Category Archives: Bus Projects

Posts related to maintenance, repair, and remodeling projects on our 1990/92 Prevost H3-40 VIP Royale Coach (Monaco) converted motorcoach .

2014/06/13 (F) Day 3 Shop-Learn-Eat

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Day 3 of the 2014 GLAMARAMA kicked off with coffee and doughnuts at 7:30 AM.  Those attendees going on the morning tour of the Jayco factory had to assemble early.  We had coffee and visited with friends until the vendors opened at 9:00 AM.

At the 2013 GLAMARAMA last September I had decided to buy a small video camera/recorder to mount on the inside of the windshield and record what is happening in front of the coach.  By the time I went to buy it on the last day at 3:00 PM the vendors were closed.  I did not make the same mistake this time and bought one this morning.  We still need to get a 32 GB high speed SD card to go with it.

We had spotted some Velcro straps at another vendor and decided to buy a pair to use for securing the Pressure Pro TPMS repeater to the inside rear view mirror in our Honda Element.  The same vendor had an LED light that looked like it might fit in our downlights.  They loaned us one to try.  It fit well and the light was OK.  I returned the sample and bought a new one.  Lloyd De Gerald had his Aqua-Hot service booth right next to the Aqua-Hot factory booth and I purchased an inline secondary fuel filter from him.

Michele Henry from Phoenix Paint ordered some silver (white) reflective tape for us as it was on sale and we thought it might look OK around the lower portion of our bus.  (There is a channel on all of the lower body panels, as well as the front and rear bumpers, where this reflective tape is intended to go.)  Our hope was that the tape would reflect the adjacent paint color while making the bus much more visible at night.  Alas, it did not pick up the surrounding color and the tape was a little wider than the channel, which would complicate the installation.  I did not see it, but Linda did, and did not like the way it looked.

Josh Leach specializes in interior projects and is currently working out the Phoenix Paint facility.  He teamed up with Darin Hathaway (the Aqua-Hot technician who serviced our Aqua-Hot system on Monday) and Michele Henry (who painted our coach two years ago) to get a booth at the GLAMARAMA.  We discussed our interior remodeling ideas and agreed to have him come by the coach to see it.

Just after noon Linda drove to the Whole Foods store in Mishawaka, Indiana to get ingredients for dishes she planned to serve back at the house on Sunday.  I attended two seminars, both by Gary Bunzer (the RV Doctor).  The first one was on balanced battery systems.  The key concept of that seminar was that there are poor, OK, and optimal was to interconnect multiple batteries to form a battery bank of the required voltage and energy storage capacity (Amp-Hours).  The second seminar was on controlling/eliminating holding tank odors.  Linda dropped in on this one for a little while and then headed over to the reception for vendors and chapter officers.  I joined her at the reception after the seminar concluded.  Gary has published a column somewhere on RV maintenance and operation every month for the last 38 years.

The vendor and chapter officers reception was very nice, with fresh fruit and veggies, cheese and crackers, some deli meats, and a choice of wines.  We returned to our coach for a little while after the reception before heading over to the evening entertainment.  Keith Longbothum and his sidekick, an excellent harmonica player, put on a high energy show that was initially Nashville country but morphed into gospel and patriotic.  One thing I noticed about entertainment tonight and on Wednesday was the use of pre-recorded instrumental soundtracks which make it possible for a small ensemble to produce a very full sound without having to pay a lot of musicians.

There was a door prize drawing after the entertainment.  We did not win.  The head of the parking crew also gave instructions for departure on Sunday.

 

2014/06/09 (M) Mobile Service

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One of the interesting things about RVing is the availability of mobile service providers.  The mechanic who maintains our bus chassis, Joe Cannarozzi, travels all over the U. S. from his base in Chicago, Illinois.  Other vendors, many full time RVers themselves, travel the RV rally circuit providing on-site service.  We stopped by Phoenix Paint late in the morning to visit with Michele Henry, who painted our motorcoach in 2011/12, and met Darin Hathaway there.  Darin is an independent Elkhart-based factory trained/authorized Aqua-Hot service technician.  Our Aqua-Hot has not been running well the last few of times we have tried to use it, even failing to ignite once and producing copious amounts of white smoke for as long as five minutes if/when it did.  I described the symptoms we’ve experienced and what we have done to try and diagnose the situation.  Darin had time in his afternoon schedule to service our unit so we arranged to have him come over to Elkhart Campground to do the work there.

Darin arrived around 2:15 PM and performed the standard annual maintenance / tune up.  He let me watch and ask questions and I learned a bit more about the unit and how it functions.  He removed the burner and then removed the swirl chamber which had a buildup of carbon soot.  He removed the nozzle, flame sensor (photo eye), igniter electrodes, and the photo (mounting) disk.  He also noticed a small inline final fuel filter that needed to be replaced.  He clamped off the lines, removed it, and installed a new one.  I wanted a spare, but he only had the one with him so he said he would order one for me.

He disconnected the two main electrical harnesses, plugged in his service control box, and then installed a pressure gauge into the nozzle port.  He activated the fuel pump and the fuel pressure was just over 160 PSI.  It was supposed to be 145 PSI so he showed me the adjustment screw and backed it down to the proper level.

The photo disk was slightly wrapped which is not unusual, but could prevent it from sealing the combustion chamber, so he installed a new one showing me how to make sure it was loose enough that it could position itself correctly when the main blower/pump housing was re-installed.  I got a second disk to keep as a spare.  He installed a new nozzle and then reinstalled the two igniter electrodes and showed me how to set the spark gap.  He also pointed out that the cable clamp on top of the main blower/pump housing is the spark gap tool.  Nice touch.  He said the old nozzle was a bit loose which might have allowed a little fuel to get into the combustion chamber without going through the nozzle.  His tips for nozzle installation were to always use two wrenches and to tighten the nozzle, back it off, and tighten it a second time.  Apparently this helps the threads seat and seal.

He checked the four rubber grommets around the housing and said they were still in good shape and probably relatively new.  I got four for spares, two lefts and two rights.  I might as well get parts while I can.  He cleaned up the swirl chamber and re-installed it, seam side up.  Very important.  He checked the spark igniter and it worked and then failed.  He spent some extra time that was not part of the routine service diagnosing and fixing this issue.  He thought it might be a marginal or failed coil, but after tightening the wire connections and flexing the wires a bit, it seemed to work fine with repeated testing.  The coils are relatively expensive and decided not order one as a spare at this time.  Hopefully I don’t regret that decision somewhere done the road.

With critical components replaced, and everything cleaned and adjusted, Darin inspected the main combustion chamber for signs of fuel or coolant leakage but did not see anything out of the ordinary.  He secured the main blower/pump housing to the combustion chamber / “boiler” assembly using a short quarter-inch socket ratchet with a 12″ extension and suggested that I do the same.  Apparently it is very easy to over-torque these bolts and break the mounting tabs, which is a very bad thing to do.  A final test resulted in the unit starting up immediately with clean exhaust; no smoke, black or white.

We spent a few more minutes trying to determine which thermostats in the house (there are three) controlled which of the three circulating pumps, but did not figure it out.  The is important because the radiator for the water bay (where the Aqua-Hot is installed) is clearly part of one of the coolant circulation loops controlled by one of the thermostats in the house (the leftmost of the three at the top).  The radiator for the front bay is also part of one of the house loops but I do not know if it is tied in with the water bay radiator or with a different zone.  Darin said there was usually a separate thermostatically controlled zone for the bays, but I assured him that our coach was not configured that way.  Our unit does have a forth circulation pump that is tied in with the main engine coolant.  It can be used to pre-heat the engine or to provide heat from the engine to the coach.  Darin indicated that anytime the burner is lit one of the circulation pumps will be running, usually the middle one.  In our unit it seemed to be the engine pre-heat pump, but I later discovered that I had the pump turned on.

It was after 3:30 PM by the time Darin was finished and I had a 4:00 PM conference call meeting of the FMCA national education committee.  We turned the diesel burner on from its normal control switch and let it run for one complete cycle while he finished up the paperwork.  As the cycle finished I saw a little white smoke in the bay, which was still open.  I opened the door to the small compartment underneath the Aqua-Hot and it was full of white smoke.  I have the battery for the fuel polishing module installed in there but the compartment us otherwise empty save for a large diameter tube (5″?) that runs from the bottom of the Aqua-Hot through the compartment, and out the floor.  This tube provides fresh air to the combustion chamber and also provides a conduit for the exhaust pipe.  There was obviously a double problem:  1) exhaust gas was leaking from the exhaust pipe somewhere, and 2) the large outer tube was not sealed.  Add that to the project list.

I called in to the FMCA national education committee meeting at 4:00 PM and by 4:10 PM (EDT) we had enough members for a quorum.  Committee chair Gaye Young worked us through the agenda and we were done with our first meeting an hour after we started.  The committee is charged with looking at four topics, one of which is RVillage.

We had a quiet evening and had pan-grilled tofu with caramelized onions and bar-b-que sauce for dinner, followed by a final stroll around the campground.  We got online with the campground WiFi via our WiFi Ranger and took care of e-mail, RVillage, and WordPress tasks before turning in for the evening.

 

2014/06/07 (S) D-Day Plus 70

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Today was the 70th anniversary of the invasion of Normandy; D-Day.  The youngest soldiers in that invasion, if they are still alive like my father, are now in their late 80’s.  The event is quickly slipping into history; in another decade, more or less, there will not be anyone left with a firsthand knowledge of the events of that day, or indeed of the whole of WW II.

As we do most Saturdays when we are home we went to our ham radio club breakfast in South Lyon.  We meet at a local Coney Island restaurant and we go for the company and conversation, not the food.  The service is excellent, however, as we have the same server every week and she knows everyone’s usual order and keeps the coffee flowing.  Linda’s standard breakfast is coffee and toasted rye bread with orange marmalade, although occasionally she has oatmeal.  My standard breakfast is coffee and a toasted English muffin with strawberry jam, but today I had a toasted bagel.  Sometimes you just have break with tradition.  On rare occasion I have the oatmeal, but it’s not really cooked the way I like.  When I want to splurge I have hash browned potatoes, cooked until a bit crispy, which I smother in ketchup laced with Tabasco sauce.  That dish is as much about the spicy ketchup as it is about the potatoes.

When we got back to the house Linda headed off to the grocery store while I put a load of laundry in the washing machine and got busy prepping the bus for travel.  The temperature had risen into the 70’s but all of the bus tires were in the shade, a good situation for checking and adjusting the tire pressures.  I removed the Pressure Pro sensors from all of the bus and car tires, checked and adjusted the cold pressures, and put the sensors back on, re-establishing the baseline settings for alarm purposes.

We had quite a bit of rain on our last outing and the bays were a bit musty so I opened all of them to let them air out.  I also opened all of my tool boxes for the same reason.  The inverter bay door has screened openings with shields on the inside that are open on the bottom.  The large shield by the GenSet radiator is secured with three screws across the top, none of which were holding.  I looked around in the garage for some suitable drywall anchors to put in the holes but I did not have (or could not find) any the right size.  A quick trip to Lowe’s, with stops at Walmart and Meijer’s for grocery items, and I had some viable options.  I had to fuss with it for a while, but I got it secured.  It was a small project to be sure but one that had been bugging me for quite some time and it felt good to put it in the done column.

Linda spent the early afternoon working on the accounting records for our GLCC chapter and then turned her attention to cooking meals for the upcoming week.  For rally situations, where we are away from our coach much more than we are there, it is easier for her to prepare dishes in advance that can be quickly and easily re-heated rather than cook from scratch.  I called Elkhart Campground and made a reservation for Sunday and Monday evenings.  Over the course of the afternoon and evening we selected clothes for the week, gathered up various items that travel with us, and loaded everything on board.  I positioned the Honda Element behind the motorcoach and connected them together for towing.  We will have a few last minute things to put on board in the morning but the final loading should be quick and easy.  It was a relaxed loading process and as we sat on the rear deck enjoying a glass of wine we reflected on how glad we were to have found this house and decided to move.  We had some of the vegetable chili for dinner and then watched Season 2, Episode 2 of Doc Martin before turning in for the evening.

 

20140605 (R) Apple Roku

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Linda had to go into the bakery today which left me to catch up on phone calls and errands.  I made more phone calls to contractors this morning and had better luck than yesterday reaching people or at least leaving messages.  I rescheduled with Gary from GM Construction to come discuss the pole barn project.  I also got hold of Bratcher Electric and determined that the annual maintenance on the whole house generator could wait until we are ready to do the conversion from propane to natural gas, which they can handle.  In talking to Mike Bratcher I also determined that we can install a main panel in the garage just after the transfer switch and then run power directly from there to the pole barn rather than from the main panel in the basement.  While we are at it, we could redo the sub-panel in the garage, feeding it directly from the new main panel rather than the main panel in the basement.  The basement panel is very crowded and we have wires carrying electricity back and forth unnecessarily.

I got a call from Butch with an update on the negotiations of the sale of the major portion of their business assets.  Linda has been advising them relative to valuation, accounting, and tax issues and we have been helping them with purchase agreement language.  It looks like they are in the final stages leading up to a closing of the deal.  Their big annual event is coming up in early July and they will likely be busy with the transfer of inventory and training of the buyer during and after that event.  I need to get our bus down to their place to work on some projects and help Butch work on getting their bus conversion done enough that they can live in it this winter in the southwest.  Based on things going on at both ends, it looks like the window for that work will be mid-September to sometime in November, weather permitting.

Our converted coach friends, Pat and Vickie, have some older Motorola GMRS handheld radios that they like but the charger bases have disappeared.  My ham radio friend Scott (AC8IL) is in the commercial mobile communications business so I checked with him to see if chargers were still available.  They were and he had a couple of the drop-in style charger/bases in stock!  Scotty is just that kind of guy.  I picked them up this morning and will deliver them to Pat and Vickie at the GLAMARAMA rally.

Apple Roku sounds like an interesting dessert, but it’s not.  It might be an either/or situation, but it could be a both/and.  John Dewey was a both/and kind of guy, so I favor that approach.  We were intrigued by Steve and Karen’s Roku Internet TV streaming device last night so I stopped at Best Buy today on my way home from running my errand to see if they had them in stock and if so at what price.  Not only did they have them, they had three different models.  The “stick” was $50, the Roku 2 was $70, and the Roku 3 was $100.  (The Roku 3 does not have A/V connectors like the Roku 2, only HDMI, but it has a five times faster processor.)  But that was not all, oh no.  They also had the Apple TV device for $100 and two other similar products, one of which looked like an Amazon/Kindle thing and the other one a WD thing, whatever that is.

The Roku units (2 and 3) have access to a lot of content on a free, subscription, and pay-per-view basis.  The Apple TV unit has access to content on the same basis but the selection may not be as extensive; it’s hard to say for sure as the devices are not easy to compare directly.  The Apple TV unit, however, has one huge, unique feature; it can mirror anything on an iOS device, such as our iPads, to a TV/monitor.  The iPad can also be used as a control panel for the Apple TV device.

We do not have to choose between a Roku and an Apple TV unit, of course, we can get and use both if we want; it’s just a matter of money.  Between the two TVs in the house and the two in the bus it could be a lot of money if we wanted dedicated units of both types on all four TV/monitors.  We always have the option of moving things back and forth, but in general I prefer not to do that.  To the extent we can afford it I prefer to have the house and the bus set up so that the only things we move between them are the things we have to, such as ourselves, our food, our laundry, our computers, our cats, and some of our ham radio gear (at least for now).  The best solution, however, may be to get one of each device and move them around as needed.  That would give us the best cost/benefit ratio, but not the most convenience.

When Linda got home from her day at the bakery we finished the Egri Merlot we had opened the other night and caught up on the day’s events.  We decided to try the Apple TV device first and see how it worked in our situation.  Linda made an onion, mushroom, tomato Ragu, and served it over the leftover power grains.  It was very tasty.  After dinner I went to Best Buy to get the Apple TV device while Linda prepared fresh strawberries for dessert.  Fresh strawberries are a favorite treat of ours.  She served them with small pieces of Dandelion Small Batch Chocolate made from 70% Ambanja Madagascar 2013 Harvest beans.  The chocolate was excellent and unique.  It was a thank you gift from our son and daughter-in-law for Linda’s babysitting services while they were in San Francisco, California.

We connected the Apple TV box to one of our HD TV/monitors and went through the setup procedure.  We decided to test it on some PBS content, which required us to set up an account with PBS and enter a validation code that the Apple TV box provided.  We also downloaded an app onto Linda’s iPad2 that allowed it to mirror whatever was on its screen to the Apple TV.

We used the mirroring feature to watch Season 1, Episode 5 of Doc Martin, but it proved to be unusable.  The image was fine on the iPad2 but the Apple TV could not keep up.  I found that to be odd as our home WiFi network should have more than enough bandwidth to deliver the data stream between the devices, but maybe not.  I presumed that the limiting factor in our network was the data rate coming into our DSL gateway from our AT&T landline, but that was obviously fast enough to deliver the content from the gateway to the iPad without buffering hesitation.

We turned off the mirroring and finished watching the episode on the iPad.  Still, the content delivered directly from the gateway to the Apple TV looked great, and the mirroring will be useful for showing photos and anything else on our iPads.  We may reconfigure the Apple TV to use one of our other wireless networks and see if that helps.

 

2014/06/04 (W) Indian Street Food

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After working hard on our fire pit project the last three days we took it easy today.  I put a load of laundry in to run while we had breakfast and browsed our blog and news feeds.  A couple of recent installments from NutritionFacts.org reminded us yet again why we are following a whole-food plant-based way of eating.  I made follow up phone calls to various contractors and left messages as no one seems to answer phones anymore.  We often do not answer our phones if we don’t recognize the number or the caller ID is blocked, but we are not running businesses.  I did get hold of Ed and we had a nice chat about the restricted water flow problem in his Aqua-Hot and what he did to fix it.  I’m starting to form the impression that these are “fussy” high maintenance units.

I got a call from Chuck in reply to my e-mail to him yesterday.  He is working on a project to replace the conventional bulbs in his side cargo lights with LEDs.  He found a source for a double contact base that fits in place of an 1157 bulb.  He can solder the wires from the LED arrays to the base and plug it in; no modification of the cargo light housing or wiring needed.  I like those kinds of solutions.

I got a call back from Darryll Mech at DCM Heating and Cooling.  Darryll installed a garage heater and a furnace/air-conditioner for the addition to our previous house.  He is going to schedule a time to come back to the new house and figure out exactly what we need to do to prep the house for natural gas.  It is going to involve running additional black pipe, installing a garage furnace and a small furnace/air-conditioner for the library, and then converting the kitchen stove, whole house generator, and hot water baseboard furnace to natural gas.  We have a local guy (TOMTEK) who services the hot water baseboard furnace, so we will probably have him do the conversion on that unit.  We also have a company that installed and services the whole house generator and will probably have them do the conversion on that unit along with the annual maintenance.  We would like to have all of this done, except the appliance conversions, in August.  The natural gas pipeline and hookup is scheduled for “late summer to early fall.”  When I talked to the contractor it sounded like that meant the end of August to early October.  I hope it’s closer to the former than the later.

Scott Barnes from The Renewal Group in Hartland, Michigan retuned my call.  He wasn’t able to work today due to the rain so he came over to discuss our pole/bus barn project.

We got together with Steve and Karen Limkemann for dinner this evening and then went to their house in Westland to visit.  As we moved to being vegetarians and then vegans Indian food rose towards the top of our list of favorite cuisines, and one of our favorite restaurants in all of SE Michigan is Neehee’s in Canton.  Neehee’s is a small, unassuming semi-fast food place that serves “Indian vegetarian street food.” As the name implies, you will not find any dishes with meat, fish, or fowl.  You will, however, find dishes made with paneer (an Indian cheese) and yogurt.  They also serve ice cream.  They have a nice selection of vegan dishes, however, and some of the vegetarian dishes can be made vegan on request.  It’s a long way for us to drive just to have dinner, but very much on our way to Steve and Karen’s place.  They were good sports and agreed to try it.

The menu had changed since the last time we were there.  The “Indo-Chinese” section was gone, and with it one of our favorite dishes, a fried cauliflower in a spicy sweet and sour sauce.  We had the Special Gujarati Thali which consisted of nine different curries and sauces, two types of puri (crepes, thin breads), and rice.  It was very good.  Steve and Karen were not as thrilled with their dishes, but the issue seemed to be a bit too much “heat.”  Almost all Indian food (that we have had) is spicy, in the sense of being pungent and aromatic, and some of it is “hot”, in the sense of having a burning sensation in the mouth.

We drove to Steve and Karen’s house after dinner, looked at photos from trips, and talked at length about past and future travels.  Steve had resurrected some very old computer games and had them running on his Raspberry Pi and displayed on their large screen TV.  We played one for a while based loosely on A Hitch Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy.  It would have been a trip down memory lane if I had any memory of having played it years ago, but I didn’t, so it was a new old experience for me.  He also demonstrated their Roku device, which connects to their WiFi network and streams a wide variety of programming to their television.  Much of it is free, some of it involves a monthly subscription, and some of it is “pay-per-view.”  It might be part of a solution for us at home.

 

2014/05/17 (S) Working While We Wait

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As soon as the fairgrounds and Escapade management had asked those of us parked on the horse track infield to delay our departure until Sunday (with a free night’s stay Saturday evening) we decided to comply with their request.  Our friends, Butch and Fonda, are parked next to us and also decided to delay their departure.  Butch and I hung out this morning while Linda worked with Fonda on their business accounting.

Butch and I were not having any luck solving all of the world’s problems so we decided to investigate our Aqua-Hot problem.  The expansion reservoir had apparently overflowed again so I cleaned up the coolant as best I could.  I turned on our Aqua-Hot so Butch could observe the smoke on startup and try to detect if it had an odor associated with it.  The unit startup up on the first try and produced a lot of white smoke.  The white smoke eventually disappeared, but it took quite a while.  Neither of us detected the slightly sweet smell of combusted coolant.

I had hoped to have a definitive analysis of our Aqua-Hot situation, but I ended up with data that was inconclusive, at best, and inconsistent, at worst.  Recent experiences with a failure to start, excessive white smoke on startup, needing to add coolant, and failure to hold pressure all suggested a coolant leak, possibly into the combustion chamber.   On the other hand, it started fine today and the white smoke did eventually clear up.  There were alternative explanations for some of the data and these always need to be considered.  Jumping to conclusions about what is wrong with a bus/conversion can be unnecessarily expensive.

The loss of pressure may have been due to our inability to keep the pressure tube vertical because of the tight quarters.  The pressure is released by pushing this tube to the side where it connects to the radiator fill spout.  The loss of coolant could be due to the undersized expansion reservoir overflowing when the unit heats up.  I know for a fact that it does this if I have too much coolant in the reservoir when the unit is cold.  To pin down whether or not there is a coolant leak into the combustion chamber I will have to remove the burner assembly from the combustion chamber, pressurize the closed coolant system, and visually check for leaks.  Even if I don’t find a leak there that will not rule out a leak somewhere.  Ugh.  Aqua-Hot units are expensive to replace and the model we have is not longer made, so our only direct replacement option is a rebuilt unit.  The unit in the coach is a rebuilt one that was installed sometime between Sep 2009 and April 2010.

We quit working with the Aqua-Hot around 1:00 PM to have lunch before heading over to the Tri-Chapter Rally (TCR).  A little before 2:00 PM we drove over to the AG Hall for the opening of the TCR.  The TCR is an annual joint event of SKP Chapters 6 (Michigan – Great Lakes), 36 (Ohio – Erie Shores), and 51 (Indiana – Hoosier Neighbor).  The TCR is usually held in late June on the same weekend as the ARRL Field Day ham radio operating event so we have never been able to attend.  Because Escapade was in Goshen, Indiana the TCR was scheduled at the same fairgrounds immediately following the national rally.

We are members of Chapter 6 and Butch/Fonda are members of Chapter 51 but neither of us registered for the TCR because we had planned on leaving today.  Since we were “stuck” here we figured we would make an appearance at the 2 PM opening of the rally and play it by ear from there.  It turned out that 2:00 PM was the beginning of registration; the opening social was scheduled for 4:00 PM with dinner at 5:30 PM.  The rally organizer said we could come to the social without registering, but wanted us to pay if we were staying for dinner.  That seemed reasonable and we indicated that we would return at 4:00 PM to be sociable for an hour.

We never made it back.  By the time 4 o’clock came around we were all tired and none of us felt like being sociable.  We eventually got hungry and went to the South Side Soda Shop (SSSS).  SSSS was featured in an episode of Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives (Triple-D).  It was appropriately quaint, the wait staff was very friendly, and the food was good and plentiful; exactly what you would expect from a place featured on Triple-D.  Linda and I had garden salads with a dressing we had never had before; oil and capers.  It was delicious; a new favorite.  We split a veggie sandwich, flat bread with pesto and hummus, and an order of curly fries.  The fries alone would have been a meal!

Butch bought a WiFi Ranger Mobile and Go2 combo at the Escapade.  Earlier in the day he attached the Mobile unit to a couple of pieces of PVC pipe which he used as a mast by securing them to the driver’s side mirror on their bus.  He ran the coax in through a window and hooked it all together.  After dinner I worked with him to get the WFR Mobile/Go2 configured while Fonda visited with Linda.

I have done a couple of posts this past week that brought up concepts from aviation because I used to fly airplanes and thought there were interesting analogies to be made.  Well, here’s another one:  RVing, much like flying, is weather dependent, and more so than you might realize.  We have had to be pulled out of two different fairgrounds at the conclusion of week-long rallies where we were parked on grass and it rained (hard) most of the week.  Unless you only stay at campgrounds with paved roads and sites this will eventually happen.  When threatening weather is in your path, you ground yourself; a high profile vehicle with an amateur driver does not belong on the road in high winds, blinding rain, or icy conditions any more than a private pilot should be in the air under those conditions.  An RV has no more business crossing a flooded road than a car or pedestrian does, and the reason you have a home that can be moved is so you can get it out of harm’s way; RVs are not designed to be driven into tornadic storms, hurricanes, or blizzards.

We really need to be on the road Sunday morning as we have company coming for dinner that evening, Linda has to go into the bakery on Monday and Tuesday, and someone is coming to the house on Wednesday to discuss our pole barn project.  But just because we need to leave doesn’t mean we will be able to.  That will be decided by Mother Nature.  If we cannot get the bus out on Sunday Linda will take the car and return home and I will return with the bus (and the casts) when I can.

 

2014/05/08(R) Toad Lights

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The spring peepers are in full voice this time of year, but they do not wear headlamps.  In fact, they are frogs, not toads.  In the world of RV’s a car that is towed behind a motorhome is often referred to as a “towed” (noun) or “toad.”  Like anything being towed, the car has to have functioning tail lights, brake lights, and turn signals.  The existing lights on the car are often used for this, but there can be issues with arrangement, especially on newer vehicles.

Our Honda Element came equipped with a second set of rear bulbs that are not tied into the cars lighting circuits.  On the way home from Florida they quit working.  Visual inspect had revealed that the 6-pin connector on the bus had a couple of damaged pins.  As soon as we got home I picked up a new connector from a local RV store.  With a forecast high temperature of 81 degrees F, and no rain, today was the day to install it; but not until I had taken care of another important chore.

Steve (N8AR) arrived a little after 10 AM pulling Bruce’s (W8RA) enclosed trailer.  We took a few minutes to look at my proposed site for the communications tower and then headed over to Wayne’s (KD8H) place to pick up the tower sections and related components I had purchased on Monday.  We got there right at 11AM.  Wayne greeted us in the driveway and directed us around behind the house.  We loaded the steel fold over mount, motor, rotator, and bearing plate in the front if the trailer and then drove back to where the tower sections were stored and loaded those in.  The trailer had about 10 feet inside, front-to-rear, and we were able to get everything in and close/latch the doors.  We were on our way back to my QTH by noon.  By 1 PM we had unloaded everything, stacked the tower sections on the rear/lower deck, and stored the other components in the garage.  I walked Steve through the proposed pole barn site and then he headed home to hang drywall.

I gathered up the tools I needed for the connector project and arrayed them at the rear of the bus.  Simple projects never are, and this was no exception.  I removed the two screws that hold the connector into the bumped fascia and the discovered that I could not pull it out more than a 1/4 inch.  The connector housing has an insert with the pins on one side (facing out) and the wire connections on the side (facing in).  The insert is retained by a small screw on the top of the housing.  To work on this assembly you have to be able to pull the housing out far enough to remove the retaining screw.  You then need to have enough loose wire behind the connector to allow the insert to come out the front of the housing far enough that you can get to the small machine screws that that hold the wires.

The problem was that I did not have the necessary amount of loose wire.  There was plenty of wire, it just wasn’t loose.  I had to clip about a half dozen zip ties in the engine compartment and along the underside of the rear bumper, and remove a cable clamp, but I eventually freed up enough wire to pull the connector housing out far enough to work on it.

The wire connections on the insert were not done in a standard way per the directions that came with the new connector, so I made a diagram of how they were done.  (I should have rewired both the bus connector and the cable end to be standard, but I plan to replace this whole setup with an EZ*Connector system this summer.)  I disconnected the wires, which freed the insert, and slid the old housing off the end of the wire bundle.  I cleaned up the ends of the four wires, stripping away 1/4 inch of insulation and trimming off frayed strands.  I slipped the new housing over the wires, made the connections to the back of the insert, slid the insert into the housing, and secured up it with the retaining screw.  I slid the housing back into the bumper fascia and secured it with the two screws.

Before dressing all the wires I pulled the car behind the bus and connected the electrical cable between them to test the lights.  I connected the bus chassis batteries (there are two switches for this) and turned on the left turn signal.  All the lights on the bus were fine, but I still did not have lights on the car.  🙁  I had also had problems previously with the plug and socket on the car so I jiggled the connector and the lights started working.  I verified that I had tail and turn lights but could not test the brake lights as that takes two people.  (I could have turned the ignition on and that would have caused the brake lights to come on since the emergency/parking brakes were set.)

I suspected the problem was in the connector on the end of the cable, but it was sufficiently corroded that I could not get it apart.  I decided to spray all of the old connectors (3) with De-Ox-It, including inside the cable ends.  I then sprayed all if the connectors, including the new ones, with De-Ox-It Gold.  I plugged the cable back in to the bus and the car and retested the lights.  Everything was working, so I secured the wiring on the bus with new zip ties, put my tools away, and closed everything up.

Sometime during the afternoon I got a call from Bruce (W8RA) and took a break from the electrical work.  He had a friend who had purchased a used full-size tractor to pull a large 5th wheel.  The tractor had a KVH Trac-Vision R5 in-motion satellite dish and the owner wanted Bruce to help him get it working.  Bruce knew we had a motorhome and thought I might have some insight into how to do this.  The only advice I could offer was based on the satellite dish and electronics that were on our bus when we bought it.  In addition to the dish on the roof and the receiver in the coach there was a third box that went in-between the two.  I suspected that the KVH had something similar, but I wasn’t sure.

Linda had been babysitting all day so we had an Amy’s Indian dish with a nice salad for dinner.  It had been a warm, physical day so I started a load of laundry and we just relaxed after dinner.

 

2014/05/06 (T) RESA Redux

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While we were in Florida I spent a little time working on an extension of a project I was deeply involved in the couple of years prior to my retirement.  The Michigan Assessment Consortium (MAC), of which I was a founding board member, sponsored the development of a series of modules for educators on how to develop and use “common assessments.”  “Common” in this case meant “shared across multiple classrooms/teachers,” as opposed to other meanings, such as “ordinary” or “numerous.”  The 24 modules were developed as scripted PowerPoint presentations with learning activities and supporting materials.  They were field tested in a workshop setting and revised based on participant feedback and the experience of the presenters.  The modules were then videotaped at Wayne RESA, with each of the development team members narrating the modules on which they were the lead author.  The videotaped modules, along with the PowerPoint files and supporting materials were made available online through MI-StreamNet free of charge.

There has been a continuing interest in this professional development series but recent changes in the rules for continuing education units (CEUs) required that the modules be repackaged in order to qualify.  Wayne RESA made a decision a few years ago to train some staff members in the Lectora software for creating online courses.  Some staff time became available and RESA approached the MAC and suggested the use of Lectora to repackage the assessment modules to meet the new CEU requirements.  One of those requirements was for assessments that validate the learner’s engagement with the content.  The existing modules did not include such assessments so the original authors were contacted to see if they would develop test items for their modules.  That is how I came to spend some time this winter writing test items.

Kathy Dewsbury-White, the President of the MAC, had arranged to meet today with Ken Schramm (Manager of TV & Media Production) and Bill Heldmyer, TV Producer/Director extraordinaire) to discuss the project.  She asked me to come along, and that is how I came to spend the day at Wayne RESA, from which I retired in June 2012.  There was a MAC sponsored video conference at 10 AM so while Kathy attended to that I roamed the halls of my former place of employment to see who was around.  All told I was able to visit briefly with a dozen or more people and with another half dozen a little longer.  When the video conference was over we grabbed lunch with Ken.  When we got back to RESA we worked with Bill in his editing suite on how we wanted certain aspects of the modules to work.  Kathy and I then worked our way back to Brighton through the afternoon rush hour traffic.

I talked to Butch (W9MCI) on the phone in the evening.  He had spoken directly to International Thermal Research about their Oasis brand hydronic heating systems and gotten some pricing.  There is a real possibility that our rebuilt Aqua-Hot hydronic heating unit in our motorcoach may have a coolant leak and that the leak is in the combustion chamber.  The evidence for this is an excessive amount of white smoke when the units fires up, if it fires up.  If so, it cannot be field repaired and we would have to get a rebuilt unit to replace the failed rebuilt unit, or get a new unit.  At this point my inclination would be to get a new unit from a different company, like maybe ITR.  I have a low tolerance for the repeated failure of expensive engineered systems.

 

2014/05/05 (M) Towering Heights

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It dropped into the upper 30’s early this morning.  Although I did not really want to go outside and work, it was the perfect time to adjust the pressures in the bus tires and reset the baseline pressures on the Pressure Pro TPMS.  I had a 10 AM service appointment for my car and wanted to take care of the bus tires before the air temperature warmed up or some of the tires sat in the sun.

I took the Honda Element to Brighton Honda for the 85,000 mile service which consisted of an oil change and multi-point inspection.  A quick trip to Best Buy to look for a case for my new ASUS laptop computer did not result in a usable case but I did discover a new Logitech mouse, the T630; very thin and stylish but unfortunately not in stock.  They printed out a sheet for me to take along.

I called Wayne (KD8H) and arranged to go see the Heights Tower he had for sale at 2 PM.  Mike (W8XH) came along to help me inspect it.  Mike has a Heights Tower so he is very familiar with them.  The tower was already down and disassembled into sections that were stored horizontally on saw horses.  The fold-over mount (FOM) was made of steel rather than aluminum and was rusty but very substantial.  Wayne had the motor for the FOM but no longer had the threaded rod.  The top tower sections had the mounting plate for a Ham II rotator and the bearing plate for the rotating mast.  He also had the Ham II rotator, and was willing to include that in the deal.  I wrote him a check and arranged to come back later in the week with a truck or trailer to pick everything up.  After I dropped Mike back at his QTH and returned home I e-mailed several SLAARC members to see if they might be have a truck and/or trailer and time to help me retrieve the tower parts.

I had been doing research on cases for the ASUS G750 series (ROG) laptop computer and found two on Amazon Prime from Everki that looked promising as they were designed to hold up to an 18.5 inch (diagonal) computer.  The Advanced was a padded top-load zipper case with a slender front zipper pocket.  The Lunar was also a padded top-load zipper case but had a larger zippered front pouch and a slender zipper pocket in front of that.  It also had a slot across the back that allowed it to be placed over the extended handle of a roller case.  The Lunar was 3x the price of the Advanced, but the Lunar looked like it would better accommodate the AC power adapter and other accessories I tend to haul around.  I had checked the ASUS ROG forum (Republic of Gamers) previously and the general opinion was that these two cases were both of good quality and big enough to hold my computer and related stuff.  I ordered one for delivery on Wednesday (2-day), no extra charge with Amazon Prime.

 

2014/04/11 (F) Suncoast Designers Photos

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Here are the photos from the repair of four of the eight awning-style thermopane windows in our motorcoach.  The work was performed at Suncoast Designers, Inc. in Hudson, Florida.  Great people to work with and they have a correct process for doing this work.

2014/04/09 (W) The Work Begins

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[Photographs related to this work will appear in a separate gallery post.]

In contrast to yesterday, we had a beautiful day today weatherwise and otherwise.  Jim, Kevin, and Joe removed our four fogged awning windows with some minor assistance from me.  It turned out that the window frames hang from an open hinge and are attached to the lift mechanism arms on each end by pins with grooves that accept retaining clips.  Once the clips were removed the pins were slid out, releasing the lift arms.  The window frame was then free to swing high enough for the hinge to come free from the mating piece (attached to the bus).  Not only was this relatively easy to do, it will make it much easier for Suncoast Designer’s to remove the thermopane glass sandwich from the frame and reinstall it once it is repaired.  It also means that once the windows are reinstalled in the coach we can leave without further waiting as the adhesive will have already cured.  Kevin covered the openings with pieces of cardboard and plastic secured with what appeared to be green Frog tape.

I went to the office around 11AM to see if/when I could meet with Jeff, the general manager.  While I was there I picked up their informational brochure and discovered that they do a plant tour at 1 PM every day.  Customers are curious about the process and equipment used to repair the windows.  The daily tour allows Suncoast to schedule this into their workday and take care of everyone at once, minimizing disruption to the work in progress.  Fritz was our tour guide and did a good job of explaining the steps in their process and the equipment, tools, and techniques used at each step.  Linda took notes while I took photographs for a possible future article.

As soon as the tour was over I started working on the article draft.  At 3 PM I returned to the office and met with Suncoast general manager Jeff Heyen to get some additional info about the company and the process they have developed for repairing thermopane RV windows.  Jeff also confirmed that they were not going to install the windows back into the coach until Friday.  That allowed us to firm up plans to get together with Michael and Donna tomorrow in Dunedin for lunch at the Serendipity Cafe and a visit to Honeymoon Island State Park.

I finished the article draft before dinner time and had Linda proofread it.  After dinner I offloaded the photos from the camera and spent the rest of the evening selecting and post-processing images for the article.

As I was wrapping up for the night I noticed that I had received a server maintenance notification from Scott at QTH.com.  They had installed patches to fix the Heartbleed bug discovered two days ago in OpenSSL and would be rebooting all of their servers to make sure the patches were applied.  I also received notifications from the recently installed Wordfence plug-in regarding this issue and its possible effect on WordPress sites while assuring their customers that the Wordfence cloud servers had not been compromised.  I shut everything down and went to bed.

 

2014/04/04 (F) Converted

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AALL*BRITE showed up this morning as scheduled to wash the coach and clean/polish/seal the Alcoa wheels.  The three man crew started on the roof and worked their way down and around.  They used a “spot-free rinse system” that did not require them to hand dry the coach.  When they were done with the wash and rinse they went to work on the wheels which were a messy job that involved a lot of hand work.  The coach looked good when they were finished.

I went down mid-morning to check on Jeff and Kathy’s motorhome.  Everything had worked through the night.  I went back later and disconnected John’s 20 A battery charger.  I then had Jeff disconnect the +12 VDC house battery cable.  With the converter 120 VAC power cord was still unplugged the voltage at the converter output terminals was zero, as it should be.  I plugged the 120 VAC cable back in and re-checked the voltage at the output terminals.  It measured 13.5 VDC so the converter was, in fact, producing an appropriate voltage with no load attached.  That did not prove that it was functioning properly as it could still be unable to maintain that voltage while supplying current to a load, but it was at least trying to do something.

The house battery bank had been disconnected for over 15 minutes.  The resting voltage was 12.7 VDC, so the batteries were fully charged.  My best guess was that Jeff and Kathy did not have a battery problem.  I unplugged the converter and reattached the DC negative cable.  We then reconnected the battery bank positive cable and plugged the converter power cord back in.  The voltage measured 12.68 VDC.  We decided to leave it this way and check it every couple of hours.

The RV technician who does work in the park stopped by and talked to Jeff for 5 minutes.  He said he would order a new converter and schedule them for service on Wednesday, April 9.  Apparently he presumed that Jeff and Kathy were being taken care of in the meantime as he offered no assistance or suggestions for how they might keep their rig functioning for the next five days.

Over the next four hours the voltage gradually dropped to 12.45 VDC, strongly suggesting that the converter was not maintaining the charge on the batteries.  Just before dinner we unplugged the converter 120 VAC power cord and reconnected the 20 A battery charger.  Later at the fire pit Kathy mentioned that the air-conditioners had stopped working so I walked over to check the situation.  I found the battery charger set incorrectly, so I reset it, but I was not able to get the HVAC controller/thermostat to turn either unit on.

We spent the rest of the evening at the fire pit talking and enjoying Smiity’s music.  Our friends from Ontario, Jack, Silvia, Doug, and Paulette came for a while and Smitty did quite a few Gordon Lightfoot songs.  (I don’t know if Canadians like Gordon Lightfoot more than anyone else.  He is certainly one of our favorite singer/songwriters.)  Kathy brought down a couple of bottles of Moscato as a thank you for helping them with their electrical problem.  That wasn’t necessary, but I certainly appreciate it.  Charles and Sandy joined us for a while.  They have relocated here from Texas and are looking to buy a business and settle in.

By 9:30 PM it was just John, Ali, Linda, and me.  John has assumed increased volunteer duties at WCRVR from April 1 through November that include closing up various buildings at night.  I spread the fire logs out on the grate and we returned to our rigs while John attended to his chores.

 

2014/04/04 (F) Flashback

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When we went to Weeki Wachee Springs State Park with John and Marian Hagan on Wednesday we got a CD with photos Marian took of me and John working on the bus back on March 8th.  Rather than edit a 3-week old post, I’ve put them in a WP Gallery.

2014/04/03 (R) Electrifying

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Two days ago Jeff and Kathy’s Fleetwood Bounder developed a problem with its 12 VDC house electrical system.  From the symptoms Jeff described it appeared that the AC-to-DC converter may have developed a problem.  Several people stopped by to help so I backed out of the situation.  Too many cooks, etc.

We were gone all day yesterday so I did not have a chance to check with Jeff to see if anything got resolved.  He stopped by our coach this morning to see if I could come down and have a look, so that answered my unasked question.  There is a RV technician who services many of the rigs in the park.  He stopped by briefly yesterday and said he would be back, but had not made it back yet.

The Bounder is equipped with conventional RV appliances for heating, air-conditioning, and refrigeration as well as low voltage DC lighting.  Some appliances operate on propane, some on 120 VAC, and some on both (selectable).  What they have in common is that they all require 12 VDC to operate their control circuits.  If the DC house voltage is not high enough none of these appliances will work.

Failing house batteries would be one possible cause of a DC house voltage problem.  A failed AC-to-DC converter would be another.  A main function of the converter is to maintain the charge on the house batteries which act like a large capacitor in the system and can supply 12 VDC power (for a while) when then rig is not plugged in to shore power and the auxiliary powerplant is not running.  Without the charger function the energy stored in the battery bank will be used by the various appliances.  As the state of charge drops so does the voltage.  Eventually the voltage drops low enough that the appliances will not work.

Jeff had already disconnected the ground cable from the chassis/starting battery, removing it as a load on the converter output.  We turned off the shore power and then disconnected the ground cable from the house battery bank, which consists of two 6 VDC deep cycle batteries in series.  I checked the voltage of both the chassis battery and the house battery bank; both measured 11.5 VDC.  A fully charged “12V” battery with no load and no surface charge measures 12.6 VDC.

I had Jeff turn the shore power back on and measured the voltage across the two house batter cables (with the ground cable still disconnected).  It measured 4.5 volts.  That was obviously not going to charge the battery bank or operate the appliances, but it was odd and not what I expected.  I thought it would be zero, indicating a total failure of the converter.

We left the ground cables off of both the chassis battery and house battery bank.  We connected Jeff’s small battery charger (6 A) to the engine battery and borrowed John’s 20 A charger to charge the house battery bank.  After a couple of hours the house battery bank was up to 12.4 VDC; not fully charged but apparently accepting charge.  Ditto for the chassis battery.  The refrigerator, however, had lost most of its cold and we needed to get it turned back in.

We decided to leave the shore power to the rig turned off so the converter would not be energized, plug the refrigerator AC power cords directly in to the shore power pedestal, and reconnect the house battery bank ground cable to supply 12 VDC to the refrigerator control module.  This allowed the refrigerator to run on 120 VAC and the 20 A battery charger to act like a converter and continue to charge the house battery bank while we figured out what to do next.

This makeshift arrangement worked but was intended to be temporary.  What I really wanted to do was get the converter disconnected so we could restore 120 VAC shore power to the motorhome and not have a faulty converter causing problems.  Up to this point, however, we had not been able to physically locate the converter.  The AC breaker panel did not even have a circuit breaker labeled for the power supply to the converter.

I examined the point of entry for the shore power cord and decided the converter had to be somewhere in the driver side rear of the rig.  The bedroom is located in the rear of the motorhome and that corner of the interior is the shower.  Just forward of the shower is a built in dresser.  The toe kick had a grill that I originally took to be a heat register for the furnace.  It seemed likely, however, that the converter might be under there as this area is directly above the bay where the auxiliary power plant is installed and both the DC and AC distribution panels are close by.

We figured out how to remove the two large lower drawers and there it was, along with the AC power transfer switch.  The converter was a WFCO-8865 rated at 65 A. It was plugged into an AC outlet box on the floor of the cabinet and had two large DC output cables and a chassis ground wire.

I unplugged it, disconnected the DC output ground cable, and taped the exposed conductor to prevent a short circuit.  Jeff restored the shore power and we figured out which circuit the outlet box was on; a 20 A circuit breaker marked “small appliance.”  I plugged it back in and measured the voltage at the converter DC output terminals.  13.5 VDC.  Again, not what I expected to see.  It turns out that I think the reason I was seeing 13.5 VDC may have been that I was looking at the battery voltage.  The case of the converter is bonded to the chassis and so is the  negative terminal of the house battery bank.  Apparently the DC negative connection on the converter is also bonded to the case.

While I was disconnecting the DC negative cable from the converter I discovered that the end of the red (DC positive) cable was not secured properly at the converter and could easily be pulled out.  Yikes!  That could account for the 4.5 VDC we saw earlier at the battery end of the cables.

In order to make their rig as usable as possible I unplugged the converter, plugged the refrigerator 120 VAC cords back in to their outlets, and left the 20 A charger connected to the house battery bank to act as a temporary converter.  With any luck  they were able to use any of their AC or DC devices through the evening and overnight hours.

 

2014/04/01 (T) No April Fool

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Today marked the one year anniversary of Linda’s retirement from Metropolitan Baking Company where she was the controller/treasurer and HR person for 10+ years and the outside CPA for many years before that.  She is still working for the bakery as a consultant, which was part of the reason for her return to Michigan in late February, but she has also been learning how to be retired over the course of the past twelve months.

Carriage Travel Club members. How to tow a 5th wheel RV in style!

Carriage Travel Club members. How to tow a 5th wheel RV in style!

This is now the 5th month in which I have been continuously away from “home” even though the number of days is less than 120 and will only be 126 to 129 days by the time we return to our house.  That may be the longest I have ever been away from a fixed/permanent residence in my life.  The only time that would come close to that was my first year in college when I lived in a dormitory for the school year.  Even then, it was two semesters with a break in-between, and the semesters were only about 14 weeks in duration as best I recall.

Carriage Travel Club banners. They have ~70 rigs at WCRVR all week for a rally.

Carriage Travel Club banners. They have ~70 rigs at WCRVR all week for a rally.

I was reading a post in Nick Russell’s Gypsy Journal blog the other day where he provided answers to FAQ’s he often gets from readers.  One of them had to do with the definitions of “full-timer” and “extended-timer.”  As Nick pointed out, there are no official definitions, but common sense (and usage) suggests that full-timers do not have a fixed dwelling to which they can return while extended-timers do, even if they are rarely or ever there.  How much time do you have to spend in your RV (land- or water-based) to be an extended-timer?  Again, there is no definition, but common sense (and usage) suggests that it is more than 3 – 6 weeks’ vacation usage and less than full time.

Since Linda retired one year ago today we have spent the following time traveling and living in our converted motorcoach:

  • 59 days – (early Jun to early Aug). MI, IN, IL, IA, SD, WY, MT, ND, MN, WI, MI.  Two rallies in Gillette, WY (FMCA and SKP) and a 2-week SKP HFH build in Sheridan, WY plus visits to national parks;
  • 6 days – (mid Aug). Clio, MI GLCC/CCO Back to the Bricks rally;
  • 10 days – (mid Sep) MI, IN, MI Twelve Mile, IN and GLAMARAMA13 rally in Goshen, IN;
  • 12 days – (mid Oct). MI, OH, KY, TN, VA, WV, OH, MI. SKP Photographers BOF photo workshop/rally in Townsend, TN.  GSMNP and camping with family in VA;
  • 103 days – (Dec 19 – Mar 31).  MI, OH, KY, TN, GA, FL.  Mostly in north central Florida; our first season as snowbirds.

That’s 190 days; more than half of the last twelve months.  We don’t have a numerical target, but our sense of how we want to blend RVing with living in a fixed house is to be in the RV for 6 –  8 months out of any given 12 month window but probably not gone for much longer than four months at a time.  It won’t always happen that way, of course, but on average that seems like a comfortable balance to us at this time based on our limited experience and current circumstances.

While going back and forth to the laundry building I stopped and chatted with Jeff for a while.  It appears they have developed a problem with the 12VDC house system in their motorhome.  They noticed it the previous evening as a diming of their lights and then realized the refrigerator did not want to work, even on propane.  I mentioned that we had just had a refrigerator problem and had stored our food in the refrigerator in the Activity Building kitchen while we got it sorted out.  I suggested how he might go about isolating the problem but did not jump in to try to solve it as there was another guy there also giving advice.  Too many cooks creates more problems than it solves.

We went to Satchel’s for an early dinner; our final opportunity to enjoy their excellent vegan pizza.  In addition to John and Ali we were joined by Kevin, Sharon, Ian, and Pat.  We had essentially the same pizza as before; hand-tossed thin crust with pesto base topped with mushrooms, onions, and sun-dried tomatoes.  Instead of the Daiya non-dairy cheese, however, we had the cashew cheese.  Instead of being shredded and evenly spread around the pizza it was in quarter-sized chunks like small mozzarella balls.  It resulted in a different pizza, but it was just as good as the other pizzas we have had there.  I also had the ginger pop.  They make it in house from real, fresh ginger.  The last time it was a bit weak, but today it was the best yet.  The ginger was so strong that burned slightly.  Exquisite.

Work continues at WCRVR on refurbishing the Pullman train cars.

Work continues at WCRVR on refurbishing the Pullman train cars.

The weather had been perfect all day so after we got back we sat around chatting with John and Ali and were joined by Jack and Silvia who were just finishing their evening walk.  We had a small glass of Trader Joe’s Pinot Grigio.  This is one of the wines Trader Joe’s sells for $2.99 a bottle. Our assessment was that you get about what you pay for, but in all fairness Pinot Grigio is a wine we normally drink with a meal, not as a before or after dinner drink.  We were also having grapes for “dessert” and their sweetness probably made the wine seem dry by comparison.  I do not care for dry wines, especially as a before or after dinner drink.  We will try the rest of the bottle with a meal and see if our first impression was off base.  We would love to find a $3 wine that we really like.

 

2014/03/31 (M) T Minus 7

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The last day of March marked the beginning of the final week countdown to our departure from Williston Crossings RV Resort.  On a drive into the Gainesville Publix supermarket we wondered which was stranger, leaving here after being in one place for just over three months, or returning home after being away for more than four months?  Linda was back home for three weeks in late February and early March, so it does not feel quite as strange to her.

I got a callback from AALL*Brite letting me know that would be back at Williston Crossings on Friday to wash our rig and polish our wheels.  Having that appointment confirmed allowed us to plan the rest of our week, which will include a visit to Weeki Wachi SP, and getting into the WCRVR swimming pool (finally).  We have seen AALL*Brite in the past at rallies in Michigan.  They do a nice job on aluminum wheels for a very reasonable price.  Their price to wash and spotless rinse the rig is also very reasonable.  We are not going to have them wax it, which is much more expensive, as we have never had wax or other such products on the coach since we had it repainted and don’t feel we need them.

We finally have a string of days this week with forecasted highs in the mid-80s; lovely days to be outside reading and crafting on the patio of our well-shaded site.  We have also been spending time with our RV resort friends with whom we will shortly no longer be able to visit.  While some of them live here year-round, others are winter seasonal residents like us and are also preparing to leave.

Monday is pizza double-punch day and half-price drink day at the Micanopy Blue Highway Pizzeria, so going there for dinner is a routine part of John and Ali’s week.  We have gone with them the last few weeks as it is a good opportunity to just sit and talk.  This time we were joined by John and Ann who we have seen at the fire pit and said “hello” to while walking, but not really talked with at length.

When we got back to WCRVR we gathered at John and Ali’s rig with our glasses of wine to continue the conversation.  We were joined by Charles and Sandy who we have also seen and chatted with at the fire pit.  They are currently living at WCRVR while they look for a business to purchase in the area.  They had a business in Texas (Houston area) that they sold and have been traveling around the central and eastern U. S. looking for one to buy.  They are in their late 40’s and are not ready to be retired.  In spite of a high temperature in the 80s, it got very cool after the sun went down and we retreated to the comfort of our coach.

 

2014/03/27 (R) Cover Up

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With the return of high temperatures in the low 80’s and lows in the upper 50’s Williston Crossings’ maintenance crews have been busy pruning trees and bushes, clearing undergrowth, cutting grass, and painting the white light poles at all of the sites in the older/south section of the resort.  Many long-term residents have also been busy tending to the landscaping improvements they have made to their sites, including shrubs, flowers, herbs, and grass.  With an overnight low of 34 degrees F two nights ago, many residents were also bringing plants inside or trying to cover them up.  Even in north central Florida this winter seems determined to extend its influence well into spring.

Paper towel holder installed above kitchen sink behind fluorescent light fixture.

Paper towel holder installed above kitchen sink behind fluorescent light fixture.

Single-end mounting of paper towel holder.

Single-end mounting of paper towel holder.

This morning dawned heavily overcast and the forecast was for rain.  No matter; we had our morning coffee, read, worked on e-mails and websites, and finally had breakfast.  We had a couple of projects to tend to so we did those next.  First we installed the new paper towel holder in the kitchen.  We mounted it to the underside of the cabinet over the sink, behind the small fluorescent light fixture.  It is convenient to reach, even with wet hands, and definitely off the counter and out if the way.

 

 

 

 

Very little of the paper towel holder is visible.

Very little of the paper towel holder is visible.

Next up was the cover for the Fan-Tastic Vent motor.  The manual operation knob slides over a splined shaft on the motor and is retained by a small machine screw.  The knob has to be removed to allow the old cover to come off and the new one to go on.  It did not come off easily, but I coaxed it off without breaking anything.  When the two mounting screws that hold the cover were removed the whole motor assembly just fell out and dangled from the two power wires.  The drive shaft is also a splined connection that slips over the lift mechanism shaft and the power wires are attached with insulated spade connectors.  This design makes it easy to replace the motor if it fails.

The new motor cover for the Fan-Tastic ven fan in the bedroom. We left the knob off.

The new motor cover for the Fan-Tastic ven fan in the bedroom. We left the knob off.

The biggest challenge in this little project, besides standing on a dual chamber air mattress to do the work, was simultaneously getting the drive shafts re-engaged, the cover plate holes lined up, and the mounting screws re-installed.  All of this alignment is done ‘blind’ as the mating parts are inside the unit where they cannot be seen.  But we got it back together without too much swearing.  The other difficulty was the walnut trim that surrounds the opening.  The way it is constructed it actually interferes with the knob.  We decided not to re-install the knob so I put the retaining screw back in the shaft and we stored the knob in one of the small bedroom storage cubbies.

Workers enclosing the rusted iron on the Pullman cars with wood.

Workers enclosing the rusted iron on the Pullman cars with wood.

The Lazydays RV dealership in Seffner, Florida (just east of Tampa /St. Pete) has been staging units in the new/north section of Williston Crossings RV Resort for the last couple of days.  The rain never materialized today and the clouds thinned as the day progressed.  We walked over to see any new units they had brought in since we were there yesterday.  On the way over I grabbed a couple of photos of the work being done on the old train cars that will eventually be rental cabins.  As you can see in these photos, they are reinforcing (encasing) all of the old structural iron, which is heavily rusted, with wood.

A wider view of the restoration work on the Pullman cars.

A wider view of the restoration work on the Pullman cars.

Lazydays had their entrance structure erected, a tent to shade the sales associates, and tables with chairs where folks could sit and relax.  All of the motorhomes were Class A’s and most of them had hitch-mounted telescoping flag poles flying Lazydays flags.  There were at least six additional motorhomes and another 5th Wheel trailer.  We looked at all of them and I photographed a few “features” that I thought were interesting.

The LazyDays RV display at Williston Crossings RV Resort.

The LazyDays RV display at Williston Crossings RV Resort.

Door latch for side-by-side residential refrigerator doors.

Door latch for side-by-side residential refrigerator doors.

One unit had a residential refrigerator with upper side-by-side doors and a bottom pull out freezer drawer.  There was nothing unusual about that; what caught my eye were the aftermarket latches Tiffin had installed to lock the upper doors together and lock the freezer drawer to the surrounding cabinet.  Very cool.  By evening we heard that both of the 2014 Tiffin Allegro Open Road motorhomes had been sold.  I suspect that made the whole “mini-show” worthwhile for Lazydays.

 

 

 

 

 

Same latch design used to lock freezer drawer.

Same latch design used to lock freezer drawer.

The other thing we finally did today was register for the 2014 Escapade, which is back at the Elkhart County 4-H Fairgrounds May 12 – 17.  Our first Escapade was there in September 2010 and we were back there for GLAMARAMA13 in September 2013.  As I have written in this blog previously, it is an excellent facility for rallies of 500 – 1,000 rigs.  We will be back there again in June for GLAMARAMA14.

 

2014/03/26 (W) Coffee And A Bagel

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That can only mean one thing; we went to Panera today.  The temperature dropped to 34 degrees F just before sunrise and we slept in longer than normal because we did not have any pressing reason to leave the warmth of our covers (and I had the electric heater pad turned on).  We needed to do a little shopping today so once we got up we decided to forego coffee and breakfast at home and head to the shopping district on US-24 (SW Archer Road) in Gainesville.  The 3/4 mile stretch of this road from I-75 east to FL-121 (SW 34th St) is all shopping, and most of the stores are recognized national chains.  There is a Lowe’s, a Walmart, a Best Buy, JoAnn Fabrics and Michael’s crafts, a Trader Joe’s and two Publix supermarkets in addition to lots of smaller stores.  Fuel, of course.  And restaurants, lots of restaurants; I’m guessing as many as 50.

Linda at the Lazydays RV display at Williston Crossings RV Resort.

Linda at the Lazydays RV display at Williston Crossings RV Resort.

Our first stop?  Panera.  Good coffee, good bagels, and good WiFi.  Over the last couple of days I finally figured out how to subscribe to blog feeds using Feedly and helped Linda set it up on her iPad2.  We filled our coffee cups several times while reading and only decided to leave as the restaurant filled up with lunch customers.

Kevin (one of the lead volunteers at the resort) at the Lazydays RV display.

Kevin (one of the lead volunteers at the resort) at the Lazydays RV display.

We have been looking for a paper towel holder for the bus galley to get the paper towel roll up off the counter.  Kitchen counter space is premium real estate in any RV, and ours is no exception.  We wanted one with a brass finish to match all of the other hardware in the coach, but brass finishes are out of style and almost impossible to find at typical stores.  Linda could not even find one online.  White plastic holders are common, and inexpensive, but not a viable option for our interior.  We found a holder we liked at Lowe’s.  It has a brushed nickel finish and mounts to a wall, or under a cabinet, from one end only and should be mostly invisible once it is installed and has a roll of paper towels on it.  It is also substantial enough that we should not have to replace it every year like the plastic ones; hopefully never.

Fisher & Paykel drawer style dishwasher in one fo the Lazydays RV display motorhomes.

Fisher & Paykel drawer style dishwasher in one of the Lazydays RV display motorhomes.

While we were at Lowe’s we picked up a 2-pack of 5 micron sediment filters for our water softener pre-filter housing.  Five microns might be a tad small for operating directly from the water supply, but we always fill our fresh water tank and then use our on board pump to take water from there.  The pump provides good flow and this keeps the water in the tank from going stale.  As a result we can tolerate a slower flow rate when filling the tank in exchange for finer filtering.

Fireplace electric heater

Fireplace electric heater

We also saw some flooring material that looked very interesting for our interior remodeling project.  It’s a slightly rubbery material about 1/4 inch thick that comes in 20 inch squares with interlocking tabs on all four sides.  It gets installed without adhesive (free floating), so it can be taken up later if need be.  It comes in a variety of textures and colors/patterns, including a “white marble” that would look good with our medium walnut woodwork, beige furniture, and beige Corian counters, dining table, and end tables.  After living in the bus for two months this past summer and three months this winter the interior remodeling project has moved from “it would be nice someday” status to “we need to do this as soon as possible” status.  My immediate focus is still on “systems,” but we may attack the interior remodeling yet this year.

Kathy, Jack, Silvia, and John at Jeff and Kathy's Bounder.

Kathy, Jack, Silvia, and John at Jeff and Kathy’s Bounder.

Linda needed a fabric hoop for doing cross-stitch so we stopped at JoAnn Fabrics.  Hoop in hand, we walked next door to Publix and picked up hummus, a variety of chips, and some fresh fruit.  We were due at Jeff and Kathy’s rig at 4:00 PM for happy hour followed by a potluck dinner and had volunteered to bring munchies (so that we would have something we could eat).

Linda, Spencer, and Ali at Jeff and Kathy's Bounder.

Kevin, Linda, Spencer, Ali and Jeff at Jeff and Kathy’s Bounder.

We hooked the Epson Stylus Photo R800 printer up to Linda’s computer yesterday. Being an ink jet printer that rarely gets used, it rarely works well when we do try to use it because the cartridge nozzles dry up and clog from lack of use.  I wanted to print a test pattern and run the head cleaning utility, but we did not have the right driver/utility software installed to do this or to see which cartridges were low or out.  Etc.  But we did manage to print the thread number index and the first few pattern sheets for her next counted cross-stitch project which allowed her to get to work wrapping, numbering, and storing all of the different thread colors that are involved.  She ordered the threads and a storage/organizer box the other day through our Amazon Prime account and had them two days later.

Spencer, Ali, Jeff, and Sharon at Jeff and Kathy's Bounder.

Spencer, Ali, Jeff, and Sharon at Jeff and Kathy’s Bounder.

While drying out the bedroom ceiling after the heavy rain early last week I noticed that one of the mounting tabs for the Fan-Tastic Vent Fan motor cover was broken.  I searched online for the company and got the website for Atwood products.  Atwood bought Fan-Tastic and moved all of the operations from Imlay City, Michigan to Elkhart, Indiana about a year or so ago.  Fan-Tastic is well-known among RVers for their fabulous warranty and factory support, so the purchase by Atwood was not necessarily welcomed by RVers.  I called and got a voice message system: “press 1 for this, 2 for that…” Etc.  Ugh. I left a message and was frankly surprised when I got a quick call back from Sharon.  I described my problem and she determined the part we needed and processed the order.  We had it five days later, no charge for the part or shipping.  They are still Fan-Tastic in my book.

We walked over to the Lazydays RV display mid-afternoon and looked at the motorhomes and 5th wheel trailers they had on display.  Six to eight years ago medium cherry wood tones with nickel (or stainless steel) hardware were being used in lots of RV interiors.  This combination happens to be a favorite of ours, but now appears to be a bit out of fashion.  Most of the units on display were somewhat newer than that and really dark wood tones appeared to be the order of the day.  Purpose built motorhomes often do not have skylights and the side windows are much smaller than on our bus.  The combination leads to interiors that feel dark and confining to me, even with the slideouts extended.  Put out the awnings and it gets even worse.  We did not see anything we would trade for.

We headed over to Jeff and Kathy’s at the appointed hour with our chairs, snacks, and Yuengling lager.  Jeff is quite the cook with a real talent for bar-b-que, Creole, and other southern foods.  He makes his own sauces and devotes a lot of time to preparation and cooking.  He made a vegan pasta salad with garlic, olive oil, and some spices so we would have something to eat.  It was excellent and we probably ate more than our share of it.

 

2014/03/22 (S) WiFi Ants

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No, not WiFi Antennas; WiFi and ants, which I will get to later.

Saturday morning the refrigerator temperature was 40 degrees F.  I moved the remote wireless thermometer to the freezer compartment and left it until it settled in around 5 degrees F.  The refrigeration system, including the controls, appeared to be working.  Linda retrieved most of our frozen food and a few fresh things.  We partially restocked the fridge and I set the thermostat a bit lower.  Linda made a tofu scramble to use up some of the fresh ingredients, in case the problem returned.  Yum.

I checked my e-mail and found several dozen post replies and a few messages from RVillage.  We both played with RVillage for a while and I reported another bug.  I also had a message from the WiFi Ranger technical support team indicating that they had successfully uploaded a patch to our WFR MobileTi and switched it to a PRO feature set.  They wanted me to try logging in to the resort WiFi system and let them know if it worked.  I followed their instructions, and it did!  Finally, success!!!  I got back on their support forum to let them know and thanked them for their persistence in identifying and correcting the problem.

As best I understand it, the problem was not a bug in their firmware but rather a design assumption they made that an RV park WiFi system would never be a class 2 network.  Based on that assumption they were doing using IP addresses to connect to other WFR devices (WFR Go) in a way that conflicted with the class 2 network operating in our RV resort. WiFi Ranger thinks the chance of us running into this again is very small (unless we come back here, in which case it’s 100%).  This may, in fact, be the only RV park where we will ever encounter this.

I do not understand all of the details, but essentially a class 2 network has 2^16 (65,536) available IP addresses. That’s a LOT of IP addresses and made me wonder if the resort WiFi system is actually part of a much larger network, perhaps for the city of Williston or even for all of Levy County.  The “explanation” the network technician gave me some weeks ago was that our WiFi Ranger, being a repeater/router, was simply “not a supported device” as a matter of park policy and he was unable (unwilling) to give me any assistance with it even though he admitted knowing what it was and having  set them up before.  He could have just told me they were running a class 2 network and that it might have something to do with my problem, but he withheld that information.

The “logic” behind his explanation of the park policy was that we could “hide” data-intensive devices behind our system, such as streaming-video, gaming consoles, or even a web-server.  That was nonsense, of course.  If the concern was data-transfer, the network could simply monitor and control that at an IP address level.  When I indicated that one of the reasons for our router was to put our devices (and data transfers) behind an encrypted hardware firewall, he told me the WiFi system connection to the Internet was encrypted, as if that was somehow equivalent.  It’s not.  The connection between the resort WiFi system and the WiFi client devices is NOT encrypted, and thus open and viewable to someone intent on doing so.  Unless people are using secure applications, such as most banking software, their WiFi connection is vulnerable.  This is true of any system that does not require you to enter a WPA or other “key,” including the free WiFi at places like Panera Bread.

We have had good Verizon 4G/LTE service here, so getting online has not been a problem, but if that had not been the case we would have been in a really bad situation.  I was anxious to get this resolved while we were still here so they could test possible solutions on a network known to have this problem.

With computer tasks taken care of, we turned our attention to fixing the roof leak.  As we were setting up the Little Giant folding step/extension ladder we noticed ants traveling up and down the cable TV wire.  Yikes!  The cable runs into the bus through a small window by the driver’s seat.  We had used Frog Tape to seal up the opening against the weather, but it was not ant proof.  We checked inside but did not see any ants where the cable came in.  Closer inspection outside revealed them moving up and down along a body seam and horizontally along the floor line just above the bay doors on the driver side of the coach.  We quickly disconnected the TV cable (we don’t use it anyway because the analog signal in the park is not very good) and closed the little window.  Dealing with the ants, however, would have to wait.

Linda packed all of the tools and supplies I needed for the roof repair into a bag that I carried up with me.  The repair was simple enough; use the small caulk gun to apply Dicor self-leveling lap sealant around and up onto all four sides of the Fan-Tastic vent fan base.  This Dicor product is universally used in the RV industry for just this purpose.  It is not “runny” like water but it does flow, especially when warm, just enough to do what its name suggests, flowing into cracks, crevices, and small holes as it smooths out.  It eventually sets up and forms a skin, but remain pliable.  Rain is forecast starting late Sunday and running through the coming week, so we will find out then if I have fixed the problem.  The real problem, of course, is that the fan base is probably not installed properly.  The correct fix would be to remove it and reinstall it, but that was not going to happen sitting here in the RV resort.

Now for the Ants!  These were, thankfully, small black ants and not fire ants, which are a widespread and serious problem here in Florida.  We hooked up a spray nozzle and tried to flush as many of them away as we could.  It’s not that we wanted to harm even these tiny creatures, but we are not willing to share our home on wheels with them.  They are tenacious, and hung on tight or hunkered down in the nearest available crack.  Linda walked to the Grocery Depot and bought a can of ant spray that I applied to the concrete pad around the bus tires as best I could and on/around the electrical and water shorelines and the waste water drain hose.  Later I went to ACE Hardware, bought a couple of boxes of Borax, and used them to establish a defensive perimeter around the coach.  This is a treatment for ants that we have come across in numerous different forums.  The coming rains will wash it away so it will have to be reapplied.

We had a light/early dinner of hummus and pita chips, went for a walk, and then eventually headed to the fire pit with our customary glasses of wine.  John played the guitar and sang for hours, often joined by the group that had gathered.  We were they again until quiet time at 10 PM, at which time John stopped playing and we turned off the lights.  We still had a small fire and I continued to coax flames out of it for a while longer.  Kevin builds the initial fire and lights it, and John was the backup fire tender, but since he is usually playing his guitar I have assumed responsibility for tending the fire.

 

2014/03/21(F) Roofs And Reefers

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It had rained hard on Monday and we had a small leak around the bedroom fan.  After drawing the water out of the headliner with towels, we aimed a fan at the area to dry it out.  It wasn’t a huge leak compared to the torrential rainfall we had, but any leak is too much.  We only had one tube of Dicor Self-Leveling Lap Sealant with us so this morning we decided to drive to the Ocala Camping World store to get some more.  Before we left we noticed that the store was not in Ocala but rather in Summerfield, which is somewhat south of Ocala on US-441 and is the northern gateway to The Villages.  Part of the drive was on I-75 where we noticed a LOT of RV’s on the road.  They were headed in both directions with the majority headed north.

After we got back Linda went for a walk while I fiddled with the refrigerator thermostat and discovered that it apparently had quit working.  I could hear the contacts “click” but the compressor was not coming on.  Not good, especially with a freshly stocked refrigerator.  The best/only short-term course of action was to get the food out of the refrigerator and someplace cold before it spoiled.  When Linda got back from her walk she checked to see if our neighbor, Sharon, had a cooler we could borrow.  She did not, but she had Linda phone Bob, the resort manager, and he offered the use of the refrigerator in the Activities Building.  We accepted, bagged up our food, and Linda took it over and stored it.  I don’t think very many RV parks would do that for a customer even if they could.

I called Butch, who was a commercial HVAC & refrigeration guy at one time, because that’s what I do when we encounter an unexpected problem.  I had to call him back later, but in between calls I found the model number for our refrigerator, searched for it online, and found several websites where I could order parts.  RepairClinic.com had helpful videos as well, so by the time I talked to Butch again I had a rough idea of how the refrigerator worked and what the problem might be and several possible causes.

The freezer was holding 5 to 8 degrees F, so the refrigeration system was working.  The condenser fan was working as I could feel cool air being drawn in the bottom left and air exhausted out the bottom right.  The evaporator air-circulation fan also appeared to be working.  The damper between the freezer and refrigerator compartments was also working correctly and not blocked.  It is a simple manual mechanical device, so not a lot can go wrong there.  The thermostat was clicking, but that did not guarantee it was passing power.

The leading hypothesis was that the evaporator coils had frosted over, reducing cooling effectiveness of the refrigeration unit.  The most likely cause of that condition was a failure of the auto-defrost controller and/or the defrost heaters.  Butch explained that the auto-defrost controller prevents the compressor from running while the defrost heater is working, which could explain why the compressor would not turn on.  It is possible that this controller and/or the heater itself is intermittent or defective, which could lead to frost build up on the coils.  It has been warmer and a bit more humid here the past week which could also have contributed to the coils freezing up.  Once we had the food out and safely stored I shut off the power to the refrigerator and we left it to defrost.

We had our leftover salad and pizza for lunch.  We were not very hungry at dinner time, but joined a small group of residents at John and Ali’s 5th wheel.  Linda had kept peanut butter in the rig and used some dinner rolls that had been in the freezer to make peanut butter sandwiches.  Later we took our pretzels and wine and went to the fire pit for the evening.  John played, as usual, and Jeff joined him for a while.  A nice crowd gathered for a while, but by 10 PM there were only a few of us left.  As much as we like meeting and talking to people, this is our favorite time around the campfire.

Before we went to bed I checked the drip tray on the refrigerator.  There was some water in it, but not an excessive amount.   We loaded containers with water, placed them in the freezer and refrigerator, set the controls, closed up the appliance and applied power.  It came on and we let it run all night to see what it would do.

 

2014/03/09 (N) Delayed

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Even though the weather forecast for today was for near perfect conditions with sun, no rain, and a high temperature in the upper 70’s—and as much as I would have liked to have John and Marian return and help me with bus projects—I decided not to work on the bus.  Linda was scheduled to fly back to Florida Monday afternoon and I needed to devote some time and energy to housekeeping chores.  I have been keeping up with doing the dishes, laundry, and the litter tray, but the bus needed to be vacuumed, and the floors, counters, shower, mirrors, and windows cleaned.  I would probably not make a good bachelor, or at least not a really tidy one.

Mid-morning I got a call from Linda letting me know that we had water damaged suspended ceiling tiles in the northwest corner of the basement near the electrical panel.  She sent pictures with her smartphone and then we talked and tried to problem solve as best we could.  She had not yet checked in for her afternoon flight the next day and we decided she should re-book for later in the week to give her time to figure out what was happening and try to deal with it.

She called our good friend, John Rauch, because that’s what we do when we have house issues.  John thought it was most likely an ice dam on the roof causing water to run down the inside of the wall, or at least behind the siding.  Linda was able to find a roof rake and calcium chloride pellets at a small, local hardware store.  (The big box stores were out and probably busy stocking their shelves with garden supplies even though we are still experiencing single-digit temperatures and have feet of snow on the ground with more likely to fall before winter finally yields to spring in Michigan.)  The rake allowed her to safely remove snow from the first few feet of the bottom edge of the roof.  The pellets are like hockey pucks and are designed to be tossed onto the roof ice and cause it to melt.

Later in the day Linda joined the rest of our immediate family at our daughter’s house for a slightly belated birthday celebration for our son-in-law, Chris.  I finished some, but not all, of my housekeeping chores as I want to do some them just before Linda returns so the bus is as clean as possible.  I worked on the Cool Cruiser article until early evening when John and Ali invited me next door for a small campfire.  Jim and Janet came down for a while and we all had a nice chat.

 

2014/03/08 (S) Let There Be Light

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The overnight low temperature was forecast to dip into the upper 30’s last night and only rise to 55 by 10 AM, finally making it to 64 by noon and eventually reaching 71 before dropping back to the mid 60’s by 6 PM.  A sunny day was in store with little-to-no wind—a perfect afternoon for working on the bus—so I called John and he agreed that he and Marian would arrive around noon to help with bus projects.  The forecast held true and the Hagan’s arrived right on time.  We discussed bus projects over lunch and decided to go after the cargo bay lights.

I had pulled out my various manuals, found the one with the wiring diagrams, and located the wiring diagram for the Interior Lighting, so John and I started there.  The diagram indicated that all of the bay lights were on 24 VDC circuits/breakers, and all of the cargo bays were powered from a single circuit/breaker.  The light for the auxiliary air compressor bay was on a separate/circuit breaker and the lights for the engine bay were on their own circuit/breaker.  The light in the aux air compressor bay did not work and none of the engine bay lights worked, but some of the cargo bay lights did work indicating that the circuit breaker was good and the wiring was OK at least up to some point.  The reason(s) the aux air compressor bay and engine bay lights didn’t work were unknown and need to be diagnosed.

The larger bays, which go all the way through the bus, have two light fixtures on each side.  The smaller bays (over the rear tires) typically have one light fixture.  The front aux air compressor bay also has one light fixture.  There are at least six light fixtures in the engine bay, none of which work, but that was not our focus for today.  These fixtures are all clearly indicated in the wiring diagram, along with the switches, connectors, and wire numbers.

All of the cargo bay fixtures are present but most of them are badly corroded.  Each fixture uses two 24 VDC bulbs wired in parallel.  Some had only one bulb and some had none.  We cleaned up one of the existing bulbs and determined that they are T635’s, a small bayonet mount 24 VDC incandescent bulb.

(Perhaps I should try to find an LED replacement for these?  Actually, I plan to replace all of the fixtures with LED’s, but that’s a project, and a story, for another day.  When I upgrade the fixtures to LED’s I will probably re-wire the front cargo bay so all of the lights come on when either door is opened.  This is our only real cargo bay; all of the other bays are full of installed systems.  It has a bi-directional slide, and it would be nice to have it fully illuminated.  I am also considering feeding the bay lighting circuits from the 24 VDC battery system through a fuse, relay, and diode so power would only be supplied when the chassis batteries are turned off, which is the normal situation when we are parked.)

According to the wiring diagram there are two branches to the cargo bay circuit, one for the driver side lights and one for the passenger side lights, except for the large front bay where all of the lights are powered from the driver side branch.  Each bay door has a micro switch that turns the lights by that door on/off when the door is opened/closed; at least that is what is supposed to happen.

I made a rough diagram of the bus bays with all of the fixtures and micro switches indicated.  I turned on the chassis batteries, opened all of the bays, and we started documenting what did and did not work.  We checked each fixture that did not come on to see if voltage was present.  If not, we checked the micro switch both for a supply voltage and for proper switch function.  We found one micro switch that was bad in the DS rear electrical bay.  We found another micro switch in the water bay that had one of the wires cut, but determined that there was 24 VDC present.  The only fixtures that were not receiving voltage were the PS front cargo bay and the aux air compressor bay.  We did not check the engine bay lighting circuit.  The engine bay is a messier place to work, and that will be a project for another time.

I had two new micro switches in my parts box so we replaced the bad one in the DS rear electrical bay.  The micro switch in the water bay did not have a spring/roller actuator.  We did not know if that was by design or if it had broken off but decided to remove it regardless as it was mounted in a location where it was difficult to work on.  We had to fashion a new wire for it that was long enough that we could splice it to the wire in the bay.  John was able to remove the switch at which point we could see that that the actuator spring/roller was broken off.  The switch tested OK, so we removed the actuator from the defective switch we had just replaced and put it on the existing switch.  We made our new wire, attached it to the switch, and spliced the other end to the existing wire in the bay.  We reattached the other wire to the switch and turned the chassis batteries on.  Voila, let there be light!  We cycled the switch to make sure the lights would go off and on.  They did, so we re-installed the switch.  We then gently lowered the bay door almost to closure but the lights did not turn off.

Examination of the switches on some of the other doors revealed that the spring/roller actuators had been “custom bent” to cause the door hinges to contact them “just right.”  We tried to bend the actuator without removing the switch, but spring steel by its very nature does not like to have its shape permanently changed and we risked breaking it.  Since these lights are powered by the chassis batteries there would not be any harm in just leaving them on as the chassis batteries are generally only on when we are going to start the engine.  I decided to look for a different solution (on another day) and removed the bulbs from the two fixtures for the time being.

24 VDC was not present at the micro switch for the front PS cargo bay and we could not trace the wiring as the converter (Royale Coach) had “buried” it behind a decorative carpeted ceiling.  We ran a jumper wire from one of the fixtures on the other side of the bay and determined that the switch was OK and so was the wiring from there to the light fixtures.  The solution in this case will be to disconnect the original supply wire from the switch and from the other side of the bay where it originates, cap them, and run a new wire; but that will be a project for another day.  My primary focus for today was diagnostics, with easy repairs where possible.

There was no 24 VDC present at the micro switch for the aux air compressor bay light so we used the jumper wire to supply power and determined that the switch, the  ground wire, and the fixture, including the bulbs, where OK.  This was the first power supply problem we had found.  The wires to the switch were numbered and the numbers corresponded to the wiring diagram.  We eventually found the other end of the supply wire, and the circuit breaker where it was attached, in the DS front electrical bay.  The breaker was OK and supplying 24 VDC to the wire so we had a wiring problem, specifically an open circuit.  This wire does not supply power to any other components (according to the wiring diagram) so the fix in this case will be to disconnect the wire from the circuit breaker and the switch, cap it at both ends, and run a new wire; but that will also be a project for another day.

By the time we got all of this done it was 5 PM so we decided we were finished for the day.  We cleaned up a bit and went to Pizza Hut for dinner.  There are only two chain restaurants in town; the other one is a McDonald’s.  Angelina Mia is OK, but we had already been there a couple of times.  The Ivy House is reputed to be the best restaurant in town, but when Linda and I checked their menu we did see anything we could eat even with ingredients left out.

John and Marian dropped me back at the coach at 7 PM and headed for home.  I wandered over to the fire pit with a glass of Moscato white wine around 8 PM and relaxed for a couple of hours.  The fire eventually died down and the air got cool so I returned to the coach and worked for a while on the Cool Cruiser article before turning in for the night.

 

2014/03/07 (F) Housekeeping

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The weather forecast for the weekend was near perfect and John and Marian agreed to come back on Saturday (and Sunday, if needed) to help me with some more bus projects.  With Linda returning on Monday, today was the day for doing some housekeeping chores, specifically laundry and shopping.  Sunday evening will be vacuuming carpets and cleaning tile floors.

With the Friday night fire circle starting at 6:30 PM, I got an early start on my chores and work.  I worked on the Cool Cruiser article for BCM in between trips to the resort laundry building.  By 1:00 PM I was on my way to Ocala for cat food, with a stop at the Publix supermarket on US-27 for a few things.  I was back by 3:30 PM and spent the rest of the afternoon working on the article and dealing with e-mails.  I had a nice salad for dinner and at 6:30 PM was off to the fire circle.

There were 12 of us there initially, including John with his guitar.  There are other activities at the resort on Friday nights and the fire circle tends to be smaller and more intimate than on Saturdays.  The high temperature only reached 51 degrees today, so it was cool even with the fire, and got cooler as the evening progressed.  I tended the fire while John played and sang.  The small crowd was especially appreciative of John’s music this evening.  By 10 PM there was only John and Ali and me.  I left them to knock down the fire and turned in for the evening to enjoy some fresh strawberries I had prepared yesterday and upload some blog posts.

 

2014/03/06 (R) A Change of Plans

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Our coach has eight awing style windows, four in the living room and four in the bedroom.  Two of the living room windows and two of the bedroom windows are fogged, and one of the living room windows has standing water in it as a result of very heavy rain today.  I finally got around to calling Suncoast Designers in Hudson, Florida this morning.  They manufacture windows and repair/rebuild RV windows.  They have been recommended to us by several different friends as THE place to have our fogged thermopane bus windows fixed.  I had also been told that they might not work on our windows because it is a Prevost.

It took a few minutes on the phone, but they eventually concluded that they could repair our windows due to age of the bus, i.e., it was old enough that they could work on it.  This was one of those rare cases where older was better.  The first available appointment was April 8, so I took it.  I was told to plan for 3 – 5 days to complete the work on the four windows.  We have to arrive on the 7th so they can start first thing the next morning.  They have water/electric hookups and a dump station provided at no (additional) charge for customers having work done.  If I had called in January (like I should have) we could probably have gotten an April 1 appointment; no fooling.

My main focus for today was to wrap up my article for Bus Conversions Magazine on the Cool Cruiser, a 1957 GM PD4106 that belongs to Frank and Phyfi Morrison.  Of course there was a constant flow of e-mail as well as breaks for food and games.  I can focus for a long time on a task if have to (and want to).  One of the nicest things about retirement is that I rarely have to, and I am learning not to want to, at least not all of the time.  But I am enjoying writing for BCM, so for now this is something I want to do. The article I finished yesterday on the Iron Horse was the first one I have written about someone else’s bus.  The one I worked on today was the second.  I have a third one in the queue and several offers out to help other friends.  I also have a dozen articles in process or planned on our various bus projects, places we have been (Harvest Hosts), and things we have done (Habitat For Humanity build).

Hudson, Florida is approximately 2 hours SSW of Williston, so it only made sense for us to stay here until April 7th if possible.  By early afternoon there was a lull in the rain so I went to the Resort office to see if we could extend our stay for six nights through the night of April 6th.  The answer was “yes” and we will be able to stay in our current site.  They charged us the daily rate equivalent of our 3-month rate; about half the normal daily rate.  Williston Crossings RV Resort continues to be a very nice place to stay.

The Cool Cruiser article still needed a lot of work as I had not yet selected, processed, inserted, and captioned the photographs.  I worked on that, off and on, the rest of the day and late into evening, but did not finish the job.  Oh well, tomorrow’s another day.

 

2014/03/05 (W) Rainy Day Work

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The weather turned cool and wet and was forecast to stay that way through Friday.  The cloud cover must have been thick as the light level was very subdued all day.  I do not, however, find such days to be dreary.  They are good days for hunkering down and working, and the bus is a good place to do that.

The coach is a more intimate place to work than most houses.  We live in close contact with the outdoors.  When it rains you see it and hear it. When the wind blows you see it, hear it, and feel it.  The bus has a lot of front and side window area and we are rarely more than four feet from one (the coach is only eight feet wide inside).  It also has four translucent skylights and three ceiling vent/fans with clear covers, so there is plenty of light even on overcast days.  There is also always a view; all we have to do is look.  A bonus is that the subdued, low contrast light is actually better for working at a computer, being easier on the eyes with less glare.

I have been working on a couple of “featured bus” articles for Bus Conversions Magazine and today seemed like a good day to start wrapping them up.  The article on the Iron Horse, Jimmy and Sadie Clay’s Model 10 Eagle conversion, the Iron, was nearest to completion so I worked on that one.  It took the whole day and evening but I tied up all the loose ends and uploaded everything to the Dropbox folder I use for the magazine and still got to bed at a reasonable hour (for me).

 

2014/03/02 (N) Dashboard Wiring Photos

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A few photos from the dashboard wiring repair work today we did today.  Click each thumbnail to enlarge.  Maximum dimension is 400 pixels.

2014/03/02 (N) Dashboard Wiring

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(Photos of this work are in the gallery post for this date.)

John and Marian returned at 10 AM today.  I unpacked all of the tools again, shut off the power to the pressure switch for the auxiliary air compressor, and removed the cover.  Sure enough, the diagram was right there.  The pressure switch was a Connor designed for air systems.  It was not a water well pump control switch although externally you would not know the difference.  It was designed to allow adjustment for a cut-in pressure as low as 40 PSI and a cut-out pressure as high as 160 PSI with an adjustable pressure difference between cut-in and cut-out of 20 to 50 PSI.  The two large spring-loaded shafts moved the operating range up and down while the smaller single shaft adjusted the differential.  It presumably had the two large springs, instead of the usual single one found in a water well switch, because of the higher operating pressures.

After figuring out a combination of tools that allowed me to turn the adjustment nuts, I backed off (CCW) the two nuts on the large spring shafts equal numbers of turns.  The adjustment rate appeared to be approximately 3.0 to 3.5 PSI per full revolution. I lowered the cut-in pressure, turned the power back on, and bled the auxiliary air tank until the compressor came on.  A little more adjustment and I had the cut-in pressure set to 65 PSI.  That put the cut-out pressure at approximately 90 PSI.  I decided to raise the cut-off pressure to about 95 PSI, a 30 PSI differential, in order to get a slightly longer off-time.  I checked the time with my stopwatch and the compressor was coming on about every 2 hours and running for about 3 minutes.  Not bad compared to the 20 – 25 minute cycle we were seeing before the old compressor died.  In subsequent tests it has stayed off as long as 2 hours 15 minutes if I did not use any air powered accessories.

The 65 PSI cut-in pressure was selected to keep the overall system pressure above 65 PSI.  There is a pressure regulator / water separator that takes air from the auxiliary air manifold and supplies it to the house accessories, specifically the toilet, pocket door, and waste tank dump valves.  The toilet, in particular, wants to see 60 PSI to operate properly.  The auxiliary air compressor also maintains the pressure in the suspension/brake systems, and I like to keep that pressure above 60 PSI.  If not for these minimum pressure requirements I would set the pressure control switch to cycle between 45 and 95 PSI and extend the off-time to 3 or more hours.

With the compressor project wrapped up for now I got out my Pro-Link ECM diagnostic instrument.  The ECM for our DD8V92TA is a DDEC II.  I turned on the chassis batteries and we plugged the Pro-Link power cord into the 12VDC outlet (cigarette lighter) in the driver’s area and plugged the data cable into the diagnostic port in the outside bay under the driver’s seat.  (Note to self:  Install a 12VDC outlet next to the data port for future use.)  After referring to the manual, we were able to examine the data in the DDEC II.

There was one Inactive code set as follows:

MID: 128  Engine  |  Fuel Temp Sensor  |  Input Voltage High  |  I1   PID: 174   FMI: 3

We did not check for active codes as that required the engine to be running and I don’t like to start unless I am going to run it long enough to bring it up to operating temperature.

This was the same code that Bill and I saw in Arcadia and then cleared, so it must have reappeared on the drive back to Williston on January 1st.  I had purchased a new fuel temperature sensor early last year and had our mobile mechanic, Joe Cannarozzi, install it last spring.  It is possible, though unlikely, that this new sensor was bad.  I also do not think I that the bus has a fuel temperature issue.  That leaves wiring or the DDEC II as possible culprits, but not necessarily the only ones.  The fuel temp sensor is mounted in a dry pocket on top of the engine underneath the DDEC II.  I believe the wires go directly from the sensor through a connector to the computer, so the wires and/or connector are obvious places to look for a problem.  More importantly for us today, it appeared that the check engine light has been coming on for a reason, not at random, displaying an active code while driving and coming on and going off as the error condition appeared and disappeared.

Now for the dashboard.  The cover just lifts off, exposing the top and back side of all the gauges, switches, indicator lights, dash lights, rotary controls, and wiring; lots of wiring.  The area behind the dashboard is not very deep—12 inches at most—and it is easier to see this area from outside through the driver side lower windshield than from inside and above.  Extensive work behind the dashboard would require the removal of the driver side lower windshield.

John and Marian studied the wiring through the windshield and spotted some issues.  We followed the wires coming out of the back of the speedometer into a large bundle that went to a large circular connector with a twist-latch to hold it together.  There are several of these connectors to accommodate all of the dashboard wiring, plus smaller connectors for the dashboard lights and miscellaneous power feeds.  (Except for two small air lines for the primary and secondary air system gauges, and some mechanical connections for the front HVAC system, it appears that undoing these wiring connectors would allow the dashboard panels to be removed intact.  That would provide an alternate way to work on the wiring.)

The insulation on several of the wires was abraded or had been chewed off.  (Mice are known to chew insulation off of wires.)  We taped the damaged wires to prevent any further deterioration.  We also noticed a wire that came out of the connector that contained the speedometer wires and looped back into the connector.  It was approximately 6 inches long and the insulation was missing from one side of the middle four inches, exposing the stranded copper conductor.  Not only was that a potential short circuit, the conductor was not in good shape.  It was slightly corroded due to atmospheric exposure and it was frayed in several places with only a few strands providing continuity.  This in turn would look like a resistance to the circuit, causing a voltage drop and reduced current flow.  We clipped out the bad section and spliced in a new piece if wire.

(As a side note, there are only two obvious reasons to loop a wire back through a connector like that: 1) It was intended to go to something that was not installed and then continue on to something else, or 2) It was being used to detect that the cable was plugged in.)

We separated the two halves of the connector and sprayed them with contact cleaner.  While they dried we checked for ground connection problems, but did not see any obvious ones.  The ground on the speedometer mounting bracket looked sound and all of the other speedometer wires were shielded pairs; the instrument itself did not use chassis ground for its signals.

While we had the dashboard exposed I decided to remove the radar detector.  I have never used radar detectors, but it was already installed in the coach when we bought it.  I had never used it and did not intend to.  It was taking up space and making access to things more difficult.  (I had previously removed an electronic compass that did not work and I still need to remove the “musical horn” which we don’t use because it’s annoying.)

With the dashboard work completed we opened up the electrical service bay above the driver side steer tire.  This bay contains a lot of chassis electrical components such as relays, circuit breakers, terminal strips, diodes, and the anti-lock brake computer.  What we were looking for, however, was the Speed Limit Switch (SLS).

The SLS is used on seated coaches to disable the kneeling feature of the suspension when the coach is moving.  In order to do that, the speedometer wires pass through the SLS enroute to the dashboard gauge.  The Prevost national service advisor for conversion shells, Bill Jensen, told me back in January that this switch might be installed in our coach even though it was not used, and that it was a possible point of failure that might cause our intermittent speedometer problem.

The Speed Limit Switch was not present, but there was a DB-15 connector at that location that could have plugged in to it.  The connector was plugged in to a mating connector that did not have any wires coming out of it.  Looking in the cable access hole on the end we could see wires inside.  It was a loop back terminator.  We separated the two connectors and sprayed them with contact cleaner but we did not open them to check the integrity of the wiring inside.

We buttoned everything up and called it a day around 2:30 PM.  I won’t know if any of the work we did today fixed our speedometer problem until we depart Williston Crossings RV Resort in April.

 

2014/03/01 (S) Compressor Install Photos

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A gallery of photos of the auxiliary air compressor replacement project.  Click thumbnail image to open.  Maximum dimension is 400 pixels.  Photos by Marian Hagan marked (MH).

2014/03/01 (S) Installing The Compressor

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John and Marian arrived at 10 AM as I was getting ready to unload all of my tools and materials from their storage locations.  Marian brought her camera and took pictures of us working and I took photos of the details of the work as it progressed.  I have placed the photos in a separate gallery post with today’s date.

We looked at the old compressor and figured out what we had to do to remove it.  The auxiliary air compressor is mounted to the floor of the bay under the driver’s seat.  It is not a large bay, but it is big enough to allow access to the things that are installed there, especially after the plastic 5 gallon windshield washer fluid tank is removed.  (Yes, it holds 5 gallons of washer fluid; it’s a bus and everything on it is super-sized.)

I tried applying AC power to the compressor one last time with zero pressure in the auxiliary air system, but it was still seized.  I shut the circuit breaker off so we could work safely on the electrical aspects of the project.

With the washer fluid tank out of the way we could see that the compressor was mounted on four rubber isolation mounts.  These mounts were ~1″ thick with bolts protruding from either end.  One end was bolted to the air compressor mounting flange.  The other end went through a hole in the floor and was secured with a Nylok nut from under the bus.  The compressor was installed with the length oriented front-to-rear (buswise) so we could get to the interior nuts on the side of the compressor facing us, but not the ones on the other side.  We could hardly see those nuts even with the inspection mirror.  Fortunately the bottom bolts were close enough to both the driver side and front of the bus that I could reach them without having to get under the bus.  With the auxiliary air system bled completely down the suspension was holding, so we did not put the bus up on stands for this work.  I do not get under the bus under those conditions.

We disconnected the air line from the compressor while it was still mounted and then disconnected the other end from the T-fitting and removed it from the bay.  We then unbolted the air compressor and turned it 90 degrees so we could get to the electrical connections on the end of the motor.  With the electrical connections undone we were able to lift the old unit out.  It weighed about 30 pounds.

Butch had alerted me to the possibility that the check valve I bought from Prevost might not be exactly what I need.  He said that air compressors usual have an unloader valve or mechanism in the air line ahead of the check valve.  The purpose of the unloader mechanism is to bleed the pressure off of the air pump when it stops running so the next tine it starts it is initially working against zero pressure.  We examined the old check valve and sure enough, it had an “extra” piece with a small port in the side.  We tested it and verified that the check valve was, in fact, leaking but the pressure relief valve was working.  We also discovered that all of the fittings were compression rather than pipe thread like my new check valve.

After studying the situation for a while John and I agreed that the best course of action was to reuse the old check valve and unloader and put the new check valve in the air line downstream from them.  The new check valve would prevent backflow to the new auxiliary air compressor, and protect it from the higher pressures generated by huge main engine air compressor, while the unloader would relieve the pressure on the auxiliary air pump when it stopped running.

This was the point at which we realized that I did not have all of the necessary fittings to reassemble the air line with the new components.  John got on his phone and found that there was a NAPA auto store not far from the RV Resort.  It’s always something.  This is why jobs that should only take “a few hours” end up taking all day (or longer).  Two trips later and we had everything we needed.

We assembled the air line in two pieces using old and new fittings.  We used PTFE pipe thread compound on all of the threads.  As I do not travel with a vise it was very helpful having four hands to hold things and another pair (Marian) to help as needed.  (Our mechanic would like me to mount a vise to trailer hitch so I can slide it into the receiver on the back of the bus or the car.  That would have been handy for this project.)  We attached one piece of the air line to the compressor and the other piece to the T-fitting.  John had previously attached the two isolation mounts that came out with the old compressor.  We set the new compressor in the compartment with the motor pointing out and reconnected the AC electrical power.  We then turned the compressor 90 degrees and dropped the rear mounting bolts through the two holes in the floor.  John had put the mounts in just the right place and it was a perfect fit!  We put all the nuts on and snugged them up.  The final step was to join the two pieces of the air line together and test it.

I turned on the AC power and it purred like a kitten.  Well, maybe like a really big, loud cat.  We watched the pressure gauge in the auxiliary air manifold and although we could hear air being pumped the pressure was not coming up.  I quickly realized that the primary and secondary tanks had bled down to about 40 PSI and the auxiliary air compressor had to fill them to 70 PSI before the auxiliary air tank/system would fill.  The auxiliary air compressor is not intended to fill the entire chassis system, although it does maintain the pressure at its cut-out setting, so I shut it off.

I had asked John to bring his portable air compressor and he did.  We connected it to the fill connector/valve back by the main engine and used it to fill the primary, secondary, and auxiliary air systems to about 110 PSI.  I then turned the power back on for the auxiliary air compressor and opened the drain valve on the auxiliary air tank.  At 80 PSI the auxiliary air compressor came on.  I shut the drain valve and the pressure came back up to about 104 PSI.  The system was back in operation! I started the stopwatch on my smartphone to time how long it would take to leak down to the cut-in pressure while I cleaned up and put away tools.

The only issue at this point was that the auxiliary air compressor was rated for 100 PSI maximum pressure so the pressure control switch needed to be adjusted.  I turned the power off, removed the cover from the pressure switch, and discovered that it had three spring-loaded adjustments rather than the two I expected to see.  I put the cover back on, restored the power, and suggested that the three of us go out to dinner at Angelina Mia.

At the restaurant I made a special request for pasta in olive oil.  The owner was there and she came to the table to clarify what I wanted.  She said she could do spaghetti with olive oil, garlic, some hot pepper flakes, and spinach.  Winner!  I also found out that Angelina and Mia are her daughter’s names.  We did not get around to working on dashboard wiring issues today, so John and Marian agreed to come back tomorrow.

After dinner I got online to research how to adjust the pressure switch, but everything I found was for a unit with two adjustments, not three.  The key, however, was that the diagram for the unit was probably inside the cover.  I had not thought to look there earlier.  That would be the first task for tomorrow, and then on to wiring issues.

 

2014/02/28 (F) A New Air Compressor

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I was up early.  I called the Grainger store in Ocala, Florida but got connected to a person in Orlando.  I gave her the model number of my old unit and what I thought was the replacement model number.  She confirmed that my exact model number was no longer available.  They had a Dayton compressor in Orlando I could pick up today or have shipped to Ocala for pickup on Monday.  They also had the Gast compressor at their warehouse in Jacksonville, but I could not pick it up there; it would have to be shipped to Ocala where I could get it on Monday.

I called Braas Corp. in Oldsmar, Florida, the sole Florida-based distributor for Gast products.  Yes, they had the model I needed in stock, and yes, they would sell it directly to be.  I gave them my credit card number, got in my car, and headed for Oldsmar 2.5 hours away.

It was a very nice day for a drive.  I took FL-121 south to US-98/19 south, and picked up the Fl-589 leg of the Florida turnpike which got me fairly close to Oldsmar.  I got to Braas Corp. around 12:45 PM.  The compressor was waiting for me at the loading dock and I was back on the road at 1:00 PM.  I stopped for fuel, took a brief detour to check out the Pyper Kub restaurant location at the Williston airport, stopped at Williston Peanuts for a can of their Honey Roasted Peanuts, and was back at the coach by 4:00 PM.; too late to start on the compressor project, but in plenty of time for the Friday evening fire circle.