Category: Motorhome

Caballo State Park River Side, NM – Friday October 20, 2017

Worked on the coach today. 

When we left Zion the left turn signal on the pickup was not working when it was being towed.  When I set pickup up for towing I put in a separate light system. 

At Lee’s Ferry I figured out that power was not coming out of the coach.  At Sky City I found a broken wire under the coach frame. 
This wire was cut at one end and hanging by a few stands on the other end.  The nickel is for size. This morning we drive to Walmart for groceries and wire to fix the flasher.
The only color Walmart had was red and black, hopefully red will work. 
The yellow turn signal wire was broken on both sides of the main frame. It looks like the wire was pinched to cause the separation. The upper picture also shows a green wire with some sharp bends in it where it has been pinched.  I don’t see a pinch point where the wire could have been pinched, maybe this happen when the coach was assembled.   Don’t know.
Anyway I spliced in a piece red wire and the light on the pickup worked. 


Had the pickup along side the coach so I could see the taillights from the coach driver’s seat.

Written on IPad.  

 

Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta – Thursday October 5, 2017

Little RV work today.  The 12 volt charger has been working on and off for the last couple of weeks.  We are just fine with the solar panels we have when there is sun, however there was not enough sun today and will not be enough tomorrow to bring the batteries back to fully charged.  With another 6 weeks before we get to the big house I went to Harbor Freight and got a 10 amp battery charger.  This one will go quite well with the two chargers I already have at the big house. I actually carried one of these charger on the last several trips, Oh well. 
See Richard I even got the one with the 50 amp boost. 
I did being the extra connectors I got with the solar panel so I was able to connect the alligator clamps from the charger to clamps that came with solar panel and thus plug into the solar panel connection. 
All set to go, when I started the generator the internal charger started working. I am ready when it decides not to work again.
After the 4:00 daily Escapees happy hour I started the generator and the internal charge did not come on.  When I plugged in the new charging system the internal system started charging.  Sure seems to be a problem with the internal’s systems ability to sense when to come on and charge. I don’t think it is a loose wire because I had the internal charger out while we were at the big house in July-August.  

Zion National Park – Saturday September 16, 2017

The microwave has been acting up the last 4 weeks.  Some days it will work some it will not work.  When we first got the motor home I took the microwave in to have it repaired under warranty.  I remember the guy saying that the door was out of alignment and that is why the microwave generator would not work, the unit didn’t know the door was closed.
Last week we gave it one more time and it was getting replaced.  It acted up Friday before we went into town so it’s gone.
I ran some avalanche cord around the unit and tightened it up with a turnbuckle.  When we get to the big house I’ll install the vents around the outside so it looks finished.

Zion National Park – Friday September 15, 2017

Today was shopping day in St. George.  We went to FedEx to get some things for the Balloon Festival printed @ 69 cents per copy, PETCO for Hank’s tic medicine, Walmart for milk, Lowes for new microwave,  GOODWILL for shorts, COSTCO for steak and Ford for truck part.

At COSTCO the tailgate handle broke on the driver’s side.
Here is where the latch broke.
I don’t carry a lot of tools however I happen to have the tork T30 screw driver head I needed.  Had to take the middle shelf of the pickup’s storage system out of the back and then I could get to screws to remove the inside panel and unlatch the tailgate.  Didn’t take too long.

 

Zion National Park – Monday September 11, 2017

Notice the pickup is gone.

Monday morning September 11, 2017 we towed the pickup into St George to get the Neutral Tow system I screwed up fixed.  It turned out strange.
Since I didn’t know exactly where we were going and I needed to find a place to park the motor home while towing the pickup we left early and arrived at 8:45 for our 9:45 appointment.  The service writer I talked to came out to the pickup when he started  it the dash still said the transfer case was in LO 4X4, he moved the transfer case selector from 2 wheel to 4 wheel to LO 4 wheel and back to 2 wheel.  The transfer case came out of neutral and the pickup was able to move on its’ own.  This is great.
I asked the service writer what I owned him and he said nothing.  I thanked him, said I was going to unhook the pickup and drive it around the shop to ensure it was really working.  I did this, hooked the pickup back up to the motor home and we drove a couple of blocks down the street and stopped for breakfast.
After breakfast I went back to the pickup to check one more time that everything was working.  This time the pickup stayed in neutral (LO 4X4 was displayed on the dash) when I went through the steps to engage the transfer case.  I moved the transfer selector switch from 2 wheel to 4 wheel to LO 4 wheel and back to 2 wheel, this time the transfer case made a clunking sound.
We went back to the dealership and I talked to the same service writer.  This time one of the shop people was walking by and the service writer asked him what he thought might be the problem, the shop person thought it might be the transfer case selector motor.
I unhooked the pick ( it is now 10:15 ) and we left the pickup to be looked at.  We drove back to Zion and about 2:15 the service writer called and said the pickup was working just fine and I could pick it up anytime.
We drove the hour back into St. George and the pickup was still parked in the incoming service vehicle area ( not the serviced vehicle pickup area ).  I went inside and the service writer said the pickup was working fine and when I asked him how much I owed him he said “Nothing”.
I went out to the pickup and tested the steps to put the pickup into towing neutral and then out of towing neutral twice and everything worked just like it is supposed to.
The more I thought about this the stranger it seemed.  It looks to me like dealership reprogrammed the transmission because the light on the neutral tow indicator is working like it should the transmission is making all the right sounds as it has made all the previous times I have engaged and disengaged the transfer case.  The question is why not change me for the work they did because they surely had to have done something and the Ford dealership in Enumclaw told me they don’t do anything for less than one hours labor.  They never made up a work order, never had me sign anything just had the pickup for 4 hours and returned it fixed.  After think about this it just doesn’t seem to be the way a dealership would be operating if everything was up and up.  I think the service writer found out he should not have moved the transfer selector switch so they reprogrammed the transmission to cover for his mistake after my mistake.

Life on the Road.

 

Zion National Park – Thursday September 7, 2017

Thursday and yes the pickup  is still hooked up to the motorhome.  Yesterday when we got here I was unhooking the pickup so we could go dump and fill with water I got into a little bit of a hurry.  Note I have hook and unhook the pickup maybe a hundred times and I have already unhooked and hooked it up at Safelite in St. George when I got the motorhome window fixed on Wednesday.

Anyway I got into a hurry and when engaging the transmission I moved the ignition key to fast and the transmission is now stuck dis-engaged.
The steps are:
Foot on brake peddle
Turn ignition key to ON from OFF but steering wheel not locked
Pause = while the transmission engages
Move the shifter into Drive position
Move back to Neutral and start the engine.

I went from ignition key in OFF to START and then shifter to Drive.

I’ll be making up a new checklist. 

Pickup is not happy, the dash saying it’s in low 4X4 and in fact the transmission is still dis-engaged.   We have an appointment at the St. George Ford Dealership at 9:45 Monday morning to fix my mistake.

Oh well, as they say it would have been worse.

 

Bakers Hole Campground – Sunday June 4, 2017

One of my big house projects was to add this solar panel: Go-Power 120 watt portable panel with built in controller. 

It is working really well and supplying all the power we need for lights, changing iPads, phones; running WeBoost, TV, satellite TV etc.  Will still run generator for microwave and A/C.  Glad I got the 30 foot extension cable we have had to use it here and at Yellowstone. 

It does have several weak points:

There is no way of locking it up so it doesn’t walk away, I drilled holes in the frame to attach a lock and cable. At home I had set it up to make sure it worked and set the controller to flooded batteries. I thought the handle was held on with rivets like the closing clasps but I was wrong, the handle is screwed on.  I was going to hook the lock to the handle. 

The panels fold in half for storage however the locking clasps are just a half a step above worthless. I will keep my eye out for replacements. 

The controller is on the under side of the panel with a nice hinge so it will tip out and it can be read. The controller is held up against the the panels for storage and to keep it out of the rain with Velcro.  The problem is the quality of the glue on the Velcro. It works just fine until the panel is set out in the sun, for some reason the panel gets hot and the glue releases from the panel and controller.  Richard gave me some good double back tape to retape the Velcro. This tape works fine on the back of the panel but releases from the Velcro. When we get to the big house I will use JB Weld to glue the Velcro to the double back tape, I did this with the strap I put on the generator door to keep it from vibrating open.

Missoula, MT – Saturday May 19, 2017

While we were at the big house I got a few things done to the motorhome.
Added a 120W GoPower portable solar panel.

Trimetric TM-2030-RV Battery Monitor System, this will give me more information about what is happening to the house batteries. It has a shunt so it can calculate the power go into and out of the batteries.

Installed a 2 gallon water accumulator so the water pump does not run so much and uses less power. The pump uses most of the power when it first starts up.

Motorhome got a new engine battery, replaced one purchased in 2010. Looks like I will need to replace the house batteries soon, they were purchased in October of 2012.

Added a WeBoost Cell Booster to improve cell reception.
I think I fixed the furnace.

Last spring ( 2016 ) we had a little trouble with it not lighting sometimes. It would go for long periods of time when it would work just fine. It did not work for a couple of days before we got to Yellowstone and then while at Yellowstone it would only work about half the time. When we got home to the big house it worked just fine. It also worked this spring all the way to Phoenix and back. This afternoon while loading the motorhome I started the furnace to take the chill of the motorhome and ensure the furnace was still working just fine. It would not light.

Did a little google and YouTube searching and figured out it wasn’t the circuit board, but it might be the sail switch which ensures enough air flow from the fan. I was able to pull a cover off the fan. The sail switch is located on the inside of this fan housing/cover. There was a fair amount of dust on the fan blades. Got the compressor out and blew the dust off of each fan blade. Put everything back together and the furnace fired right up. Checked it again 2 hours later and this time I let the furnace run for a while to burn the dust out of the heat exchange.

New CO carbon monoxide detector, replaced a hard wired unit with battery powered.

Air Tabs to help with coach stability in the wind.

We are in Missoula while Richard and Vickie are having their motor home worked on, it doesn’t have much power and is getting bad mileage (worse than normal).

Connors Pass, NM – Rest Stop by Hayspur Fish Hatchery, ID – April 9, 2017

Today’s drive.

Yes these pictures are very much the same.    They are both pictures of Harry driving on ICE and SNOW on the 9th of April.
This is one of the many passes on Hwy 50, we are just East of Ely, NV.

Driving up the pass their was a semi stopped in the road just before the top of the pass.  I was able to drive around him when I discovered the ice and snow on the road which stopped him.  The road is a 6 to 7% grade and I guess he was going so slow when he got to the ice he was unable to keep moving.

We were early enough to get a spot to stop.  This was a good time for breakfast and wait for the road to clear.   We got to the top at 8:00 a.m. and the first two sand truck came through at 8:10.  They several passes blading the ice and dumping a lot of salt and sand on the road.  By 9:00 the road was melted (about an inch of ice) and the Highway Patrol stopped to say the road was clear going east.

The plan was to spend the night at Hayspur Hatchery Campground, however the campground was closed.  It is a one lane road into the hatchery and campground and with the campground closed I only had limited options to turn around.  I needed up having to unhook the pickup to get turned around.

We ended at a rest stop just down the main road on the way to Sun Valley.

It was cold, 27 degrees in the morning.

Spring Training – Saturday February 18, 2017

It is time to move into our small house and head toward the sun, warmth and baseball.
We have spent parts of the last couple of days getting ready for our Sunday departure to the Phoenix area for the month of March.   We will be at White Tank Mountain Regional Park from the 23rd through the 28th and move to Goodyear on March 1st.

I have done a few things to the small house since we got to the big house in November.
We will be towing the pickup this year so that entails a few additions: new canopy, towing base plate, braking system along with tail & running light system.  I also put in a new water pump with hopes it will take care of the water system over pressurizing itself. The last thing we did was new tires on the motorhome, we should be good to go for another 50 – 60,000 miles.
We will be back to the big house for Easter, then on to Yellowstone in May with a month of fishing in Montana on the Madison river in June, to the Garcia’s for Jack’s birthday and back to the big house in July.  We have some great travel planned for this year.