June 2 - 10, 2024 - A Small Homer Repair - 110 Volt Problem in Homer - Trip to Cuba ---- Missouri that is!

Sewer Hose Holder Repair:

A couple of years ago the screws holding the sewer hose tube bracket to the fender of Homer fell out. I installed new screws.  A month ago I notice that both of the screws again worked loose and fell out. Here is a picture of each side with the screw missing.

So that this will not happen again, I got two bolts with washers, lock washers, and nuts, and attached the bracket to the fender flare. These won't come loose and fall out.

While I was working on the sewer hose tube I addressed another issue - the cap for the sewer tube. 

I have to get down on my hands and knees and push the sewer hose into the tube for storage. While pushing the hose into the tube I have to line up the tabs on the cap with those on the tube, and then twist the cap to lock in it place. In a nutshell - it is a pain. To help line up the tabs, a couple of years ago I painted a white arrow on the cap and tube to help make the alignment. 

There is never a lot of light under the camper to see. While the white arrow helped, as you can see in the picture above, the black paint on the tube bracket, which is white, is wearing off. This has made it more confounding to line up the cap. I painted the arrow yellow to see if this will help.

In the picture above it looks like the magnetic catch I installed years ago to help keep the cap from vibrating loose may need a little adjusting.

110 volt Problem in Homer:

This past Wednesday we were heading to Cuba, Missouri, to camp with my sister, Renee, and her husband, Jim, at their campground. The refrigerator in Homer is an RV refrigerator. They are different from a home refrigerator. They operate on electric or LP gas but have no compressor. It takes a long time to get these refrigerators to temperature. Because of this we turn it on at least twenty-four hours in advance. I plugged in the fridge Tuesday morning. I checked on it Tuesday night and it was cold so we loaded it with our food. Wednesday morning around 10:00 a.m. we would head to Cuba.

Getting ready to leave I went out to unplug Homer from the house. Before I did I went inside Homer I found that the electric was off. The voltage meter in the kitchen receptacle was black - no electric. I had electric at the receptacle on the house. I unplugged Homer and plugged him back in, no electric. I then started the generator. It started but no electric appeared on the voltage meter. Not good. I put the refrigerator on gas to keep the food cold and got to work looking for the problem.

I suspected something must have tripped when we lost electric briefly earlier in the morning. Since there was no electric from either the house plug nor from the generator, I suspected the transfer switch. The transfer switch is an electronic switch that makes sure you do not get electric from the generator and from the electric plug at the same time. 

I opened the transfer switch box and studied the diagram inside the box, which, of course, was mounted sideways. I disconnected the electric cord and the first set of wires coming into the box. Unfortunately at this point I didn't have the good sense to take a picture of the wires in the switch box before I disconnected them.

I wired them together in an attempt to bypass the switch. No electric. I disconnected those wires and connected the other set of wires, which appeared to be from the generator. It immediately tripped the house breaker. No electric.

I then opened the 110 volt electric panel and tried to find power there. No power. I popped out the main breaker and tested it for continuity. It appeared to be operating on and off correctly. I was now out of ideas and soaking wet with sweat from my efforts.

Kelly and I discussed the situation. If we went on our camping trip we would have no 110 volt AC - no air-conditioning, no outlets for fans, etc. The refrigerator would run on LP but would need 12 volt DC from the batteries for its circuit board. All of the lights are 12 volt DC and work off the batteries.

Homer has a built in battery charger but with no electric to the coach, it wouldn't charge the batteries. Three days of draw on the batteries would surely kill them. We would need an external battery charger to keep the batteries charged. I had an external battery charger. This would work. Kelly checked the weather and thought it would be cool enough for us to sleep at night without air-conditioning. We set off for Cuba.

Wednesday:

When we got to the campground I hooked up the battery charger by plugging it into the electric pedestal. Its fan did not come on. This was not right, the fan always comes on when charging. What are the chances that my battery charger wouldn’t work? Since I needed a working charger Jim drove me a couple of miles to Walmart where I bought a new charger. We brought it back to the campground and, upon getting ready to open up the box and hook it up, I noticed that the fan on the charger I brought was running and it was charging the batteries. At the time I didn't know what was up with that. We let it charge rather than hooking up the new charger.

The charger worked fine throughout the campout but it would periodically kick off and not come back on. I would have to unplug it and restart it for it to go into charging mode. It may engineered to operate that way, i.e. once the batteries are at full charge it shuts off, I don’t know. If that's how it operates it made sense that it wouldn't charge when we first got to the campground because the batteries were fully charged. I ran an extension cord through the window from the electric pedestal for a box fan to keep us cool while sleeping. We were comfortable andboth slept well.

Thursday:

We cooked a huge breakfast and enjoyed our morning coffee. It was a beautiful day so Renee and Kelly went to the pool to work on their tans. Jim and I just hung out at the campsite. We had a nice campfire in the evening. It cooled down in the evening such that we didn't even need the fan to sleep.

Friday:

After breakfast we took the new charger back to Walmart for a refund. I told the clerk there was nothing wrong with it, it had never even been opened, and showed her the sealed box. She said she had to open it anyway to make sure the charger was in there. She said people often take things out of the box, seal it back up, and return it for a refund. Really? I guess in their minds that is not stealing. Sad.

Friday evening daughter Annie and her family drove out for dinner from St. Louis. They are visiting in Missouri from California for the month and are currently staying in an AirBnB in St. Louis for a couple of weeks. We had a nice steak dinner with baked potatoes, corn on the cob, salad, and bread. Annie and Adam then left the granddaughters, Violet, age seven, and Wren, age four, to stay with us overnight. While Grandma and Renee took them swimming, Jim and I built a fire for making smores when they returned. We rarely make smores because Kelly and I don't care for them. The girls loved them. Here are a couple of pictures.

Wren wanted hers without the Graham Cracker on top so she needed Kelly's help eating it without getting melted chocolate all over herself.

Here is Wren looking at me saying "I ate the whole thing!" while Grandma was making her another.

Violet ate several smores, which is great, because the remaining ingredients will go to waste.

After the girls were finished eating smores they got a kick out of watching a marshmallow laying on a board in the fire burn to a black crisp. It took much longer than I would have guessed.

It was now bedtime. In Homer Kelly and I sleep over the cab. If you make the couch into a bed you can’t use the ladder to get up into the overhead bunk. A very poor design. We weren’t keen on putting the girls up in the bunk with us on the folded out couch. We decided to put Violet on the couch, not folded out, and make the table into a small bed for Wren. It worked out great. Kelly put them both down about 8:00 p.m. and told them they could talk for a while. Ten minutes later I went in to check on them and they were both out cold.

Annie warned us that Wren periodically wakes up during the night crying while she is still sleeping. Kelly and I weren’t asleep for an hour and Wren started crying and was sitting up in the bed. It was fun climbing down the ladder, getting her to lay back down to sleep, and then climbing back up. Two hours later, the same thing, three hours later, another incident. I was then sleeping soundly when about 3:00 a.m. Kelly woke me up saying she heard thunder. With that there was a major flash of lightning.

The car seats were outside, the girls' swimming suits were outside, and the windows were all open. As the rain started I went outside and brought in everything while Kelly closed the windows. I got back inside and saw that the batteries were depleting. I was using a CPAP on 12 volt so it pulled down the batteries as well as the refrigerator. I went out in the rain and found that the charger had once again shut itself off. I restarted it, pushed it under Homer to get it out of the rain, and rushed back inside. It rained hard for quite a while. We were glad we reacted when we did. We were able to sleep until 6:30 a.m. when Violet was up and raring to go. Wren quickly followed suit.

We all got dressed, teeth brushed, and headed to Renee's camper for breakfast. Renee and Jim had their awning out all night, which provided a dry area, but most of the chairs got wet anyway. We were able to dry off an area on the picnic table large enough for all of us to enjoy a nice breakfast.

We didn’t hang around long after breakfast because everything was wet and the campsite muddy. In Homer I put the table up, put the car seats in place, and buckled the girls in for the trip back to St. Louis. We met up with Annie and Adam around 12:30 p.m., dropped the girls off, and then headed home. The whole gang will all be at our house for the last week of June.

When I got home I messaged my friend Gary, who is a retired heating and air technician, for help on determining the AC issue in Homer. He readily agreed to look at it on Monday. This was great news because we have another campout next week and will definitely need AC by then I'm sure.

We unloaded the food and clothes from Homer. It was pleasant outside so I took some time to move things around in Homer’s storage compartments to make setting up Homer to camp a simpler process. Prior to going on this campout items were stored based on traveling more than staying in one place for a few days. While I did this Kelly did the laundry. We had weekend leftovers for supper and then we chilled out for the evening. I slept like a log Saturday night.

Sunday:

Sunday was truly a day of rest. After church the only thing I did was drill some holes in the yard to put in fertilizer sticks for the Elm trees, pull out the old Dish satellite pole for disposal, and work on this blog.

Monday:

Gary arrived in the afternoon to diagnose what was wrong with the electric in Homer. It was soon clear that I threw him a curve when I disconnected the wires in the transfer switch without taking a picture first. He studied it for a while and soon figured out where the wires should be reconnected. Knowledge and expertise is a great thing! We had power!

We then moved to the generator. It would not start. It would not even click. It wasn't getting power from the batteries. We opened up the battery compartment and found two fuses. The first checked good, the second didn't. We replaced the fuse with the closest replacement we had on hand. It fired right up and produced electric. Gary verified that the transfer switch was working properly. All is well for our campout next week. I appreciated his help and expertise immensely.

I made a trip to O'Reilly's to get the correct replacement fuse. The one that was bad was 5 amp; 250 volt, and numbered 313. O'Reilly's had a 5 amp; 250 volt, numbered 312. They had no idea if that was the same as a 313 so I decided to pass and see what I could out find on the internet. I came home and did a search and learned that the number 313 meant "slow blow". I'm glad I didn't buy the 312. I ordered a "five pack" of the correct ones from Amazon. They should be here in about three days. It will be easy to install and now I will have a spare or two.

Our campout next week is at Lake Shelbyville, Illinois, at a Corps of Engineers campground. We were there some years ago and are looking forward to going back.

Our hosts have a great week planned out.

May 29 - June 2, 2024 - Small Items Fixed on Homer and a Water Heater Repair at the House

This blog is not like a blog on traveling to Greece but it gives you an idea of what I am up to while at home. 

Homer Hood Stop Replacement:

One plastic prong on one of the hood stops on Homer had broken off months ago. (Did I mention I hate most plastic parts?) When the hood is opened the stop just sat there, wobbling in the hole waiting to fall out. Over the last several months I tried to lock it in place using various caulks and glues that I had on hand. Not even E6000 worked for this issue. The stop just would not stay in place securely. Here is a picture of the opening the hood stop snaps into with a friction clip on each side, front and back.

I decided it was time to break down and order a new part at a cost of $9.95. It arrived and, after adjusting it to the same height as the one on the opposite side of the hood, I pushed it firmly into the hole. It popped into place and fits snuggly. It should serve its purpose for many years to come.

Homer Mop Storage:

After getting back from the campout in Hannibal Homer's floor needed to be mopped. The only mop we had available is a self-ringing twist mop that Kelly uses in the house. It is too large and too cumbersome for use in the small tiled area of Homer. I went to Walmart and purchased a cheap sponge mop. I do mean cheap. I have thrown away better mops over the years. The mop head is made out of a flimsy plastic and while the handle is metal, it is definitely not "heavy duty". I wouldn't have bought it but it is all they had and it will only be periodically used in Homer.  After mopping Homer's floor, I needed to find a spot in Homer to store the mop for future use . 

Homer has two closets. The first one is next to the refrigerator. It is small, less than a foot wide, and is stuffed full with our jackets, raincoats, fire poker, pie irons, etc. Not a good option. The other closet is in the bathroom. This closet is shorter because it has a raised floor under which is the hot water heater and the water holding tank. 

The distance between the closet floor and the shelf above the clothes hanging rod is a couple of inches shorter than the length of a mop or broom handle. A number of years back I installed a bracket in this closet for a broom and dustpan. For the broom I had cut three inches off the handle so it would fit. I only had to cut the handle off an inch and half to fit. Once I cut off the handle and reattached it to the mop head, I needed a spring bracket for the handle to snap into to hold it against the wall and out of the way in the closet. 

I was preparing to head to the hardware store when I thought to look through my boxes of brackets in the shop. As luck would have it I found an old, old bracket which had a screw attached to it for mounting it on a wall. I say this bracket is really old because it was among the hardware I inherited from my dad, who died over forty years ago. From the looks of the bracket it wasn't new when dad had it because of its old style and the chrome plating has rusting. Nevertheless, it suited my needs perfectly. I wanted it to screw into a substantial piece of wood, not just the 1/8 inch thick paneling which lines the closet. The brace holding up the shelf above the clothes rod worked perfectly.

Homer's Foggy Headlights:
    
We all know that plastic headlight lenses turn yellow as they age. The lenses on Homer were no exception. I had watched a couple of YouTube videos that showed a quick way to take the yellow off by spraying the headlights with bug spray containing "Deep", then wiping it off. I had two bottles in Homer so I gave it a try.  Here is a picture showing the bug sprayed lens on the left and the untreated lens on the right. 

I was amazed at the difference with less than two minutes work. The yellow immediately came off and onto the paper towel. I don't know how long this will last but it is so easy I won't mind doing it periodically. Homer is smiling because he looks ten years newer.

CPAP for Homer:

A friend gave me a CPAP machine he no longer uses. I ordered a new mask for it, reset it to my pressure after learning how to do it on YouTube. I will leave the machine in Homer so I will no longer need to drag the one at home in and out. Making life easier is always cool!

Water Heater Repair at the House:

Sunday morning when I took a shower it did seem that the water was as hot as usual. After church I looked into the problem. This is a picture of the water heater with the access panels removed to check the heating elements. The two Phillips screws visible on the bottom of each opening are located on the heating element. With the electric off you checked them for continuity, i.e. do they make a complete circuit. If the meter set on "ohms" gives a reading then the element is good. If there is no reading the element is bad.

The top element checked "good". The bottom element gave no reading - it was bad. After draining the hot water heater I unscrewed the bottom element using a large pair of Channellocks. Here is a picture of the burned out element once removed. It was clearly shot. I won't complain. It lasted 30 years. (Pretty well unheard of these days.)

I took the old element with me to Buchheit's to make sure the new one I purchased was the correct size. While there I decided to buy an "element wrench" to use to install the new element. I didn't want to take a chance on damaging the new element by using pliers to install it. The element was only $11.99. The element socket was $7.99. I may need this socket in the future if the top element goes out after doing double duty lately.

This water heater element socket is one more tool added to my arsenal. One can never have enough tools it seems. 

Speaking of tools, this whole repair was actually slowed down by my tools. Once the access covers were removed I grabbed my multimeter to test for ohms. On both elements I got no reading. That didn't make sense because I had hot water. Both elements couldn't be bad. I took the multimeter to the bench and opened it up. The 9-volt battery that powers it was dead. Of course, I didn't have a new 9-volt battery laying around so I hunted up another multimeter. I have at least four between the shop, the garage, and Homer. 

With the second multimeter the top element tested fine but the lower element did not. My trip to Buchheit's included getting a new 9-volt battery for the first multimeter. I installed it and it worked fine. 

In the protective case for the first multimeter there was a non-contact circuit tester. I decided to give it a test since I hadn't used it for a while either. It didn't work. I opened it up and found that both Triple A batteries had leaked and corroded the inside. Fortunately, they did no damage. I cleaned the corrosion out. I always have Triple A batteries on hand. I installed new ones and the circuit tester worked fine. Both the multimeter and the tester are ready for the next project.

 

 

 

May 20 - 24, 2024 - Carri-Yals RV Rally in Hannibal, Missouri

We were only home a few days from Greece when we headed to Hannibal, Missouri, for an RV club campout/rally, from the 20th to the 24th of May. On Monday we had a beautiful day for the 185 mile drive from Perryville to Hannibal.

Monday:

Here is a picture of our five rigs at the campground. The motorhome in the middle is the only rig that was not part of our club. Homer, in the number two slot, looks a little lost among the larger campers but he doesn't mind.

Our hosts, Jim and Bev, provided a supper of sloppy joes, baked beans, chips and dessert. All yummy.

Tuesday:

In the morning we headed to the "Mark Twain Interpretive Center" to begin a walking tour of Mark Twain's boyhood home and historical buildings. This is where Mark Twain lived as a boy. This area provided him with inspiration for the characters in his books. Here is a picture of the area. Upstairs in the building on the left is where young Sam Clemens (Mark Twain) lived after his father died.

At eleven years old, to help support the family, young Sam went to work in a print shop across the street from his home. 

The walking tour of the buildings ended with a walk through the "Mark Twain Museum" a block away. It housed many displays of life back when Hannibal was a major river town and commercial stop on the Mississippi River. 

We had lunch at the "Mark Twain Dinette" up the street, which is known for its home-made root beer, and then an ice cream at "Becky's Ice Cream Parlor" nearby.

Walking and driving around town over a couple of days I was impressed by the number of old buildings they have been able to keep occupied and in great shape. They are painted in many different colors. I didn't remember this the last time we were here about twelve years ago.

After lunch we headed back to the campground. Before arriving there we drove up to "Lovers Leap" which was nearby. The view of the river valley from there was incredible. Many enjoyed checking out all of the locks on the fence and on the hearts put on by lovers. 

The projecting rock is the actual "Lovers Leap" rock, which is named for an Indian couple who are believed to have jumped from there.

The spot provided a great backdrop for a group picture for club memories.

After resting up a bit at the campground it was time to head out for a nice supper at Fiddlesticks, a large restaurant on the edge of town. I ordered shrimp scampi and couldn't eat it all. A take home box was in order.

Wednesday:

First thing in the morning we took a Trolley Tour of Hannibal which originated at the campground. Our driver constantly filled us with facts about Hannibal. We drove down "Million Dollar Row" where people with money lived back in the day. Here are a couple of pictures of the homes. All were very stately.

At the end of the street the driver stopped to point out to us the "Labinnah Social Club Building", which is just a few blocks up from the river. In the steamship days when passengers disembarked in strange towns they didn't know a safe place to go for food and shelter. The custom along the river was to name a building, which was a safe place, the name of the city spelled backwards, thus Labinnah. The building is a cafe today.

 

After touring the town the driver headed out of town to "Riverside Park" high up on the bluff. The park is 300 plus acres which were donated to the city with the condition that it never be used for anything but a park. The view of the river from this bluff was so picturesque.

After the trolley tour we had lunch at "Becky Thatcher's Diner". It is a small, quaint establishment that gives you the feeling of stepping back into a 1950s diner. Here is a picture of the diner and our group getting ready to order food.

From the diner we headed to the campground to see the "Mark Twain Live Show" in the theater. The gentleman did a wonderful job telling a Mark Twain story which lasted right at an hour.

After chilling our for a couple of hours we headed to supper at the "Brick Oven", which is known for wonderful oven-baked pizzas. Kelly got a small pizza which she said was quite good. I ordered "Meat Ravioli in Sauce". It was great. Nothing was left on my plate.

Thursday:

Our hosts provided a variety of donuts from a local donut shop for breakfast. I had two different ones and one was better than the other. We then had a quick club meeting and dispersed until going back to town for lunch at Cassano's Pizza and Subs. Everyone was pleased with the meal there as well. 

From the restaurant we headed for a tour of the "Rockcliffe Mansion", on a high hill in Hannibal. The home was built by a wealthy lumber dealer. It took from 1898 to 1901 to build it. Before building the home he had the house that was located on the spot he wanted moved next door. Here is a picture. The house in the background was moved to make room for the new mansion. It was no small feat to move a large house back in those days. We were told that they did it by rolling the house on logs to its new location.

The Rockcliffe Mansion is an impressive structure which is in terrible condition on the outside. When the gentleman who built it died many years ago, his wife moved in next door with her daughter. She left everything in the house, including the family's clothes. It sat empty and neglected for forty years.

During its long period of neglect at times kids broke in and damaged some areas of the house but luckily the damage was limited. Here are some pictures of the inside. All of the woodwork and fireplace mantels were mahogany and each fireplace surround was Italian marble.

The kitchen had a state of the art stove. The table in the kitchen was for the servants to eat at.

The furniture in the bedrooms upstairs was all mahogany as well as the fireplaces.

This is the linen closet on the second floor. Every door and drawer opens and closes as if new. You couldn't buy wood like that today for any price.

The lady of the house had all the woodwork and fireplace mantels in her and the children's rooms painted white to make the rooms brighter.

The home was electrified and had central heat with each room being individually regulated by a thermostat. Quite sophisticated for that day and age.

The bathrooms were state of the art and this tub/shower had a mixing tank to regulate the hot and cold water going to the showerhead.

Other bathroom fixtures were the best money could buy at the time.

This is the library, again all mahogany, and with the original embossed wallpaper. Look at the size of the crown moulding!

This is what an electric plug looked like in 1898. It was the size of a match box with a prong on each side separated by a massive insulator. It still works.

The third floor had a ballroom and bedrooms for the servants. The ballroom was quite large, had a raised area in the corner for the band to sit on, and an alcove with a fainting couch for the ladies.

The family used the ballroom as a game room and play room.

Here is a picture of one of the servants bedrooms. Not shabby by any means. this bed has been added. The servants would have slept in twin beds lining the walls. Thee servants not only had their own bathroom but also had a sink in the room so more could wash up at a time.

These bedrooms are now used as a B & B for much needed income.

Our tour guide was Juan, who has owned the building for the last twelve years. We thanked him for saving it from further deterioration. It was quite fascinating to see how the rich lived in 1900. The house with furnishings cost $250,000 in 1898. I can't imagine what it would cost today. What do you think this Tiffany stained glass window on the stair landing alone is worth?

Heading again toward the campground Jim turned onto the road that led to the old "Riverside Cemetery" high up on the hill.

  

It was a very, very rough road up to the top with a couple of switchbacks. There were many old graves and a Jewish section which was fenced off.

Of course being up on the bluff there was a nice view of the river valley below. A beautiful final resting place for many.

After all touring was done we had dinner back at the campground. We roasted hot dogs and complimented them with backed beans, chips, and ice cream for dessert, all furnished by our hosts. As the mosquitoes started biting we all bid each other farewell and went into our campers. 

Friday:

Each rig pulled out on its own schedule. We headed out early to avoid some incoming rain. We had a marvelous time and were blessed with good weather the entire week. Our next outing will be in June at a Corps of Engineers campground at Lake Shelbyville, Illinois. We are looking forward to it. A great bunch of people to share time with.