lock washers with white paint so I could monitor if it loosened.

After everything was back together I gave the rope several pulls but it would not start, this is not unusual for a gas motor which has been sitting over the winter. I sprayed a little carb cleaner into the carburetor and it fired right up. I edged the entire lawn with no problem. I'm hoping this repair will last my lifetime. 

I also decided it was a good time to replace the belt which was stretched a little and getting frayed. I couldn't believe this little belt cost $22.00, making this about a $30.00 repair.

Fountain repair:

John called the other day and said the fiberglass fountain in his front yard had a big crack in it causing all the water to leak out. He wondered if I could repair it. 

I had brought home from Florida a large piece of fiberglass mesh and the fiberglass resin left from the busted fender repair on the golf cart. This material would certainly work for this project. Here is a picture of the fiberglass repair after two layers of mesh and resin. 

Bondo is a putty-like material used in repairing rust holes and dents in cars. It sets up quickly and hard as a rock. We used this to repair a one inch hole in a separate fiberglass piece of the fountain. There were several cracks in this piece nearby so I spread Bondo all over the area to strengthen it. The Bondo color blends quite well with the surrounding "rock" look of the fountain.

Later, while looking at the smaller fiberglass piece closely I found another area with several cracks, probably just due to old age. Here is a picture showing several of the cracks before I spread Bondo over them to curtail the cracking. 

The following day I spread Bondo over the mesh repair on the large piece of the fountain. The repair is on the underside so it won't show. The fiberglass mesh and Bondo should make for a solid repair.

This picture shows Bondo spread over the additional cracks found on the smaller piece of the fountain.

The test is "Will it hold water?". I took the pieces outside and filled the larger one with water. It sat for two days and not a drop of water leaked out. It holds water, which is pretty important for a fountain. LOL.  John picked it up and reinstalled it in his yard. Good for another ten years we hope!

LP Grill Repair:

Outdoor propane grills quickly deteriorate due to their cheap metal construction. Kelly's theory is that they are built this way to sell new ones every few years. I believe she is right. These grills are not cheap to buy yet many components rust out in short order. Our current grill was given to me by John a couple of years ago when he bought a new one (because this one was rusting out). Even rusting out his was in better shape than the one I was using at the time. I have kept this grill and the previous one covered when not in use, but that does not seem to slow down the deterioration of the internal parts. 

One of the parts to rust away in a very short time is the tray located below the burners which catches the grease. You would think having a lot of grease on it that it wouldn't rust but it doesn't work that way. On this grill the tray had been repaired three times. I think John repaired it twice and I repaired it once with pieces of sheet metal. Here is a picture with arrows pointing to previous repairs.

As you can see, the edge of the tray has now rusted away allowing it to bend down and leaving no integrity for further repairs. The entire tray was hanging down ready to fall out. Because of this the grease has been running down and on to the LP tank below, making quite a mess. As you can see in the picture the factory tray had a square opening where the grease is supposed to run into a removable grease cup below.  

This tray is clearly beyond repair. One can probably buy a replacement online but I imagine it would cost more than the grill is worth. I came up with the idea to make my own tray using aluminum cookie trays, which would not rust. Kelly had one such cookie sheet in the cabinet. I went to Walmart and purchased a matching one for $12.00. (Of course I had to replace Kelly's cookie sheet so the parts actually cost $24.00.)

I had measured the area and determined that two of these cookie sheets screwed together would span the width of the grill. With the help of my grinder I cut off the corners of each pan and pounded one edge flat on each tray. The two pans then spanned the width of the grill with about an inch and a half overlap for attachment to each other.  I screwed the two sheets together and into a piece of plywood on the backside for support. I then bolted strips of metal to each lip to provide more needed strength. Here is a picture of my tray. The reinforcing metal strips are on the outside of the pans but you can see the four bolts on each end.

With a little "persuasion" to the metal frame above, the new tray slides in and out for easy cleaning in the future. There will be no box to collect grease. I will just have to check it more often to make sure the grease doesn't overflow. In this photo, with the tray installed, you can see the wood and metal supports.

This repair ain't "pretty" but it is out of sight and will clearly outlast the rest of the grill. While doing this repair I noticed that the metal wall that the backs of the burners mount to is rusting away as well. If I get use out of this grill for a couple of more years I will be happy. I refuse to pay the price of a new grill knowing how quickly they deteriorate. Used grills are readily available for purchase online for a quarter or less of the price of a new grill. I'll start looking for a replacement grill when the next component fails. LOL

HHR door handle:

Tuesday I ran some errands. When I got back home I pulled on the door handle to get out and heard a loud snap as it opened. I realized something broke because I had a floppy door handle hanging in the door. Here is a picture.

In looking behind the handle I could see that the handle was plastic and it had cracked. When it did the handle pulled off the pin and spring that are in place for it to operate properly. The yellow arrow points to broken the area. Did I mention I hate plastic? 

I got online to look for a replacement. I ordered a new plastic replacement handle for $9.99. A metal one is available for $21.50 but I figured the car (nor me) will be around long enough for another plastic handle to break. 

On another note, three out of four speakers in the HHR didn't work, both front ones, and one back one. I got online and learned that this is a common problem on the Chevy HHR for some reason. The inside door panel has to be removed to make the handle repair, as well as replacing the speakers. I ordered new speakers for the front doors so I could install them when I installed the new handle. I ordered OEM speakers so that I wouldn't have to deal with clipping the wires, adapting the speakers to the door, determining polarity, soldering on the wires, etc. It was $72.00 for the two speakers, which are "plug n play".  Both the handle and speakers arrived in two days. 

I figured putting the new handle on may take more than two hands so I asked John to come over and help with the install. Following a YouTube video we got the door panel off and went to work. I thought the hardest part of the install would be getting the new pin and spring in place. That proved quite easy once we figured out how the spring needed to be oriented. The more difficult step was reinstalling the cable that goes from the handle to the lock. It wasn't complicated but it proved a bit challenging. In any event, the handle was installed in about an hour and we were ready to install the new speaker in that door. 

The speaker has a lip on the bottom that fits into the door. The top is then bolted to the door. After we unbolted the top and popped off the speaker we found a wire tie bracket holding the wires to the speaker. This bracket keeps the wires from being pulled out of the plug on the speaker. I don't know how necessary it is but we wanted to install the new speaker exactly as the old one.

After a little bumbling around with it, John came up with the great idea of making it  easy on ourselves by just cutting the plastic section of the speaker that held the wire tie bracket to the speaker. We did that and then pushed the wire tie bracket into the new speaker, plugged it in, and tested it. Sound blasted, good as new. Also the door chime started working again. I never realized that sound came out of the door speaker. 

I did say we cut a section of the plastic speaker frame. I had never seen a plastic speaker frame before. The ones I have seen over many years were all metal. While I hate plastic, in this case the speaker frame being plastic made for an easier install.  

We got all the door panel clips reinstalled and found that the bolts in the arm rest would not line up. We had to pull all the clips out to determine what was the cause of this misalignment. We found that the middle of the door panel, where the arm rest is located, wasn't going in far enough for some reason. We adjusted the panel and upon snapping everything in place the bolt holes lined up. Here is a picture of the speaker grill which is built into the door. It all looks like new and sounds great.

After the driver door panel was buttoned up we moved to the passenger side to put a new speaker in that door. After installing the first speaker we knew that we did not have to take the entire door panel off to make a replacement. We only needed to pull the panel loose at the bottom far enough out to unbolt the speaker. This speaker install went like clockwork. Upon testing it also sounded like new. Now I have to decide if I want to buy a speaker for the driver side back which is out. A project for another day, if at all.

Here is a picture of one of the speakers we took out. Both speakers looked like new. I have no idea why they quit working but apparently this is a common problem with the Chevy HHR.

Speakers work by a magnet field moving the cone in and out. Over the years I have dismantled a number of old speakers to salvage the magnets. They are heavy duty and extremely useful around the shop. The bigger the magnet the better the speaker. Here is a picture of the two magnets I took out today. They are about three inches in diameter. Not very big per HI-FI standards.

A couple of weeks of projects completed since coming home from Florida. 

On Sunday we head to Hermann, Missouri, via a train ride along the Missouri River. We are going there for John's birthday. Hermann is an old, historic German town in a county with numerous wineries to visit (and spend money). They have a tram that takes you from one winery to the next so you can do a lot of tasting and/or drinking without having to drive. Unfortunately the tram does not run on Monday so we will have to do our "wine tour" on Sunday after we arrive. Monday we will just hangout, walk around the town, taste the local German "wursts", have a nice dinner, etc. Typical tourist stuff. 

We take the train back to St. Louis on Tuesday and then drive back to Perryville. Wednesday will be a packing day because we fly to Greece on Thursday for a two week tour on land and sea. We fly to Montreal, have a three hour layover, then a nine hour flight to Greece. I am not looking forward to the nine hour flight but I am looking forward to the sightseeing. It will provide many entries for the blog, which will be written when we get home. Stay tuned!     

 

 

 

  

 

   

April 8, 2024 - April 11, 2024 - Eclipse; Battery Hold Down Bracket; Monitor Mount; Sewage Leak; Loose Hose Storage Bracket

Eclipse:

Monday was the eclipse over North America and Perryville was almost dead center, creating an excellent venue for viewing. The entire city and surrounding areas were packed with viewers from miles around. Friends Carlene and John threw a party on their farm and generously provided food, water, and music for the event. I took Homer out for everyone to use for a much needed restroom. Here are a few pictures of the party revelers and Homer on duty before the eclipse and then as it started.

Holding a pair of eclipse glasses over the lens of my phone I tried to take some pictures of the event but they didn't turn out well at all. Others had better luck. Here are a couple of pictures of the total eclipse and partial eclipse as it moved from left to right. It was totally awesome.

Here is a picture of some of the group during the total eclipse. Notice that the dusk to dawn light came on. Several bats circled above as well. The temperature also dropped significantly.

After the total eclipse, as the sun started to come out from behind the moon, the sun light was not normal yellow sunlight but a bright white light, like an LED bulb. So strange.  What a wonderful day and event. All week they had been predicting rain and/or cloud cover but as it turned out there wasn't a cloud in the sky all day. I guess we were all living right. LOL 

Kelly and my sister, Renee, and her husband, Jim, headed back to the house in the HHR while I brought Homer home. They waited at the house for over an hour and half before leaving for St. Louis. They left at 5:30 p.m. and, due to a crazy amount of traffic, did not get home until 10:30 p.m. - FIVE HOURS. This is normally a 1.5 hour trip. Here are a couple of pictures of I-55 headed North out of Perryville several hours after the eclipse. While the traffic getting out of Perryville was awful those attending the event said it was well worth it. What an experience!

Tuesday:

When we brought Homer home last week I could not get the battery hold down in place when installing the chassis battery. It appeared to me that the nut on the battery tray that the bracket threads into was missing. Here is what it looked like from above. The red arrow points to the area where I thought a piece was missing.

I got online looking for a replacement piece. I found the hold down bracket available everywhere but never any mention of a mounting nut piece on the battery tray for the bracket to screw into. On YouTube I found a couple of videos of guys dealing with the hold down bracket bolt rusting and braking off in the tray. Never any mention of a battery tray nut. 

With this in mind I had to come up with my own solution. I looked through my "stuff" and found a couple of compression nuts and clips that I thought might work. I would have to figure out a way to mount one onto the battery tray.

Tuesday morning, after looking at the battery tray with a fresh set of eyes, I could not believe my stupidity. There was not a piece missing. The battery hold down bracket bolts to the battery tray on the inside of the battery not the outside, as I had been assuming. Looking on the inside of the battery tray I immediately saw the hold down nut there in the battery tray in plain sight. The red arrow points to it. In thirty seconds I had the hold down bracket installed. I'm and old and forgetful dope.

Backup Camera Monitor Mount:

The old backup camera monitor mount worked out spatially for the new backup monitor. However, the new monitor is larger and the new monitor was a little wobbly on the old mount. I wanted to improve this issue. The monitor is mounted on a portion of the dash that curves down to the right. I have been using a wedge of wood Velcroed to the dash to keep the monitor level and stabilized. I made a new, longer block of wood to support the larger monitor. I am happy with the result. Here is a picture with the arrow pointing to the wooden wedge.

While I was at it I updated the Garmin for future trips. I programmed in our next RV outing.

Waste holding tank issue:

When I was de-winterizing Homer I noticed a large wet spot under the waste tank valve and assumed it was leaking. I thought I remembered seeing a crack in the dump valve last year. It could now be a problem. I crawled under Homer and sure enough I found that the toilet dump valve and mounting flanges were cracked in two places. However, the valve and fittings were completely dry, even though there was waste water in the tank.

Replacing the valve itself is fairly easy because it just slips in between the flanges once the rusty bolts are removed. Unfortunately a new valve won't solve the problem because the mounting flanges are cracked as well. They are thirty year old plastic so what could I expect. (I hate plastic remember?) You can see the cracks on the corners of the flanges in the second picture above. 

Replacing the flanges is a time consuming job because the flanges are glued into the plastic pipe on each side for mounting of the valve. For a proper repair the rusty bolts will have to be taken out (probably cut out due to age), the dump valve removed, and the flanges, which are glued to the inside of the pipe on each side, removed very carefully by cutting slots in them and prying them out. One must be very careful not to damage the pipe on either side so that new flanges can be glued in place. 

Homer's restroom was used by a number of people during the solar eclipse party. There definitely was sewage in the tank yet sitting on the concrete driveway overnight there was not a wet spot anywhere to indicate a leak. I dumped the tanks and filled each one with about five gallons of fresh water. Not a drop leaked. I am now thinking the wet area I saw under Homer during the de-winterizing process was not an issue with the valve area leaking at all. In any event, since it is not leaking now, I am not going to touch it. 

While crawling around under Homer in the general area I noticed that the storage tube for the waste water hose was loose. I quickly found that the mounting screw on each side of the bracket was missing.   

I suppose bouncing down the road jarred them loose and they fell out. I will replace the sheet metal screws with bolts and nuts. I know they won't come off. With that minor fix Home will be ready for the camping season. 

We have two trips lined up between now and the end of May, when we have the first campout with our RV club, but they do not involve the use of Homer so he will go back into the shed until then.