August 12 - 23, 2024 - Homer Door Adjustment - Campout Trip - Headlight Lenses Restored - Battery Replacement

I noticed that it was becoming necessary to slam Homer's entry door to get it to catch properly. Upon investigating I found that the door was sagging a bit, causing the door latch prongs to hit the door jam striker plate. The slamming action would lift the door into the striker plate slots. The latch prongs and striker plate slots should be even so the door latches without a lot of effort.

To address the problem I made aluminum shims and placed three under the lower hinge and two under the middle hinge. Here is a picture of one set of shims. The arrow points to the shims. I also found one of the screws on the middle hinge had broken off so I replaced it.

The shims moved the bottom of the door toward the lock side of the frame but the striker plate on the jam was still too low. Here is a picture of the lock guides hitting the striker plate on the top and bottom. Sorry for the poor picture quality.

The striker plate needed to be adjusted down by loosening the two Philllips head bolts in the picture below. 

These bolts had probably never been moved and I soon found that I could not budge them with a screwdriver. Luckily, last winter, at a garage sale in Florida, for $5.00 I purchased a screw impact tool.  Here is what the set looks like.

This is a tool I will rarely use but when it is needed, like now, it is worth its weight in gold. How it works it that you put the appropriate bit in the tool, place it in the screw or bolt head, and then strike the tool with a hammer several times. The impact action slightly turns the bit, thus loosening the screw or bolt. I put the Phillips bit in the tool and hit it several times with a hammer. Both bolts loosened allowing me to adjust the striker plate down. Money well spent! Success. The door shuts much better now.

August 17, 2024

At 6:00 a.m. we headed out in Homer for a campout with friends in Ortonville, Michigan, and then an RV club campout in Pierre Marquette State Park in Illinois.

On our way we were stopping overnight in Fort Wayne, Indiana, to visit friends Jim and Marilyn. We mooch camp in their driveway. 

Last fall we spent $1,800.00 getting the transmission fixed on Homer and thought everything was well. We made a four hundred mile trip, no problem, a five hundred mile trip, no problem. We got three hundred miles to Terre Haute, Indiana, and the transmission acted up again, the same problem as before. We were able to make it to Fort Wayne, Indiana. 

August 18, 2024:

We spent the night at Jim and Marilyn's and decided to head back home early in the morning to get Homer back to the transmission shop. Upon leaving their place the transmission acted up immediately. We headed back to their driveway to spend another night until we could call a transmission shop on Monday.

August 19, 2024:

First thing in the morning we got a recommendation for a transmission shop and Jim drove me over there to discuss the problem. We were told they could work on it but that they couldn't look at it for a couple of days. I then contacted my towing insurance who sent out a wrecker. Here is a picture of Homer being hooked up and a video of him being towed off for the first time ever.

While waiting for the tow truck Jim drove me to the airport, about fifteen minutes away, to rent a car to get home. We borrowed coolers to hold our cold food and bagged the other groceries and our clothes in trash bags. We left at noon and got home at 7:00 p.m. Quite a disappointment. The transmission folks asked for copies of the invoices for the transmission work done last fall so they could start from there. I got those emailed. I hope they can find the problem this time.

August 20, 2024:

We had to have the rental car back by 11:30 a.m. so we took a quick trip to Cape Girardeau to get that done. 

August 21, 2024:

Not planning on being home this week, and with time on my hands, I decided to polish the yellowed and foggy headlight lenses on the truck. The truck was recently detailed but apparently that was not part of what I paid for.

I opened the door to the truck to back it out and immediately found the battery totally dead. This has happened several times over the past year. The truck was in the shop last month trying to find a phantom draw on the battery. They could not find one but did find that the second Walmart battery I had put in this year was bad. It was still under warranty so I took it back to Walmart for a third battery. 

The truck sat for about a week and again a completely dead battery.  I called my mechanic to schedule an appointment to find the battery draw. I think the odds of getting three bad batteries from Walmart in a year is astronomical but my mechanic thinks otherwise. He had me come to the shop the next day to get a battery of the brand they install and try it for a month before they start spending time and money looking for a draw on the battery. 

Once the truck was charged up I got it out of the garage and began to work on the headlight lenses. I neglected to take a picture of the headlight lenses, which were foggy and yellowed. Both polished up nicely using cleaner wax and a buffer. I did, however, take a picture of the fog lights, which clearly had never been cleaned before. Here is a before and after picture.

While polishing the fog lights one light appeared loose so I crawled under to see what that was about. As I crawled under I found that one of the bolts that holds on the metal skid plate under the engine was broken off. This was allowing the plate to vibrate a little. Not good. 

I got busy drilling the broken bolt out. Pushing the drill up while laying on your back is a pain. With the help of about five different drill bits I finally got the broken bolt drilled out. I then took another bolt out and went to Buchheit's to get a matching bolt. I have hundreds of similarly sized bolts but none of them are metric. Once home the bolts were reinstalled and the skid plate is secure. Ready for a trip to California in October!

 

August 22, 2024:

When I went to start the truck in the morning to get the new battery, it did not have enough charge to start even though I charged it the night before. I charged it up, picked up the new battery, and installed it. We will see how this battery lasts. Actually, I hope my mechanic is right that the Walmart batteries are junk! This would be a cheap fix.

Late afternoon Kelly came home from a meeting and told me that there was a rock chip in the middle of the windshield of her 2021 Acura. Great! I called the insurance company because they will pay for a chip repair. I then called Liberty Glass in town and they scheduled me in for an appointment at 9:00 a.m. the next day.

August 23, 2014:

By 9:15 a.m. the chip was repaired. Hopefully no more vehicle issues this month!