November 4th - November 10th - Tailgate Latch - Truck Battery - Trip to Fort Wayne - Homer is Home - Several Homer Issues

My Blog Reflection

After the game, the King and the pawn go into the same box.

Italian Proverb

November 4, 2024

After doctor appointments this morning I ordered a new tailgate latch.  It will arrive on Thursday. I then called the transmission shop in Fort Wayne and they said Homer was ready to roll. With all that is going on here we can’t go to pick him up until Friday. 

Next I unloaded the truck with everything we brought back from California. One item we brought back was a like new twin mattress Annie had and wanted to get rid of. Although I have a bed cover for the truck, with all the hard rain we drove through, the mattress got a little wet on the bottom on the end near the tailgate. (The cover clearly does not seal water tight at the tailgate.) The top of the mattress was not wet, only the bottom that sat on the truck bed floor. I put a fan on the mattress and got it dried out. While it dried out nicely there was a resulting water stain across the mattress bottom. I went online to see if there was a way to get this stain out. I read that I should spray it with vinegar, put a towel over the area, and then iron over it with a hot iron. I did this and the stain came out entirely! Good info for the future. 

November 5, 2024

I took the truck in to the shop to be be serviced after the long trip out West. Over the last year I have been dealing with the battery going dead after the truck sat for a few days. I was sure there was a phantom draw because I had replaced the Walmart battery three times in a year because each one checked bad.  What are the chances of getting three bad batteries? My mechanic found no phantom draw and said the newest Walmart battery was bad as well. He had me install one of his batteries and try it for a month. It has worked perfectly. 

Instead of just using the Walmart battery for a core exchange for the battery from my mechanic, I took it to Walmart to see about a refund. I absolutely did NOT want another Walmart battery. After relaying my year long saga with their batteries, and after them checking this battery and finding it bad, they gave me a gift card for $119.00. They said they changed battery companies the first if the year. I don’t care I will still never buy another Walmart battery.

November 8, 2024

It is an eight hour trip from Perryville to Fort Wayne, Indiana. We left Perryville early in the morning in order to get Homer out of the transmission shop in Fort Wayne, Indiana, before they closed at 5:00 p.m. Upon arrival we paid the bill for the transmission rebuild and headed to Jim and Marilyn’s driveway to spend the night. This will be our last time driveway mooching at their house because they are selling their home and moving into an apartment. We had a great visit with them Friday night and headed to bed. It was about forty-five degrees outside so it was time to turn on the furnace. It hadn’t been used in over a year but fired right up and warmed Homer in no time. 

November 9, 2024

I slept like a rock and when I woke up it was daylight, unusual for me. I’m usually up way before it is light outside. The four of us visited over a nice cup of coffee and then we headed home at 9:00 a.m. Homer ran great all the way home. East of St. Louis the rain started and it rained pretty good all the way to Perryville. We arrived home at 4:00 p.m. After thirteen weeks in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Homer is happy to be home!

November 10, 2024

Today I winterized Homer. This is a multiple step process: 

1. Drain all the water out of the system. 

2. Take everything out that can freeze.

3. Put pink antifreeze in the water tank and turn the water on at each location to get the antifreeze pumped through the pipes.

4. Pull out the house batteries and put them on a trickle charger in the garage.

5. Put Homer in the storage shed and pull the chassis battery out and put it on a trickle charger in the garage.

While putting the antifreeze in I noticed that all of the pop rivets holding on the two  top hinges on the door frame had broken off. I had put a couple of shims in earlier in the year on the door side to help the door close better. I was shocked to see this. Here is a picture.

I drilled out the rivets and installed all new rivets. Here is a picture. I will have to watch this over the coming months to see if there is some other issue going on with the door.

Upon completing this repair I raised the hood to check the chassis battery voltage. When I did I noticed that the brake master cylinder cap was missing! 

While Homer was in Fort Wayne waiting for the transmission to be rebuilt one of the front rotors seized up. He had to be taken to a different repair shop to get the caliper replaced. Obviously the mechanic neglected to replace the cap. I looked all around the engine compartment and it was nowhere to be found, not surprising after a 445 mile drive home. I went to Autozone looking for a replacement. They had a cap that said it fit all Fords. Unfortunately, it didn't. It was the right size but it just flopped and wouldn't tighten. I then went to O'Reillys Auto Parts and they did not have one. They suggested that I go to a "You Wrench It" place in another town to find one off a wreck since Homer is so old. It was Sunday and I couldn't do that. I looked at the cap I bought at Autozone and noticed it did not come with a gasket. No gasket was the problem. I drove to Buchheit's and purchased a couple of gaskets to try. None of them worked. I then looked in my plumbing supplies and found a sink drain gasket. It, along with an o-ring I had on hand, did the job. Here is a picture of the cap installed so no more dirt gets in the brake fluid.

Next on the winterizing list was to remove the house batteries. Homer has two 6 volt batteries. They fit quite tightly in the compartment and it is always a pain to get them out. This time it was worse but I couldn't tell why. I got them out and noticed a pool of water in the back of the steel battery box. I had never seen that before. When I investigated I found that the entire battery box had pulled down about an inch and a half from the four bolts in the floor above . The metal was stressed and tore due to years of the heavy battery box bouncing down the road.  Two batteries in the box I am sure put more stress on the box. Here are a couple of pictures.

Water in the battery box.

The metal flange torn away from the floor above on one corner.

The box tore away from the floor bolt on the other side as well. The arrow points to the bolt with broken metal above it and the gap in the back of the box.

Another view of the damaged area.

In the next two pictures you can clearly see that old age and rust played a big part in this failure.

The arrow points to the bolt pulled out of the floor and the box hanging down.

All that held the battery box on to the motorhome was four bolts through the floor above. Years of bouncing down the road, rust, and weight caused this failure. I am so so happy I noticed this before another trip. If the battery box and batteries had fallen out going down the road it would have caused MAJOR damage to Homer and maybe even an accident. 

Fabricating a new battery box mounting system will be quite challenging. It will require designing heavy metal outriggers that will jut out from the vehicle frame to hold the weight of the box from below rather than from on top where the metal has torn away. There are lots of vehicle cables, etc. in the frame area to complicate matter. This repair is way too complicated to take on before we leave for Florida next week. Once I get Homer out in the spring my plan is to fabricate an outrigger with angle iron I have on hand. I will then take my prototype to the welding shop in town and have them make a much stronger one with much heavier metal to be permanently installed.

Years ago I welded brackets to lock the generator slide in position. While winterizing the generator I noticed that one of the locks had fallen out.  You can see the hole where the locking bracket screws into.

Here is a picture of the bracket on the other side which remained in place but was quite loose. I will have to redesign this part.

After all of the issues after getting Homer home he is now is in the storage shed and the house and chassis batteries are on trickle chargers in the garage. 

Several projects for next spring wait me.