Tag Archives: Aqua-Hot hydronic diesel furnace

2015/12/19 (S) A Gypsy Journal Milestone

We were up a bit later than usual last night and did not get out of bed until 8:15 AM this morning. The temperature outside had dropped to 36 degrees F overnight and it was cool in the coach which was one of the reasons we slept well and lingered under the covers (where I had my heater pad turned on). I put my sweatpants and sweatshirt under the covers to warm them up before getting up and putting them on. Linda just braved the chill and put on her sweats without warming them first. She’s tougher than I am.

We like to keep track of the weather back home and in other places where we have friends, like Quartzsite, AZ, and the weather apps on our iPads and smartphones make that very easy to do. At 10 AM EST it was 25 at home going up to 28 with an overnight low of 23. Here in Williston it was 48 going up to 62 with an overnight low of 39. Arcadia, where we will be in January and February, was presently 58 going up to 73 and dropping to 55 overnight. Four hours farther south actually matters in Florida, which has four somewhat distinct climate zones. Quartzsite, 2,000 miles west of us, was 38 (at 8 AM local time) going up to 67 and dropping back to 39 overnight. All things considered Williston was a pretty nice place to be this time of year.

Once I was up I fed the cats, who always insist that their needs are met first, and then turned on the three thermostats for the Aqua-Hot hydronic heating system, set the temperature controls, and turned on the diesel burner. I made a pot of coffee and Linda started cooking oatmeal for our breakfast.

A view of our coach looking north at Williston Crossings RV Resort.

We were done with breakfast by 9:30 and Linda had the dishes cleaned shortly thereafter. We doodled on our iPads while we enjoyed the rest of our coffee. Nick Russell sent out the link for the January-February 2016 issue of The Gypsy Journal yesterday. I forwarded it on to our iPads last night and we downloaded it to our devices this morning. It is the 100th issue that Nick has published and the last one he will produce on newsprint. Starting with the March-April 2016 issue the Journal will only be available in digital form. That will not be a problem for us as we switched to the digital version only several years ago, but it is sad that smaller specialty publications cannot survive in printed form. I think it is inevitable that Bus Conversion Magazine will also go digital only, if it survives long enough to make that switch and then survives the transition.

Nick has had a small army of friends take bundles of newspapers and leave them in RV park offices on their travels and has picked up new subscribers that way, but the newspaper is well enough positioned at this point, with a large enough subscriber base, that he should continue to do very well. Even if the number of subscribers levels off, or even shrinks slightly, his profitability should increase nicely now that he is rid of the printing and mailing costs.

Nick and Terry will also have what we called “found time” at the education agency when some task, meeting, or other commitment on our time evaporated and we suddenly, and unexpectedly, “found” time to work on other things. As highly mobile full-timers Nick and Terry were always arranging for printers in different parts of the country, picking up the newspapers, folding and stuffing them in envelopes, printing address labels and putting them on the envelopes, and taking them to a post office, as well as carting around the extras and leaving them in campground offices or giving them to friends to distribute. All of that took a lot of time; time they can now use for other things.

Williston Crossings RV Resort has lovely, mature landscaping including large, majestic Live Oak trees draped in Spanish moss.

Yesterday Linda was looking at the website for Big Tree RV Resort in Arcadia, Florida where we will be in January, February, and early March. She ended up looking at the AllStays Camp and RV listing for the resort and discovered a photo of OUR bus that I took two years ago in our site here at Williston Crossings RV Resort! The information attached to the image pointed back to our website as the source and said “…the image may be copyrighted.” I have looked at ways to add a copyright notice to all of the images on our website/blog but never implemented one. I guess I really should.

After breakfast we opened the packet of felt chair leg caps and put four of them on the folding card table chair we use at the desk. It looked like they would do just what we needed them to do so we removed the towel we had been using to protect the floor. My focus today was working on our blog but first I spent a little time updating my spreadsheet for our spring/summer 2016 water bay project. I uploaded seven blog posts a few days ago but have been concentrating on selecting and processing photos since then. This morning I decided to resume working on posts. My goal was to finish editing the posts for the remainder of August (2015), select the spots to insert the selected photos, clean up the writing, and start uploading them to the server.

We took a lunch break at 12:45 PM and had mock deli slice sandwiches on flatbread and split a fresh apple. Linda started to work on her counted cross-stitch project for grand-daughter Katie but realized the larger grid base material she bought was too small. She found something on Amazon that would work and ordered it for delivery on Tuesday. She then searched online for someplace in the area to buy a Tofurkey vegan mock turkey roll. It looked like Earth Origins in Gainesville sold them so she decided to drive into town and get one rather than wait until next week and risk not having any available. I stayed behind and continued working on my blog posts.

Some of the grass on the other side of the road from our site was spectacular. Ahhh, December in north central Florida. This is why people come here in the winter.

With the outside temperature only rising into the low 60’s we kept the motorcoach closed up today. By 2 PM the temperature in the front half of the coach was a very pleasant 76 degrees F. It was cooler in the back as most of the window area is in the front half of the bus, including the large southwest facing windshields.

Linda returned from her trip to Gainesville with more than just a vegan mock turkey roll. Besides the Tofurkey brand products Earth Origins also had Gardeine brand products. We have had other Gardeine products that were very good so she decided to try their mock stuffed turkey roll. As long as she was there she picked up a half dozen other frozen entrees to try.

I had just finished editing the posts for August when Linda suggested we go for a walk. It was 4 PM and the late afternoon light was nice so I took the camera. We only made it a couple of sites up the road and stopped to talk to the new arrivals from Alaska. We had no sooner resumed our walk when Linda got a call from Diane. John had surgery recently, and will be off work until after the holidays, but is recovering nicely. We strolled along slowly while they talked and I took a few pictures. I wore my sweater but the sun was already behind the trees and I was pretty quickly uncomfortably cool in the shade.

We crossed paths with John and Ali and stopped to chat for a while. We learned last night at the campfire that Jeff and Kathy’s dog Teddy had succumbed to his lymphoma this past Sunday. Teddy was very sweet and we know how difficult it is when a pet dies. We also learned that Jeff had been taken to the hospital in Ocala and was scheduled to have a colonoscopy earlier today. The report back from Kathy was that he might have colitis.

When we got back to our rig Linda made hot hibiscus tea. I had planned to upload some blog posts today but I had spent enough time in front of my computer for one day and sat on the couch with my iPad for a while instead. I rarely take naps but I am not opposed to the idea. I laid down at 5:15 PM and dozed until Linda got me up at 6 for dinner.

Linda on the phone with Diane Rauch as we head into the older south section of the resort. That’s one happy girl.

After dinner we both changed into warmer clothes and Linda packed our wine to take to the fire circle. We got there a little before 7 PM, later than usual, but the only people there were John, Big Mike, Jim (Sonny Fox), and Tom (from Hilton Head, SC). Another couple, who have the site just east of John and Ali, showed up just after us but that was it for the evening and John did not get his guitar and perform. Besides the much cooler weather there was a dinner/dance at the clubhouse this evening, so John had anticipated a smaller than usual crowd. That was nice in a way, both for him and us, as we got to talk more than usual.

The temperature had already dropped into the lower 50’s at 7 PM. In spite of our best efforts we were not able to get the fire really hot, and did want to build it too large, so by 9 PM it had dropped into the mid-40’s and everyone had left except for me and John. I spread out the fire and put the implements in the shed and John locked it. He joined Ali at Jeff at Kathy’s fifth wheel trailer, where Ali was visiting with Kathy, and I walked back to our rig.

Linda was in her sweats with her blanket over her legs reading her latest e-book with a cat on her lap. I changed into my sweats but did not feel like doing much of anything. I flipped through TV channels but did not find anything that caught my interest. PBS was running a Peter, Paul, and Mary 50th anniversary special, which would normally have been very interesting to me, but it was a fund raiser made up of old clips, interviews, and pleas for money and I just was not in the humor.

The temperature in the coach had dropped to 68 but we both felt a little chilled so I turned on the front thermostat and Aqua-Hot diesel burner. I made a cup of hot decaf chai tea, played a few games on my iPad, and worked on this post before finally going to bed at 11:30 PM and going to sleep.

2015/10/16 (F) Desk Installation

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We were up at 8 AM, fed the cats, made coffee, and had breakfast. Phil showed up around 8:30 AM, unloaded his front loader, dropped his flatbed trailer, and left in his dump truck. I turned on the fireplace and we enjoyed our coffee while iPading until 10:15 AM.

Our first task today was to cut up several large limbs that I pulled out of the woods last evening to get them out of Phil’s way. I cut them up with the chain saw and then we stacked them on the disposal pile for Phil to haul away.

Phil returned at 10:30 and moved his Caterpillar 305C excavator into the woods across the street by the culvert. I went down to chat with him briefly to make sure I understood what he was going to work on. There were a lot of small trees (3″ diameter), saplings, and bushes scattered around the site. Some of them had been dead for years and some had just been knocked over by Phil. I decided to work in that area with my chain saw cutting everything up into five foot lengths so Phil could use his front loader to get them into his dump truck. I worked at this until 11:30 AM and then turned my attention to the bus. Linda worked on her needlepoint while I cut wood.

Before getting started on construction tasks I took two pieces of filter material and set them on the wire shelf in the freezer compartment of the new refrigerator, one on top of the other. I then set the two remote thermometer sensors on the filter material. Butch had suggested the other night that I set the sensor on a sponge to get it off of the floor of the freezer compartment as it was likely responding to the automatic defroster heat strips when they come on. I figured the filter material would work just as well and that placing the sensors on the shelf would definitely get them away from the floor.

Linda brought out a bag of ice from the house fridge and put it in the bus freezer. She also filled several 1/2 gallon juice and milk cartons with water, put the caps on, and put them in the fresh food compartment. The purpose of all of this was to add thermal mass to the compartments to cause the refrigerator to run less often and reduce large swings in temperature.

Inside the bus our first sub-project was installing the desk, which included putting the front passenger side HVAC duct cover in place even though it is not finished. It took us quite a while to get everything positioned just right. With Linda holding things in position I screwed the right pedestal to the wall, adjusted the position of the base and screwed the pedestal to the base. We then repeated that process for the left pedestal and base.

Linda removes the backing from the double-sided tape on the back side of the air grate in the center connector/cover for the desk.

At this point we had several things to do with, and under, the center connector/cover so I removed it and took it into the garage/shop. We cut a piece of the decorative brass colored metal grate and secured it to the back of the air opening with small screws every few inches. Next we cut a piece of black plastic mesh to fit over the grate. We then cut pieces of 3M Extreme Mounting Tape (double-sided) and attached them to the back side of the grate in between the screws. Linda peeled off the protective layer and we carefully placed the plastic mesh. Using one of the scrap pieces of the protective layer I rolled the plastic into the take with our wallpaper seam roller. Finally, we had a piece of filter material already cut to cover this air intake opening so we set that on top of the mesh, pressed it down to take advantage of the tape, and then secured it with Gorilla Tape on all four edges, rolling it with the seam roller to get good bonding.

A detailed view of one of the homebrewed tongue and groove alignment assemblies made from flat mending plates.

Back in the coach I had to tie in the outlet strip to the 120VAC power feed. I shut off the breaker for this circuit and checked with my tester to make sure it was not live. The hot and neutral wires were accessible but the ground wires were back under the left pedestal where they were not easy to reach and manipulate. It took a while, certainly longer than it should have, but I got the three ground wires tied together with a grounding clamp. I connected the hot and neutral wires (three each) relatively easily using wire nuts. I turned the circuit breaker back on and checked that the outlet strip had power between the correct terminals and did have power between any other terminal pairs.

I went to the garage to get a four foot long piece of 1″X1″ aluminum angle that I bought weeks ago to use as a support bracket for the upper rear edge of the center connector/cover. I was going to cut off a 26″ long piece and then drill countersunk holes but I noticed a piece of 1/2″X1/2″ light gage angle that was about 26″ long and already had holes in it. It was long enough to span the space between the pedestals and go under each one about an inch. That was sufficient to position it correctly so Linda held it there while I secured it to the wall with four round (pan) head screws. I then put the center connector/cover back in place.

Phil has cleared all of the organic debris from the area where the driveway extension and RV pad will be located.

Phil starts trenching and placing the plastic drain tile tubing for the French drain.

Phil had long since left in his truck to dump all of the wood debris. We had a light lunch of Amy’s Lentil Vegetable soup and fresh organic grapes. While we were eating a group of three deer came to our back yard and eventually ended up eating apples that had fallen from our tree onto the ground. These same deer, along with two others, were here yesterday at twilight and were very frisky. We saw them later in our neighbor’s yard across the street.

Another view of Phil’s smaller excavator with the 12” bucket being used to trench the French drain in the southwest portion of our property.

Phil returned around 3 PM and started working on the French drain. He replaced the 30″ wide toothed bucket with the 12″ one and started at the high end if the culvert on this side of the road.

The grand finale was the installation of the Corian desktop, which has been sitting on a blanket in the middle of the living area floor since Tuesday. I drilled countersunk holes through the four corner plates in each desk pedestal from underneath. I then inserted 1-1/4″ #8 self-drilling outdoor wood screws into each hole, again from underneath, until they just protruded above the corner blocks and then backed them off until the tips were just below the surface. We set the desktop across the pedestals and pushed it as tight to the back and right end wall as we could. Linda put her weight on it and I ran the screws home, pulling the top tight to the pedestals. We reinstalled the four drawers in the right pedestal, finally getting them off the floor in the hallway where they have been since Tuesday. We stepped back to admire the desk and agreed it was a thing of beauty and a joy to behold. Linda also marveled, once again, at how much space she now has to work in the kitchen.

A wider shot showing the excavator and drain tile. The laser level is at the left edge of the frame. The main arm of the excavator (with the bucket attached) has a laser sensor on it that tells Phil exactly where the lower edge of the bucket is relative to the laser level.

The “denouement” was mounting the outlet strip and adding felt pads to the two fake drawer fronts on the left pedestal and then adjusting the magnetic catches. I originally had the outlet strip (temporarily) mounted to the wall between the two pedestals with two screws a few inches below the cord notch in the center of the back edge of the desktop. Rather than put it back there I decided to mount it on the underside of the desktop just in front of the cord notch.

The underside location will work just as well as the wall mount location for regular 2- and 3-prong plugs but probably not as well for small AC adapters. The added pluses of this location, however, are: 1) it will not interfere with cords coming through the notch, 2) it will be up out of the way of the UPS (uninterruptible power supply) that will sit on the shelf at the top of the center connector/cover, and 3) if liquids are accidentally spilled and run over through the notch they will not run into the outlet strip. Besides, devices with an AC adapter will probably be plugged into the UPS so this was a better overall approach.

Our next task was to adjust the sofa seat until it was deep enough to be comfortable. We slide the plywood seat out a couple of inches and then got the seat and back cushions (three each) from the house where they have been stored since September 21st. We put the cushions in place and sat down. We pulled the cushions out and pulled the seat board out until it was five inches farther out than originally designed and put the cushions back in.

The front edge of the seat cushions were out farther than I liked but we both agreed the sofa was now comfortable to sit on. The distance from the bottom front edge of the back cushions to the front edge of the seat cushions was originally only 16 inches and that turned out to just be too short. With the seat board moved out it will now be 21 inches.

In order for the sofa to work correctly, both as a sofa and as a bed, we will need a cushion that is 5″ wide by 6″ high, by ~76″ long to fill in the space behind the seat cushions and below the back cushions. The height and foam makeup will be such that it is level with the tops of the seat cushions and have the same firmness and feel. Would that I had designed the sofa for this depth to begin with and had the seat cushions made accordingly, but we were trying to open up the living room by not having the sofa protrude into the aisle any more than absolutely necessary.

Next up was reinstalling the wood trim in hallway. We have an interesting plan for the lower half of the hallway but in case we do not get it finished before we leave for the winter we wanted the trim off the bed and back on the wall.

The lower outside hallway wall. There were originally three framed panels of vertical strip mirrors here. We will replace them with wood panels, probably in a lighter color to contrast with the walnut trim.

This trim originally framed three panels of vertical strip mirrors. We were able to remove the mirrors as they were glued to wallpaper. In the process we discovered that the left and right panels were the same width but the center panel was wider. The trim consisted of six pieces of wood; a long upper and lower horizontal piece and four vertical pieces. The six pieces were screwed to the lower half of the outer wall but not attached to each other. The left and right vertical pieces were tight to adjacent woodwork, but the two intermediate pieces were free to be repositioned.

We reattached the upper horizontal piece first making sure the mounting screws went back in the same holes. Next we pushed the lower horizontal piece into place but did not screw it to the wall. We then attached the left and right verticals. The horizontal distance between the inside edges of the left and right verticals was 75 inches. The two intermediate verticals were each 4-1/2″ wide so the distance between verticals needed to be 22″ (75 minus 9 = 66 divided by 3 = 22). We carefully positioned and secured the two intermediate verticals to achieve this spacing.

The trim boards all have rabbited edges on the back side. I need to measure them carefully, but they are ~3/16″ deep by 3/8″ wide. Our current plan is to use 3/16″ underlayment or other 3/16″ high quality plywood to make three panels that will fit within these rabbits with a little room to spare. The panels will either have a hardwood face or we will cover them with a hardwood veneer of a wood that contrasts with the walnut trim. We can get the veneer from Rockler once we decide what we want.

Linda spread out several towels on the new desktop and we moved tools and supplies from the A-V cabinet, behind the driver’s seat, to the new desk. I then removed the Corian top of the A-V cabinet and put in on the bed. We still have a small amount of wallpaper to install in the front of the living room and into the cockpit on the driver side, but it will not be easy to do.

These areas, such as the one behind the A-V cabinet, are small with limited access so most of my sanders cannot be used. The only one that might work is the Porter-Cable oscillating tool but I did not get it out today. I got some sanding sponges instead and tried those on the wall under the passenger side window trim next to the co-pilot seat. When I sanded a dark area about 6″ long by 3″ wide the wood in the center crumbled and I ended up with a hole 3″ long by an inch and a half wide. I could see one of the stainless steel structural members through the hole. Given what was obviously water damage I was glad we bought a bus with welded stainless steel as the main structural material.

Based on what I could see, the walls in the bus appear to be 1/2″ plywood although I did not measure the thickness. This area had obviously gotten very wet over a long period of time and some of the wood has rotted. It is the only spot we have discovered that is this damaged and we immediately realized that we will not be able to wallpaper this area. We will probably panel over it, similar to what we plan to do with the veneered panels in the hallway, but today was not the day to figure that out.

It was going on 5 PM and we decided we were done for the day. I turned off all of the electric heaters, turned on the Aqua-Hot, turned on all three thermostats, and set the temperature to 20 degrees C. The refrigerator was also indicating much colder freezer temperatures than it had been before I moved/isolated the remote sensors so I reset the freezer and fresh food controls to their “normal” center positions. Tomorrow we will replace the alkaline batteries with the Lithium batteries we bought specifically for the TempMinder thermometer system, reset the min/max data, and monitor it for a few days.

I walked down to see what Phil was doing. He was making good progress with the French drain but did not have enough of the plastic drain tile to finish it today. He plans to work tomorrow and will have the additional tile he needs to finish the drain. I left him to his work and took photos of the fall colors in our yard as I worked my way back to the house.

I spent an hour at my computer dealing with e-mail and transferring photos from the Sony a100 to my laptop. Linda called me to dinner at 7 PM. It was a simple meal of vegan Coney dogs with mustard, onion, and beans served open-faced on a whole wheat hotdog bun. As a side dish Linda steamed Opo squash. It was the first time either of us had this particular squash. It was very mild with a hint of cucumber. It is available all over the world and widely consumed as it is relatively inexpensive. It was OK, but I thought it might work better as an ingredient rather than a stand-alone side dish.

I exchanged a couple of text messages with Chuck and confirmed that we would be at his shop tomorrow after breakfast to retrieve our two bus windshields. The rest of the evening was spent in the living room by the fireplace reading and writing on our iPads before turning in and watching episodes of Rick Steeves’ Europe and Joseph Rezendo’s Travelscope on Detroit PBS (WTVS).

2014/11/24-30 Together and Apart

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2014/11/24 (M) Martin Diesel

I set my alarm for 6 AM and got up when it sounded. I finished packing all of the things I had in the bedroom and then stripped the bed. At 6:45 AM I moved everything to the bus and started my final departure routine. I set the car for towing, opened all of the auxiliary air valves, and switched the chassis batteries on. I cleared the kitchen counter and checked that the refrigerator doors were latched. I then turned off the shore power, stowed the cord, secured the utility bay, and checked that all of the bay doors were closed and locked. I started the main engine and put it in high idle to help build air pressure. Once the bus was running I shut off the lights in the house and locked the door behind me.

I pulled out of Butch and Fonda’s place at 7:28 AM with the temperature in the low 50’s and strong winds out of the southwest. I took SR-16 east to US-31 south to US-24 east to Roanoke (IN) where I turned east on County Road N 900 E (Vine St.). I followed N 900 E, a two-lane road with a lot of heavy truck traffic, for about four miles where it became I-469 with exits for I-69. I-469 took me around the south and east sides of Ft. Wayne, Indiana to exit 21 where I rejoined US-24 eastbound. Except for the wind it was a shorter and easier run that staying on US-24 all the way to I-69.

The stretch of US-24 east of Ft. Wayne, Indiana is apparently new enough that my relatively new and updated Rand McNally RVND GPS did not know it existed and kept trying to route me onto the old roadway. Although not a limited access highway, it was posted at 65 MPH and I was able to travel comfortably at 62 MPH with very light traffic for the entire trip. I crossed into Ohio and continued on towards Defiance. I passed the main exit for Defiance and took exit 28, Domersville Road (OH-284), a little farther to the east. I headed south for about a mile and turned left on Deerwood, which intersects with County Road 424 (OH-284 passes over CR-424). Another mile east along the north bank of the Maumee River and I was at Martin Diesel. The new speedometer/odometer worked perfectly and I did not get a Check Engine Light the entire trip. At this point the “fuel temperature voltage high” problem is either fixed or has stopped registering fault codes. My transmission retarder was still not operational but I managed my deceleration by anticipating the need to stop and manually selecting lower gears. I arrived with the house batteries at 97% state of charge, indicating that the 24 VDC Zena power generating system appeared to be doing its job maintaining the house battery bank.

I pulled off the road, parked, and went in. Jim Martin wasn’t there but Paul seemed to know I was coming. I had to unhook the car and move it out of the way. I then had to back the bus between a racing trailer and a light/power pole with no more than 18″ to spare on each side. I raised the tag axle to shorten the turning radius and pulled around behind the building to the spot where they wanted it.

The motorcoach at Martin Diesel in Defiance, Ohio.

Paul assigned Jay to work on the generator and Mike came out to look at it. The hour meter on the unit showed 3099 hours and the one in the house systems panel showed 2625 hours but I had no idea if either of those were correct. Mike said it was important to replace the rear bearing on the generator before 5,000 hours and I decided to have them go ahead and do it. The unit was put in service in October 1990, after all, and I have no idea how many hours are actually on it or if/when/how it has been serviced. Jay changed the oil and filter, the fuel filter, and the air filter, and replaced the drive belt. I got a spare set of filters and a belt to take with me.

When Jay was done servicing the unit he started the unit to check for leaks and check the speed (frequency). It was running at 62.3 Hz with no load, and that is where they like to have them set. Jay pulled the cover off the free end of the generator and checked the gap, which he said was good (equal all the way around). He showed me the part he had to remove to get to the rear bearing and explained that it could take up to 2.5 hours to complete the job. That would have delayed my departure enough that I would arrive home after dark, or have to spend the night there. Getting home after dark was not an ideal scenario on such a windy day and I was anxious to get home rather than spend a night on the road. Jay also indicated that a replacement part was no longer available should this one get damaged. He had done this job before and was confident he could do it without damaging the part, but it was clear that he wasn’t keen on the idea, especially as he was working outside in falling temperatures and serious wind.

Jay and I discussed the situation with Paul and his opinion was to hold off and replace the bearing as part of a more extensive out-of-vehicle overhaul. Between the time required, the risk involved, and the “fact” that the unit was only 62% of the way to the recommended replacement hours, I decided to have them quit while we ahead.

Jay wanted to run the unit under load for a while so tried to turn on the air-conditioners, but they were all dead; no power. I turned on the electric toe kick heaters instead, but only the front and rear ones would run, so I also turned on the auxiliary air compressor. The refrigerator was running as was the house battery charger. The bathroom electric heater is on its own circuit breaker and Just this past week I tied in an outlet to that circuit for the vacuum cleaner and used it as recently as yesterday. I checked and had voltage and current on both legs, so it seemed unlikely that the GenSet was the problem.

The end of the generator exposed to get access to the rear bearing.

Jay had the work wrapped up by 2 PM and wrote it up so I could settle the bill. I had to back the bus out and get it turned around so I could hook up the car and pull out headed west on CR-424 back to Deerwood and then north on Domersville and back to US-24. My route home from there was US-24 east to I-475 north to US-23 north. I was unsure of the status of the construction work on Grand River Avenue so I sent Linda a TXT message before I pulled out. She confirmed that the construction was done so I exited US-23 onto westbound I-96, took exit 145 for Grand River Avenue towards Howell and then north on Hacker to our street. I pulled into the driveway at 5:02 PM. The wind was very strong and gusty out of the southwest the entire drive, and the temperature had dropped into the 30’s, but the bus and I did just fine, even without the transmission retarder.

Linda got home about five minutes after me. I turned on the outside RV outlet, plugged the coach in, closed various air valves, and turned off the chassis batteries. We sat for a while in the living room with the fire logs blazing and enjoyed a cup of hot tea. Butch had called me while I was driving so I called him back around 6 PM and brought him up to date on the electrical issues I discovered while I was at Martin Diesel. After another cup of tea Linda started fixing dinner while I unloaded clothes, technology, and some food items from the bus. We had an Amy’s Pizza Margherita for dinner with some Red Guitar Sangria. Yum. I enjoyed my time at Butch and Fonda’s, and got a lot done while I was there, but it was nice to be home.

2014/11/25 (T) New Tires

We slept in and had a lazy start to the day, enjoying our morning coffee in the living room to the warmth and glow of our new natural gas fireplace logs. I finished up yesterday’s blog post and continued working on the article for the GLCC newsletter about the October Surplus and Salvage rally. As much as we both would have liked a down day, and could have used one, we had too much to do to get ready for our family gathering on Thanksgiving and to get us, the bus, and the house ready for our departure on Sunday.

The Salvation Army was scheduled to pick up our old propane range today sometime between 8 AM and 7 PM, so that required us to coordinate our errands so that one of us was always at home until they got here. As it turned out the Salvation Army truck showed up at 9:15 AM, loaded the range, and were on their way by 9:30 AM. That freed up how we went about the rest of our day.

Linda got several calls from the bakery and ended up working on software issues off and on throughout the day. She cut my hair, which was overdue, after which I worked on the design for the organizer I’m going to build for the Honda Element. I unloaded the back of the Element so I could take measurements and to make room for the wood I needed for the project. I called Bill Gerrie in Ontario to discuss the transmission and engine computer issues that have appeared with the bus. I had no sooner finished the conversation when it was time for lunch.

After lunch I took a box of gifts for my sister to the UPS Store in Howell. I stopped at Teeko’s Coffee & Teas just up the street and ordered three different coffees for pickup on Friday. I then went to Discount Tire to get new tires for the Element. This is the busy season for Discount Tire and it took two hours before they were done, but to their credit that is exactly how long they told me it would take. I switched from the B. F. Goodrich trail-rated tire that was on the car to a similar, but better rated, Cooper Tire. I was told that the new tires should be a bit quieter and have better traction on slick surfaces but still hold up to the dirt roads in our area and when we travel.

Home Depot was next door to the tire store so I stopped there to see if they would cut plywood sheets to smaller sizes. They would, but they had pieces already cut to 2’x4′ and 2’x2′. I had planned to use 3/4″ plywood, but the 1/2″ pieces seemed sufficiently strong for my purpose. I assessed my design with respect to these sizes and decided they would work. I picked up some 36″ long 1″X1″ material to use as cleats. The size of this material made it easy to handle and get into my car. I bought a bottle of Tightbond wood glue but forgot to buy screws, so I stopped at Lowe’s and picked up some nice star drive 1-1/4″ outdoor wood screws with special points and a cutaway drill-like design. I will still pre-drill the holes to make sure the cleats do not split.

Linda had a 4 PM appointment to have her hair cut by Renee at the J. C. Penney’s salon at 12 Oaks Mall, so she was gone by the time I got home. I unloaded the wood I just bought, threw some laundry in the dryer, and got back to work on the GLCC rally article. Linda got home shortly thereafter and started putting dinner together. She made a whole wheat pasta with sun-dried tomatoes, onions, garlic, and greens lightly sautéed in olive oil. We had a glass of the Red Guitar Sangria to go with it. I have missed her cooking while I was away working on the bus.

After dinner I sent a TXT message to Chuck to let him know I was back and had some issues with the coach. I finished the GLCC rally article and sent it to the newsletter editors, Scott and Tami Bruner, and the rally hosts Pat and Vickie Lintner.

The things on our list that did not get done today included the following bus-related items:

Completely unloading the house portion of the bus.
Cleaning the interior of the bus.
Checking/diagnosing the bus AC house circuits.
Removing/checking/reinstalling the ATEC (?) connector on the DDEC II.

I also need to move items from the garage to the library that cannot be allowed to freeze and remove the wasp nest from the front of the house.

I plan to work on the organizer for the Element tomorrow morning and leave the bus stuff for Friday and Saturday. Brendan is bringing Madeline over tomorrow. She is going to stay overnight and we will take her to Meghan’s house on Thursday for the family Thanksgiving gathering. We will get some work done while Madeline is sleeping, but she gets our full attention when she is awake.

2014/11/26 (W) Return of Schmoo

I awoke at 5 AM and realized fairly quickly that I was not going to fall back asleep so I got up, put on my nice warm winter robe and fleece-lined slippers, and worked at my computer and iPad until Linda got up a little before 8 AM. I copied and pasted draft blog posts from my e-mail to MS Word from yesterday all the way back to November 7th. I have tried to write every day but have not uploaded to the web since the end of September. Next I organized the photographs I have taken this November. I then started updating the MS Excel spreadsheet I use to list my various bus projects and track their status.

When Linda arose she made a pot of coffee, so I took a break and enjoyed the brew. I had planned to start working on the plywood divider for the Back of the Honda Element, and Linda had planned to start preparing some of the food for tomorrow, until Brendan called at 8:45 AM to let us know he and Madeline would be at our house in about an hour, if that was alright with us. Of course it was. Given the short time until they arrived I continued working at my computer and Linda took a call from the bakery.

Brendan and Madeline arrived a little before 10 AM. Madeline was quickly engaged with the house and her special toys and books. Brendan stuck around through lunch and then headed back to Ann Arbor. Schmoo went down for her nap at 12:30 PM and I took advantage of her nap time to start building the first of two plywood dividers for the car. The first thing was to remove the passenger side rear seat from the Element, which took both of us. Linda then worked at her desk on bakery and personal items and made two relishes for tomorrow: regular cranberry-orange relish, and “Mama Stamberg’s Cranberry Relish,” made with cranberries, onions (Linda substituted shallots), horseradish, and “sour cream” (Linda used a vegan version, naturally). At the point where I had to assemble two sides and a shelf Linda helped hold the pieces together while I secured them with glue and screws.

We finished the divider, except for a couple of notches I have to cut out, around 3:15 PM just as Madeline was starting to wake up from her nap. Linda got her up and dressed at 3:30 PM. They played at various games while I took a little time to call my sister. I played with Madeline until dinnertime at 5:30 PM, giving Linda a chance to get the meal on the table. We all had the same thing; vegan “chicken nuggets”, corn kernels, baked sweet potatoes, and brown-n-serve dinner rolls with some orange juice to wash it down.

I amused Madeline while Linda cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher. We played at various things that delight an almost two-year-old child until 7:10 PM when I turned on the fireplace logs and dimmed the lighting in the living room. We started putting toys away and creating a calm mood to counter Madeline’s tendency to get slightly frantic just before she’s tired enough to go to bed. Linda got her changed into her pajama’s (“jammies”) at 7:30 PM and we all sat and watched the fire dance in the fireplace for a while until Madeline said she was ready to go to bed.

Once she was asleep we checked the fit of the divider around the air-compressor and determined it was good. I had a brief call from Pat Lintner about the GLCC rally article and exchanged TXT messages with Chuck about our transmission issues. I did a final check of e-mail and shut my computer down for the night. We had a few cookies and then turned in for the evening.

2014/11/27 (R) Giving Thanks

Linda was up at 6:30 AM and working in the kitchen on dishes for the family gathering later in the day. Madeline woke up at 7:00 and Linda had her up shortly thereafter. I got up and put on my robe and supervised her first play of the day while Linda got breakfast ready. Linda made a pot of oatmeal with raisins, which we enjoyed, but Schmoo preferred her banana and “toast” (bread) with peanut butter. We all had orange juice and the adults had coffee. I suspect Madeline will learn to enjoy coffee much younger than most people, but not for quite a while yet.

There are lots of little rituals at this age and one of them is the washing of hands and face after a meal. Madeline likes our hall bathroom because the mirrored walls on three sides of the counter allow her to see an infinite set of receding images of herself. She and I sat in the living room and played with Legos while Linda cleaned up the breakfast dishes. I then took a shower while Linda played with Schmoo. Once I was dressed I took over child amusement duties while Linda showered and dressed and gathered up all of the stuff that had to go with us to our daughter and son-in-law’s house for Thanksgiving.

We took two cars with Linda driving Madeline in her car and me following in mine. Our son and daughter-in-law are going to keep Linda’s Honda Civic for the winter, so they will take it to their house after dinner and I will drive us home. Linda had finished the holiday and birthday shopping over the weekend and we brought all of the presents with us, to be distributed and opened at the appropriate time in our absence. We got to Chris and Meghan’s house around 11 AM. Katie (Chris’ daughter) was already there, having spent the night, and Brendan and Shawna showed up around 11:30 AM, completing the family gathering.

Madeline was very excited to see her parents, of course, although she is also very comfortable being away from them if she is with people she knows and trusts. She was a busy girl for about an hour and then went down for her afternoon nap. That gave the adults a chance to visit and finish the dinner preparations. Madeline got up at 2:30 PM, a shorter than normal nap, and was active until dinnertime. We brought a bottle of champagne that we used to toast the occasion before sitting down to eat at 4 PM.

We had a nice assortment of dishes for dinner, many of them vegan in consideration of how Linda and I choose to eat as well as Meghan’s food sensitivities. The meal was the combined effort of Linda, Brendan, and Meghan and included turkey and gravy that Brendan made and everyone but us had. Everything else was vegan. Linda made Tofurkey and gravy, dinner rolls, cranberry orange salad, Mama Stamberg’s cranberry salad, quinoa salad with pomegranates and pistachios, and mashed sweet potatoes with currants and spices. Meghan made white chunk-style mashed potatoes, corn bread stuffing, and green bean salad. Brendan and Shawna brought a couple bottles of wine, a 2012 German Kreuznacher Kronenberg Riesling Spatlese and a 2010 French Chateau Le Gay Bordeaux. It is fun having adult children who enjoy and appreciate these things.

Shawna and Meghan changed Madeline’s dress and Brendan took “Christmas” pictures, hoping to get one they could use on their holiday card. While the photo shoot was going on Meghan made an avocado chocolate mousse for dessert. She served the mousse with fresh berries and also had a spiced pumpkin cake she had made earlier. Both were vegan and amazing. The entire meal was skillfully prepared and very tasty; as good a Thanksgiving dinner as one could want.

We visited for a while after dinner and Katie received 18th birthday gifts from her dad and Meghan and from us. Brendan and Shawna gathered up their stuff first and got Madeline bundled up against the cold for the ride home. Linda gave Brendan the registration and insurance and two keys to her car and he drove it to their house for the winter. We packed up some leftovers and left about 15 minutes later. When we got home I made some green tea while Linda called her sister, who spends Thanksgiving with their brother Ron, his wife Mary, some of Ron’s children and her family. At least that is what they usually do. I checked e-mail and realized that MS Outlook 2013 has been shuffling e-mails to my junk folders since July, so I dragged all of them back to my various inboxes. We watched an episode of NCIS on the iPad and then went to sleep.

The notion of Thanksgiving, of setting aside a special day to “give thanks,” is based at its core on the idea that something outside ourselves is responsible for what we have in life, whatever degree of good fortune (or lack thereof) we might have experienced, either in the prior year, or cumulatively. For many people this is a giving of thanks to a higher being that is globally credited with this responsibility. That idea holds no meaning for us, of course, but we certainly recognize that there are numerous people who daily impact our situation in life and are (or should be) thanked for what they do. When the interactions are direct there is the opportunity to say “thank you” and we try to do that. Yesterday and this morning, for example, we were gently reinforcing Madeline’s use of “please” and “thank you” in her common, daily interactions with people.

I am certainly glad to be with family on a day that is set aside for enjoying their company and reflecting on the fact that all of us have so far worked out very good lives and have bright futures to the extent they are under our control. I looked up the term “gratitude” and although Wikipedia links it to “thankfulness” and “appreciation,” and discusses its religious connections at length, it also discusses the recent interest in the study of gratitude by psychologists as a positive emotion that enriches our own lives and the lives of others. I am, in that sense, grateful for the people in my life and the life we have and do not have a better term to express a conscious recognition of the quality of my life and the importance of the people in in it.

2014/11/28b (F) Black Friday

The leftovers have barely cooled off and the commercial holiday season is red hot. I know, because we are receiving a steady flow of e-mails alerting us to “once-in-lifetime, lowest-price-of-the-season, never-to-be-seen-again, Black Friday” deals. Pardon me if I’m a bit bah humbug about this, but I am still digesting my dinner from yesterday and I am just not that found of crowds, shopping or otherwise. No, we slept in, had our usual breakfast, drank our coffee by the warmth and glow of our fireplace, played a few games on our iPads (because we are retired and we can), and got ready for our final two-day push to get the bus, the house, and us ready for the winter.

We are more relaxed about all of this than we were last year for several reasons. For one, we are now “experienced” so we have a clearer picture of what we need to do and how long it will take. For another, we are leaving 20 days earlier than last year with a weather forecast that is still colder than we would like but without significant snow or the threat of ice. We also do not have to be at specific places on specific dates, so we have more flexibility in our preparations and travels than we had last year. We have a different guy (Kerry Fear) doing snow removal this year and are more comfortable that he will reliably take care of our driveway since he lives nearby and only does about a dozen residences (no commercial properties) including our neighbor to the rear (Sean) which is where we got his name. Finally, we now have natural gas being piped to the house and are disconnected from our propane tanks, which means we do not have to worry about running out of fuel and not being able to get more and/or being gouged with spot market prices.

Once we got busy our first task was to put the air-compressor box in the Honda Element to see how it fit and so I could get final measurements for the second box that will go behind the driver side rear seat. We then unloaded the house portion of the coach and brought everything into the (fixed) house so we could: a) clean the inside (of the bus), and; b) sort through all of the “stuff,” decide what was going back onboard, stage it for reloading, and store what was staying behind.

I helped with the unloading process and then busied myself finishing the air-compressor box. I had planned to build a second box to put behind the driver side passenger seat. However, once I got the air-compressor box trimmed and we got it installed there wasn’t enough room for the second box. I also thought about building a shelf to put under the dinette seat so the dinette base could slide under it, allowing us to store things under the seat without them being disturbed by the in/out motion of the table. I did not have pieces of plywood the size I needed and Linda correctly noted that we planned to tear out that side of the bus next year anyway so perhaps this wasn’t the best use of my time. She’s good that way.

Instead of building things I started sorting and staging all of the stuff we took off the bus this morning. Some of it is staying home, some will go in the car, some will go in the bus bays, and the rest will go in the living area of the bus. Somewhere in the middle of that process we took a break and had some of the leftover quinoa salad, only Linda served it warm instead of cold. We had a few grapes to go with it.

I decided that I wanted to take our extra Webasto burner assembly with us with the hope that I might order a blower bearing kit and new style banjo fuel fittings and rebuild the burner once we get settled. The burner was installed in Butch’s old Aqua-Hot so I removed it. We put it in a 10 gallon ZipLock bag, wrapped it in bubble wrap, and stored it vertically in a 5 gallon utility bucket with the nozzle and ignition electrodes pointing up. The bucket had a gasket sealed lid and we had been using it to store cat food until today. The burner is a very expensive assembly and we needed to ensure it did not get damaged.

While Linda worked at her desk I investigated the problem with the (lack of) AC power to the air-conditioners. I consulted the conversion documentation, which includes a list of the numbered wires in the 12VDC distribution panel in the front center ceiling area, and it indicated that wire #17 was the feed for the air-conditioning switches. I located wire #17 in the panel and checked for voltage on the feed and load sides of the 2 Amp blade fuse. I had 13.3 volts on the feed side but nothing on the load side indicating a blown fuse. I pulled it out and examined it and it was definitely open. I checked a replacement fuse for continuity before I inserted it but forgot to check for voltage on the load side before turning on the switch for the rear air-conditioner. (I chose the rear air unit because it does not involve the Mac solenoid air valve that controls the shutters in the front of the spare tire compartment where the front and middle air-conditioner compressors are located.) I did not get power to the unit so I pulled the new fuse and it was blown open. Clearly there is a short but I will have to track it down another time. It was getting dark and dinner was about to be served.

We had leftovers for dinner; Tofurkey with vegan gravy, cranberry-orange relish, and dinner rolls. Linda also roasted some fresh asparagus to round out the meal. After dinner I drove to Teeko’s to pick up our coffee order but discovered that they closed at 4:30 PM today so I drove back home. It was the end of the evening rush hour, dark, snowing, and Black Friday so I had no interest in being out on the road or in any stores.

I brought both of our GPS units into the house intending to update them tonight, but it’s going to be tomorrow. I called Butch and talked to him briefly, and then called Chuck and left a message. He called back and we had a nice chat.

Our pace was not frantic but we were busy most of the day and very focused on getting certain things done. The bus is clean (on the inside), we are in the process of organizing all of the stuff that has to go onboard, and the car is set up so we can take the large air-compressor and still carry lots of other stuff, including a spare starter motor for the bus engine and a spare Webasto burner head for the Aqua-Hot. Trying to figure out what spare parts to carry is a never-ending process, and whatever we bring we usually don’t need but wish we had brought something we left at home. It is one of those things we just have to accept about this lifestyle.

2014/11/29 (S) 73s

Today was our last opportunity to have breakfast with our friends from the South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club (SLAARC) until we return from our winter adventure. We overslept, got there about 15 minutes later than normal and left earlier than usual. “Seven Three” (singular) or “Seven Threes” (plural) is what ham radio operators often say when concluding a conversation. It’s a shorthand for “goodbye” or “farewell till next time.” It isn’t shorter when spoken, but it’s a carryover from CW operation (Continuous Wave, more commonly known as Morse code) where it only involves keying two numbers. Ham radio has a lot of things like that which adds to the challenge and enjoyment of the hobby.

From breakfast we headed to a couple of different banks, Walmart, and finally Teeko’s Coffee and Tea to pick up our order of custom roasted beans. We then headed home to start loading the bus. Linda kept adding items to her shopping list as she only wanted to make one trip to the store if possible.

It was a busy day and would be difficult, and perhaps a bit tedious, to try to describe exactly what we did and in what order. Basically, I sorted stuff according to where it had to go and then loaded/organized the car and the front bus bay while Linda took care of organizing the living area, which included all of the food and clothing. I replaced our sewer hoses with the new RhinoFLEX components from Camco and filled our fresh water tank with nice filtered/softened water.

While Linda was at the store I worked on the transmission retarder problem. I disconnected all of the harnesses from the DDEC II engine control module and checked for bent pins. All of the pins where present and straight so I carefully reconnected all of the harnesses. I checked the front and rear chassis electrical bays and found three circuit breakers that had tripped; one in the front that had something to do with the transmission retarder switch and two in the rear, one of which had to do with the retarder and dashboard “tattle tale” light. The other one was marked for the air dryer. I connected the chassis batteries and turned the ignition switch to the ‘on’ position and checked that the circuit breakers did not trip.

I decided I wanted to start the engine so I turned on the electric block heater, the Aqua-Hot electric heating element, and the Aqua-Hot engine pre-heat pump and let them run for an hour. I started the bus and backed it up about 10 feet and then pulled it forward to its original parking place. I had the retarder switch on with my foot off the accelerator and on the brake pedal, but the tattle tale light still did not come on. I took the cover off of the dashboard and removed the light bulb from the tattle tale to see if it was burned out. It wasn’t, so I buttoned everything back up. I put all of the tools back in the correct tool boxes and loaded them into their storage places for travel.

Linda returned from her shopping trip and finished loading food onboard the bus. She also picked up some of our favorite food from La Marsa; crushed Lentil soup, green salad, and Koshary, with pocket bread and garlic spread. Not having to cook gave her the time she needed to go through the mail and pay bills.

I made my first pass at selecting clothes so Linda could load them on the bus while I made a run to Walmart for batteries for her BAHA and some shaving cream. I stopped at Lowe’s for some 1.25″ 8×32 machine screws (that might work to mount the inclinometer) and some decorative head wood screws (that might work in place of the filler plugs used to hide the screws in the woodwork). I then stopped at O’Reilly’s Auto Parts for two 12 VDC automotive accessory plugs.

When I got home Linda heated up dinner and we enjoyed a nice meal that did not take a lot of time/effort on her part. After dinner I started a second load of laundry (Linda did the first one) and then took my computer, digital camera, and both GPS units downstairs to my desk. I transferred photo files to the NAS drive that will remain at home and then went through the update process on each GPS. When the laundry was done I made my final clothing selections. I did not have time to gather up CD’s, so we will do that in the morning. As usual, the GPS update process took a very long time so I left it to run overnight and went to bed.

2014/11/30 (N) Arizona Bound (Eventually)

I woke up at 4:30 AM and got up to check on the progress of the GPS update process. I also needed to install 96 updates on my Linux box so I started that process. While I was in my office I put pre-cut pieces of insulation in the three windows of my office and the window in the sump pump closet. I went back to bed at 5:30 AM and slept until Linda got up at 7 AM.

We skipped breakfast and started the final loading of the bus, which included shoes, coats, and computers. When everything was onboard we connected the car for towing. We then disconnected the AC shorepower cord, stowed it for travel, and turned our attention to closing up the house.

Linda closed all the blinds, set the thermostats back, and opened all of the cabinets that contained water pipes while I went around and poured RV antifreeze down every trap in the house. She also turned off the pilot light for the gas fireplace logs. We turned off the well pump, shut the valve on the incoming water line, unplugged all of the water treatment equipment, and removed the batteries from the softener and sanitizer. She took pictures on her phone of everything in its normal (operating) condition so she could turn it back on when she flies back in February to do tax work. I showed her where the small gas shutoff valve was located and she turned that off, cutting off gas to the fireplace, the kitchen range, and the outside grill quick-disconnect. Two of the computers still needed to install their updates. We did not want to wait for them to complete the process so I selected “Install updates and shut down.” Our second-to-last task was installing the glass storm door insert in the front door and storing the screen insert downstairs. Our last task was putting the cats onboard the bus.

One of the decisive moments in this departure process, albeit not at all dramatic, was locking the front door to the house for the last time in quite a while. Another was walking down our relatively new front stairs and sidewalk, which had made loading the coach a much more pleasant and safe endeavor, again for the last time in a while. Or perhaps it was finally turning the ignition key, such a small simple object, and bringing the large, powerful, and complex Detroit Diesel engine to life along with the rest of the coach. Or maybe it was pulling up the tag axle in preparation for the tight 180 degree turn we had to make to get out of our pull-through driveway and onto our street headed in the right direction. But the final, decisive moment, was putting the transmission into 1st gear, releasing the parking brake, touching the accelerator, finally moving the great beast of a bus forward, the first inches of a round trip that will likely cover at least 5,000 miles. We noted the time of our departure at 10:52 AM EDT, marking the end of preparation and the beginning of travel.

We turned off of our street onto Hacker Road which, we learned from Saturday’s mail, is finally going to be paved from Golf Club north to M-59. Hacker is the eastern boundary of our township and the western boundary of the township to the east and the two townships are apparently going to split the cost of the project equally. This was welcomed news for us as it will reduce the amount of dirt road we have to deal with to just our street.

Our first destination was Twelve Mile, Indiana where the bus has been since late September. We took my preferred route, following M-59 west to I-96 west to I-69 south into Indiana where we picked up US-20 westbound. I really like this stretch of US-20; there are very few stops or places we have to slow down, the road surface is in excellent condition, and the last 20 miles before US-31 is a multi-lane divided limited access freeway. We exited US-20 just south of South Bend, Indiana onto southbound US-31. This was the first time Linda has been on the new section of US-31. We passed SR-16 (IN) and drove another six miles to Gallahan’s Truck Stop and topped off the fuel tank. Based on the mileage on the new odometer our fuel economy computed as 4.9 mpg. I had topped off the tank this past Sunday but I had also been running the Aqua-Hot. Still, we were expecting more like 5.9 MPG, which is 20% better.

We back-tracked north on US-31 to SR-16 west and arrived in Twelve Mile just after 4 PM. I pulled into the U-shaped driveway that services the grain elevator across the street from Butch and Fonda’s place, parked the coach, and shut off the engine. We grabbed our rain coats and went in search of Butch and Fonda. We found them in the parts room working on insulating their well pump, pressure tank, filter, and lines. They had a dumpster sitting where I usually park our coach so Butch moved it inside the warehouse with his forklift. While Butch took care of that we unhooked our car and moved it out of the way. Linda then spotted for traffic and got me backed into our parking spot. We were positioned a little better for electrical power but still had to use our 50 Amp extension cord to reach the outlet. With temperatures dropping back below freezing tonight and Linda cooking our meals I wanted the full electrical hookup rather than the 30 Amp outlet by the automotive garage.

We visited briefly with Butch and Fonda but did not want to take them away from their work. Fonda and I gave Linda a tour of their bus, after which we retired to our own coach for the evening. Jasper had come out from under the front passenger seat as soon as we got parked. Juniper was much slower to emerge but finally did. Linda made seitan stroganoff for dinner, served over white rice (the way I like it) accompanied by a nice green salad and a glass of Moscato. We were very tired and went to bed at 8 PM, but it was nice to finally be back on the road together.

2014/10/16-22 More Bus Work

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2014/10/16 (R) More Wiring

Butch had to go to Logansport this morning for parts and groceries. I stayed behind to continue working on the AC wiring for their bus conversion; after breakfast, of course.

I mounted two 6-position AC main lug panels, one above the other, to the right of the 20-position panel we installed yesterday for the inverter circuits. The panels I installed today were for AC circuits that only run on shore power or the generator, not the inverter. The reason for two panels was: A) Butch already had them, and B) they were narrower than the larger panels and would fit in the available space on the right rear wall of the closet.

I had tied the main shore/generator power line to the inverter AC input line last night so the refrigerator, which is wired through the inverter panel, would have power overnight. I left those tied together for most of the day so the lights would work. I pulled all of the existing circuits that we disconnected yesterday into the boxes, dressed the wires, and connected/mounted the circuit breakers. By the time I finished Butch had returned from his morning errands. He connected the shoreline and I checked to see that we had 240 VAC between L1 and L2 and 120 VAC from each line to the neutral conductor. He then disconnected the shoreline and made sure the generator was off. Using the inverter to power a work light, I pulled the main power cable into the lower box and secured it. I then pulled the cable that feeds AC power to the inverter into the lower box and connected it to a 30 Amp breaker.

MC-9 house wiring. Inverter panel on the left, shore/genset panels on the right. DC upper left, solar upper right.

I plugged the shoreline back in but got a low voltage with no current on L2 and an Error Code 6 on the Progressive Industries EMS remote monitor display. Butch checked the plug and I just did not have it fully inserted into the outlet. Once he fixed that we got the correct voltages and no errors. We checked each circuit and everything checked out perfectly.

(Note: The shoreline is wired for “50 A” RV service, which is 240 VAC service from L1 to L2 but with an active neutral that provides two 50 A, 120 VAC power feeds with L1 and L2 180 degrees out of phase. As a result the currents in the neutral wire from L1 and L2 cancel rather than add. Butch has his generator wired for 120 VAC output and has L1 and L2 tied together on the generator side of the transfer switch. This makes the full 100 A output of the generator available to be shared between L1 and L2 in any proportion. Although this system can supply a full 50 A of current on both L1 and L2 at the same time, it could also supply 70 A or one and 30 A on the other unless this is prevented by circuit breakers. Also, regardless of the distribution of current between L1 and L2 the currents will add in the neutral as much as 100 A of current. Although sensible load management would prevent this from ever happening it is entirely possible to draw 30 or 35 A on each leg and end up with 60 – 70 A in the neutral. Thus, when designing your house AC electrical system this way, provision should be made for a neutral conductor that is sufficient to carry this amount of current. The advantage to doing your system this way is that the voltage regulation will be better under load than with a 240 VAC generator powering imbalanced 120 VAC loads on both legs as the 240 VAC configuration regulates the voltage between L1 and L2 but the voltage from L1 to N and L2 to N can be off substantially.)

Butch needed another non-inverter circuit for the front of the bus so we pulled a 10-2+g Romex cable from the electrical closet along the driver’s side wall/ceiling area and down into the cabinet at the front end of the kitchen counter. He and Fonda spent a bit of time cutting openings in the end of the cabinet for a two-gang outlet box and a single-gang outlet box. The two-gang box was for a pair of duplex outlets fed from the inverter panel and the wires were already run. The single-gang was for the new circuit we just pulled. When they were done I disconnected the shoreline so I could safely tie the new circuit into the lower panel. I then installed the cover plates on all three boxes and plugged the shoreline back in. We had the breaker turned off for the new circuit while I wired the outlet. I then energized it and it tested OK.

I repositioned a 12 VDC fused distribution box above the inverter panel and mounted it. I then moved a terminal strip for their solar panel wiring to a slightly different location to open up a space for Butch to drill a hole. At that point we were done working for the day. I changed into my non-work blue jeans and relaxed for an hour before dinner. During that time Butch called Jaral Beatty, a cabinet maker in Logansport and personal friend of Butch’s, and put me on the phone with him to see if he could come to Twelve Mile and finalize plans for a custom desk and printer cabinet for the bus. The weather forecast for tomorrow is for mild, mainly sunny, conditions and Jaral said he could come out mid-afternoon.

Butch and Fonda’s younger daughter, Brittani, and her husband, Sterling (Rock), were expected for dinner at 7:00 PM so I fixed a salad and heated some Amy’s chili for my dinner. Dinner was jovial and the first time I have eaten with Butch and Fonda at home on this latest round of working visits. Butch called Joe Leibherr and put me on the phone with him. Joe and Connie own the lot in Quartzite where we plan to spend part of the winter and I had a few questions for him. (Dale and Sherry Leibherr bought most of Butch and Fonda’s business assets. Dale is Joe and Connie’s son.) I had a nice long chat with Joe and was satisfied that it will be an OK place to spend part of the winter. Besides the full hookup 50A sites there is a laundry on site and Wi-Fi. Verizon cellular service is also apparently very good. Joe filled me in on some of things to do in town and suggested we bring our passports and visit Los Algodones, Mexico while we are in the area. Brittiny and Rock stayed until 11:30 PM so it was a nice, long visit. We were all really tired by the time they left and immediately turned in for the night.

2014/10/17 (F) VDO Air Power

After Brittani and Sterling (Rock) left last night I retired to the guest bedroom immediately but was up for a couple of hours responding to e-mails and writing my daily blog entry. I do not shut my computer down every night but I do shut it down occasionally, especially if there are updates available. Last night there were 28 updates. I was not up at the crack of dawn today, which was a shame as it was the nicest weather day we’ve had for the week just past and looks to be the nicest of the week ahead. Butch was up late last night as well, so we were both dragging a bit this morning.

Following breakfast I readied the coach for travel, securing loose objects inside and checking that all of the bays were shut tight and locked. I switched on the chassis batteries and air valves, unplugged the shorepower cord, and went for a short test drive to calibrate our new VDO electronic speedometer. Butch mentioned that there was a funeral home on the northwest corner of SR-16 and US-31 where he had easily turned their bus around in the past. That turned out to be just what I needed for my test run as it kept me from having to go south on US-31 in order to make a U-turn to get headed back to Twelve Mile.

I had driven the coach last Sunday from Elkhart to Twelve Mile with the new speedometer set to its default pulses per mile and it indicated less than 1/8th of the actual speed as shown on our Rand-McNally 7710 RVND GPS. When I got to Twelve Mile I calculated the pulses per mile I thought would be close to correct and programmed that number into the instrument. On the first leg of my test drive this morning the indicated speed was still about 1/8th of actual. Either my programming did not “stick” or I based my calculation on a grossly inaccurate assumption.

I pulled into the far entrance to the funeral home parking lot and made a broad turn to get lined up with the other entrance. I switched off the ignition, held down the button on the face of the VDO, turned the ignition back on, and started the engine. The speedometer cycled through its three calibration modes and I stopped it on ADJUST and then selected UP as the direction the needle needed to move. The adjustment was a little tricky, especially while driving, but I figured out how to switch it between up and down. I got it adjusted to my satisfaction before getting back to Twelve Mile and after not adjusting it for a minute or so it reset and reverted to its standard speedometer/odometer display, only this time showing the correct speed and recording the correct mileage.

When I got back to Butch and Fonda’s house I pulled the bus around, blocking the street temporarily, and backed it in next to theirs. Fonda helped spot me for the final few feet. Instead of shutting the engine off I let it idle while I got my four chassis stands out of the warehouse and positioned them at the four corners of the bus. I put the engine in high idle and raised the body as high above the axles as it would go. I slid the stands into place under four frame members, dropped the idle to low, and gently lowered the bus until it was resting firmly on the stands. With the bus sitting on the stands it will now be safe to work underneath it when we get around to those projects.

The next project was to replace the air filter / water separator for our auxiliary air system. Butch did most of the work on this project. He disconnected two air lines from the existing filter assembly, which includes a pressure regulator and a Schrader valve, and then unscrewed the mounting bracket from the rear wall of the bay under the driver’s seat where a lot of the auxiliary air system is housed.

With the old unit out of the bus he was able to work in his shop to remove the inlet and outlet fittings and clean them up on a wire wheel before reusing them. He installed the old fittings in the new housing using pipe thread compound and matched the alignment of the old unit so the air lines would fit back on to them. The two machine screws that were used to mount the old unit’s mounting bracket to the wall were too big for the slots in the new unit’s mounting bracket so Butch used his Bridgeport vertical mill to slightly enlarge the upper slots.

With the shop work done I took everything back out to the bus and installed it, which consisted of attaching the two air lines (with compression fittings), attaching the mounting bracket to the housing, attaching the mounting bracket to the rear wall of the compartment, and then tightening the two air line nuts. Butch checked my work and snugged the air line nuts another partial turn.

I turned on the auxiliary air compressor but it seemed to take a long time to start to build air pressure and Butch heard and felt a leak at the unloader valve coming out of the auxiliary air compressor. I shut of the aux compressor and he hooked up his portable air compressor to the air hose fitting in the passenger side engine bay which brought the pressure up in the auxiliary system very nicely. We turned his compressor off, turned the aux compressor back on, and bled enough air off to cause the aux compressor to run. It finished bringing the pressure up to the cutout value without difficulty. I sprayed all of the fittings with Simple Green and did not detect any leaks. We had noticed earlier that the lower half of the filter housing, which locks and unlocks in only 1/8th of a turn, had a loose fit. Once the system was pressurized, however, it tightened up.

Norgren auxiliary air filter / water separator (lower right).

The old unit had to be replaced because it was no longer made and the replaceable filters were no longer available. Once we had it out of the coach and disassembled I was surprised by how badly deteriorated it was internally. Aluminum, by definition, does not “rust” but it certainly can and does corrode (oxidize).

Butch and Fonda spent part of the day building and installing a slide out tray for one of the passenger side bays. It will hold his tool box on top and have room for miscellaneous storage underneath.

I got the Zena power generating module wiring diagrams for Butch to study while I ate lunch. We were just getting ready to start working on this when Jaral showed up. He and Butch and Fonda talked for quite a while about personal stuff while I started probing around in the driver side rear electrical bay for a place to tap into an ignition switched source of 24VDC power. I located a relay that looked like it would do the trick (R53). I broke off working on this to spend time with Jaral, who rode his scooter from Logansport to discuss some cabinetry project.

Jaral looked at Butch’s projects first as they are immediate. He then looked at what we want to do with the front part of our coach. We need to have a desk and a printer cabinet built out of walnut to match the woodwork that is already in the bus and Jaral is our cabinetmaker of choice. It sounds simple enough, but the reality is more complex. After talking it through with him (again) and taking some measurements we agreed that I need to make very careful dimensioned drawings of exactly what we need. I may try to do that over the winter but worst case is that it will have to wait until next spring and probably after we have removed the current furniture.

Butch and I worked on the Zena wiring for a little while after Jaral left. We determined that the two blue wires in the electrical bay ran to the Zena control modules in the engine bay and to the fan terminals on the Zena rectifier assembly in the house electrical bay. He had a tandem spade lug adapter that we used to tap into the power to the coil of relay 53. With the coach batteries on but the ignition off we did not have power to the fans on the rectifier assembly or the control modules in the engine bay but with the ignition on we did. That was a small but important success.

The weather had turned cloudy, windy, and chilly as the afternoon progressed. We spent a little while studying my house electrical bay and discussing how I might get the large battery charging cables from the ceiling-mounted rectifier to a Class T fuse and then to the batteries. I decided that was a problem I was not going to solve in the remaining hour of daylight and called it a day. By then it was 6 PM so I went to my coach to have dinner which consisted of a salad, tofu hot dog, apple, and a glass of Franzia Moscato. I retired to the guest bedroom around 9 PM, worked on my computer and iPad until about 10:30, and then turned off the lights.

2014/10/18 (S) Cold Wet & Windy

Even though I went to sleep at 10:30 last night I did not get out of bed until 8 AM this morning. Today’s weather forecast was for a 50% chance of rain with winds out of the WNW shifting to N at 15+ MPH and a high temperature of 50 degrees F. The 50% chance of precipitation turned out to be an all-day drizzle; not an ideal day for working outside. Nonetheless, I spent the late morning (post breakfast) working in our house electrical bay on the wiring for the Zena 24 VDC power generating system.

The only thing I actually accomplished was mounting a Class T fuse holder (with a fuse) to the ceiling of the compartment. That was a bigger accomplishment than it seems, however, as its location determined the lengths of the cables needed to finish the project. With a nicer day on tap for tomorrow I expect to get those cables made and installed. A final check of the wiring and installation of the drive belts on the alternator will complete the project, which I stated almost exactly two years ago.

Zena rectifier (upper left) and Class T fuse (upper center).

Butch and I went to Logansport in the early afternoon. He needed plumbing parts for his fresh water tank and ITR Oasis Combi project. I needed 2/0 lugs for my battery cables, some 3/8 compression nuts and sleeves, and some duplex outlet expanders. I found the lugs at Rural King (where we also got some free popcorn) and everything else at Home Depot. These stores happen to be conveniently located across the street from one another. The nuts and sleeves will be used to rig up a hose or tube so we can test the water flow coming out of the pipes that feed the kitchen faucet. The flow is much lower than it should be and we want to determine if it is due to the faucet or upstream in the piping. I found a small duplex to 6-out expander that would fit under the thermostat on the end of the kitchen counter based cabinet. I also found a duplex to 6-outlet expander with integrated surge protection and two USB charging ports. I bought two, one for the outlet on my side of the bed and one for the outlet on the outside wall just behind the passenger seat. This model is not illuminated like the one I installed on Linda’s side of the bed, but that’s OK.

We stopped at Butch’s parents’ house to investigate the source of a mechanical noise. It turned out to be a dehumidifier in which the fan motor bearings were squealing. Butch loaded it in his truck to take back to his house where he could more conveniently try to oil the bearings. We chatted for a while and then headed to Martin’s Supermarket so I could pick up a few grocery items.

When we got back to Twelve Mile I unloaded and stored my groceries and then installed two of the three outlet expanders. I could not install the one by the passenger seat as the outlet was too close to a wooden structure. There is an outlet box with a solid cover plate next to the duplex outlet and I will see if the outlet can be moved over. If not, I will install this unit behind Linda’s night stand at our sticks ‘n’ bricks house.

Butch’s brother, Tom, showed up and the two of them worked on installing the Blue Ox base plates on Butch’s Suburban. I spent the afternoon making a scale drawing of the passenger side of the front half of the coach showing the two Lambright Comfort Chairs, custom printer cabinet/table, and custom desk with pantry. I checked in with Butch and Tom and helped them a little bit with the base plate project. When they reached a stopping point, or at least a point where my assistance was no longer needed, I returned to my coach and fixed dinner.

I had a salad of power greens with cranberries and peanuts, some apple sauce, and the leftover Mjadra from La Marsa, the last of my frozen leftovers from our dinner at the Brighton location with Bruce and Linda Whitney. A glass of Franzia Moscato was quite agreeable. Butch and Fonda had not eaten their dinner yet, so I worked in the guest bedroom at my computer while they ate.

Linda called around 8:45 PM and chatted with Butch about an accounting issue related to their business and then chatted with me about our grand-daughter, Madeline, who is finally pronouncing words clearly enough to be understood and quickly developing a spoken vocabulary. Brendan and Shawna brought her to our house around 11:15 AM this morning and stuck around through lunch to get her down for her nap and then took off. Grandma Linda had her all to herself the rest of the day and will have her tomorrow until they pick her up. I chatted with Butch and Fonda for a while after that and then retired for the evening, checking and responding to a couple of e-mails, doing a little web-surfing, and working on this post.

2014/10/19 (N) Of Mice And Men

Although I really enjoy Linda’s homemade granola I decided to make toast with some of the Brownberry Country White bread I bought. I was surprised to discover that someone, or something, had chewed a hole through the plastic bag and eaten some of my bread. A mouse, no doubt, but I only bought this bread on Tuesday, so it was a recent visitor. The surprise was that the bread was in a cabinet that I assumed was inaccessible to mice.

I emptied the cubby and discovered a hole in the back wall big enough to stick my finger through for some distance, which meant it was plenty big enough for a mouse to get through. The walls are covered with the same thin carpet that is used to line all of the other cabinets in the coach. In this case it was applied to fairly thin wood with space behind it. Butch looked at it with me and we found that the glue used to install the carpet had lost much of its hold. We lifted it up and found a 2″x2″ cutout in the wood with the hole in the carpet roughly centered on it. There was a Romex electrical cable coiled up behind the wall with the ends taped. We presumed the wire had once passed through the hole into the cubby but was now a way for the mouse to travel vertically through the cavity and get to the back entrance.

I threw the bread out, of course and cleaned the counter surface, which forms the floor of the cubby, with Lysol. Mouse proofing the bread cubby will have to wait until tomorrow but my plan is to feed the wire through the hole in the carpet and then lift the carpet at the bottom and run a bead of caulk (or hot glue) along the joint between the counter and the wood walls. I will then install a surface mounted outlet over the hole. At a minimum it will seal the hole and it might prove useful someday for plugging in an appliance, assuming the wires are still energized.

Although it was in the low 30s when we got up this morning, it was finally a decent day for outside work. The high temperature only made it to the mid-50s but it was sunny most of the day with a light breeze. Appropriate layers of clothing made for comfort while working.

My main focus today was completing the installation of the Zena 24VDC power generating system in the bus. I started this project two years ago this month and today was the day to finish it. I had also written a complete draft of an article about this project for Bus Conversion Magazine but held off finishing and submitting it pending completion of the project. Now that the work is completed and the system functions correctly I hope to finish the article in the next few weeks.

The purpose of the system is to charge/maintain the 24VDC house battery bank while we are driving the bus, during which time the refrigerator, and other minor loads, are being powered by the inverter. The system consists of a high-output, continuous-duty, 24VAC, 3-phase alternator driven by the main bus engine (Detroit Diesel 8V92TA). The alternator feeds a large rectifier assembly in the house electrical bay and is controlled by three interconnected modules mounted in the engine bay near the alternator. Redundant voltage sense wires run from the rectifier back to two of the three control modules. The system is activated by ignition switched 24VDC power which we wired up a couple of days ago.

The unfinished part of the project involved the connections between the DC output of the rectifier and the 24VDC house battery bank. I mounted a Class T fuse on the ceiling of the electrical bay yesterday which then allowed me to determine several cable lengths. On the +24VDC side I made three cables from 2/0 welding cable as follows: 1) Rectifier DC positive to ceiling fuse terminal A; 2) Inverter/charger fuse terminal B to ceiling fuse terminal B, and; 3) Ceiling fuse terminal B to +24VDC battery disconnect switch. With this configuration both the rectifier and inverter outputs go through separate fuses to a common point (ceiling fuse terminal B) and that point is connected to the battery disconnect switch. I also made a cable to go from the rectifier DC negative (ground) to the house DC electrical system ground lug; again using 2/0 welding cable.

I used a metal blade hacksaw to cut the welding cable to length and cut through the heavy rubber sheath 1/2 inch from the end to expose the copper conductors. I attached crimp style through-hole terminals to the ends of the cables and held them in position to get the alignment correct. I made reference marks to ensure the alignment and then crimped the lugs onto the wire using a very large hand-operated press in Butch’s shop. Projects like this are a lot more fun with access to the correct tools.

I attached as many cable ends as I could without touching any live voltages. I turned off the Aqua-Hot, the UPS, and the inverter/charger before disconnecting the main AC shore power. I then turned the +24VDC disconnect switch to the off position, isolating the coach/inverter from the 24VDC battery bank. (Note, however, that I did not disconnect the 12VDC center tap.) With power off I completed all of the needed connections, including the small ground wire for the 24VDC fan on the rectifier, turned the 24VDC batter disconnect switch to ‘on’, and turned the inverter back on. It immediately started supplying power so I knew my wiring was correct.

Back in the engine bay I checked all of the wiring against my diagram and everything was good to go. I taped off two wires with bullet connectors on the ends to prevent accidental shorting. One of the wires is used to reset the system by grounding it and the other wire is tied to chassis ground. With all of the electrical connections verified I got Butch to help install the two drive belts from the DD8V92TA pulley to the alternator (power generating module). That was when we discovered that the lower side of the belts were in contact with a pressurized oil hose for the Spinner II centrifugal by-pass oil cleaner.

The hose was secured with zip ties in several places so I clipped and removed those. I disconnected the hose from the Spinner II and re-routed it to avoid the drive belts and other rotating parts on the front of the engine (which faces the rear of the bus). I reattached the oil hose to the Spinner II and secured it with zip ties.

Butch used a pry bar to move the alternator and put tension on the drive belts while Tom and I tightened the alternator mounting bolts. The inverter had been supplying AC power to the coach for a while and a check of the house battery voltage showed +24.5VDC. I turned on the chassis batteries and engine accessories air valve, started the DD8V92TA, and put it in high idle. I re-checked the voltage at the rectifier output and it was 24.8, higher than before and rising, but not too high; an excellent set point at least for now.

DD8V92TA with Zena 3-phase alternator lower right.

We observed that some of the belts on the engine seemed loose and floppy. Butch also noticed what appeared to be a stone embedded in the outside surface of the Gates Hi-Power II PowerBand A92 triple V drive belt that runs from the DD8V92TA crankshaft pulley to the drive pulley for the engine cooling fan. Butch called O’Reilly’s in Logansport but they were unable to locate the 2.125″ wide triple-V belt in their system.

The oil dipstick tube was also too close to the new drive belts but when I tied to move it (bend it slightly) I noticed that it was very loose. The fitting at the block was not tight and it was obvious that some oil had leaked out from there. I slid under the engine from the rear of the bus and tightened it at the block. (It is nice having the bus supported on stands so I can work under it without concern.)

While I was working on the Zena system Butch installed an outlet fitting on their fresh water tank. He and Fonda, and eventually Tom (Butch’s brother), re-installed the tank in their bus and then mounted the ITR Oasis Combi next to it, securing it to the floor of the bay. To accomplish that they had to drill holes, align holes, and determine a location for the water pump, which required more information regarding allowable pump orientation. Sometime during the day Butch shifted his focus towards an antenna project on the roof of their bus. He had previously purchased a Tarheel motorized fold-over mount for his large Tarheel screwdriver antenna and wanted to at least get the fold-over mount attached to the roof before they left for the southwest.

The key lock on our passenger side engine bay door was getting difficult to turn so I removed an access panel on the inside of the bay door to investigate the mechanism. As I loosened the access panel water ran out the bottom. We determined that the gasket surrounding the handle/lock assembly was dried out and cracked, allowing water in at the top. I removed the handle/lock assembly by pulling it out of the door from the outside, dried it out, and lubricated it. I reassembled it for now, but I need to apply some kind of sealant behind the gaskets or get new ones from Prevost (if they are still available).

Prevost H3-40 keyed, non-electric, door lock mechanism.

Butch shifted his attention yet again, this time to their Suburban where he and Tom re-attached the front bumper. It was removed a few days ago so he and Tom could install the Blue Ox base plate kit which will allow them to tow it with the bus.

As the sun dropped low in the western sky the temperature dropped along with it. I buttoned up my coach and helped Butch get his tools and supplies moved inside. I then went to my coach to have dinner which consisted of an Annie’s Spicy Mongolian noodle bowl with added peanuts and a tofu hotdog with mustard, onion, and relish. A glass of Moscato with the meal and a cup of Oriental Treasure green tea afterwards provided a soothing and warming end to the meal. I returned to the house and we chatted for a short while before I retired to my room to check e-mail and write.

2014/10/20 (M) Bad Timing

I have settled into something of routine on this extended visit to Twelve Mile, Indiana; up late, sleep late, eat breakfast, get to work. Usually. Butch spends the early morning on his computer and is usually ready to work about the same time I am. Usually, but not always. Sometimes he gets to work earlier than me, and sometimes much later. Although we had a beautiful weather day (except for the brief thunderstorm around 10 AM) we were not able to take full advantage of it for various reasons. I had left the Aqua-Hot turned off over night to see if it would start reliably when cold. The burner fired after a short 10 second purge. It was smokey at first, but ran its full cycle and eventually cleared up. I turned it off and will test its cold start capabilities again tomorrow morning.

We discovered yesterday that the triple V fan belt on my bus engine was worn and had something embedded in it. The belt was a Gates Hi-Power II PowerBand A92. We spent some time looking for one online but were not sure we had found exactly the right one so I decided to see if Prevost had it in stock. They did, and it was only a few dollars more, included free shipping (as always), and would be at my house before I got home. I ordered two. This belt drives the engine cooling fan and if it breaks the bus isn’t going anywhere until it is replaced.

Bread cubby with AC outlet base plate.

Butch and Fonda worked on re-conditioning a pair of fan-coil heat exchangers that will get tied-in to their new ITR Oasis Combi hydronic heating system on the bus. Butch and I had both been assembling shopping lists and I was at the point where I needed to get some small parts in order to move forward with some small projects. We left around 11:30 AM and drove to Logansport where we visited NAPA, O’Reilly’s, Rural King, Aldi’s, Home Depot, and Walmart. All of these stores are located close to one another on the east end of town except for the O’Reilly’s and NAPA which are just a bit farther down the main road towards downtown. When it comes down to it, Logansport is just not that big.

By the time we got back it was after 3 PM and we were suddenly very busy as we tried to take advantage of the few remaining hours of daylight. Butch and Fonda worked on installing the Tarheel fold-over mount and I worked on sealing the bread cubby, installing a Wiremold surface mount outlet over the hole in the back wall, and installing a small battery powered LED puck light in the back closet to illuminate the inverter sub-panel. I cut a small triangle of thin aluminum for the hole in the corner floor of the bread cabinet and then sealed the joint between the floor (counter) and three walls with a silicone-based paintable tub and tile caulk in a convenient squeeze tube.

LED puck light in rear bedroom closet to illuminate the inverter sub-panel.

When I finished those tasks I checked in with Butch and Fonda and found out that they had run into problems with the Toggler(R) bolts Butch was using and had to undo what they had already done and seal up the holes in the roof for the night. There wasn’t anything I could do to help at that point, so I started working on the wiring that will allow me to relocate the Magnum ME-ARC remote control/display module from the electrical bay to the house panel next to the refrigerator. Rather than try to route the 4-wire telephone cable between the inverter/charger and the house panel, John Palmer had suggested two years ago that I re-purpose one of the existing cables that had previously connected the Heart Interface inverter/chargers to their remote displays. All that was required was to attach RJ-11 plugs on each end to four off the nine available wires. As long as I used the same four wires on each end, and got the colors in the same order, it should work fine. Butch already had the necessary crimper and I bought a small bag of the plugs today at Home Depot.

Sunset is just before 7 PM these days. It not only comes earlier, it comes quickly. We were done working by 6:30 PM and I withdrew to my coach to have dinner. I had a nice salad of power greens with sun-dried tomatoes, olives, garlic, artichoke hearts, dried cranberries, and peanuts with peanut butter and crackers on the side and a small glass of Franzia Moscato. I cleaned up from dinner, closed up the coach, set the two small electric cube heaters for around 60 degrees F, gathered up a few things and went back to the house for the evening. Butch and Fonda were just getting ready to eat their dinner so I retired to my room to work on my computer.

2014/10/21 (T) Fair Weather Ahead

One of the first things I do each morning, even before I have breakfast, is to check the current and forecasted weather. The guest bedroom at Butch and Fonda’s place is an interior room with no windows and is well insulated, including the ceiling, so I have no visual or auditory reference to what is happening outside. If not for the clock on the headboard of the bed (or my various communications and computing technologies) I would have no idea what time it was, or even if it was day or night.

There was widely scattered light rain across northern Indiana at 7:30 AM with single digit precipitation probabilities through the day dropping to zero chance of rain for Wednesday and Thursday with high temperatures in the mid-to-upper 50s. That is about as good as it gets for the fourth week in October. Hopefully it bodes well for our project work and will be a very productive few days.

Butch plans to attend a gun show on Saturday morning and needs to spend most of Friday getting ready. Butch and Fonda’s family members (parents, siblings, children, etc.) are gathering at their house on Sunday to celebrate the holidays early since Butch and Fonda plan to be in the southwest with us this winter. Given the weather forecast I will probably work the whole day on Thursday, spend the night, and then head for home early Friday morning, or at least as early as I can manage.

Butch’s main focus today was re-mounting his Tarheel antenna lift to the roof of their bus. He figured out last night what parts he needed to make the installation work after his Togglers(R) broke yesterday.

My main focus was diagnosing and repairing the very low water flow from the kitchen faucet but before I got too deep into that project I called Prevost’s U. S. parts office in Elgin, Illinois to check on a couple of things. They had the CX-96 cogged fan belts in stock in the U. S. but wanted $90 for a pair (they only sell them in pairs). I found them last night online for $21 each, so that was a big difference. They also had the bay door handle/lockset gaskets I needed but they were only stocked in Canada. They were only $4 each, so I ordered the 12 I need to redo every door.

The disassembled kitchen faucet flow restrictor.

I found the installation and instruction manual for the Kohler kitchen faucet in our conversion binder. It said that the handle and cover should slide straight off of the body once the handle set screw was removed. Butch and I both tried this but we could not get it off. While studying the diagram and parts list I noticed a “restrictor” that also served as an adapter from the 8mm outlet pipe on the faucet to the 1/2″ NPT fitting on the retractable hose assembly. At Butch’s suggestion I shut off the bus fresh water pump, shut the valves on both the hot and cold supply lines that feed the kitchen sink faucet, and disconnected the supply lines from the inlet tubes that are part of the Kohler faucet. I inserted the barbed end of the 1/2″ NPT adapter into a piece of rubber hose that I got from Butch and threaded the pipe thread into the cold supply line. I placed the end of the hose in a bucket, turned on the pump, and then opened the cold supply valve. I had lots of flow. I closed the valve, shut off the pump, and repeated this for the hot supply which also had good flow. That meant the problem was either in the restrictor, in the valve cartridge, or somewhere in the faucet body. The good news was that the restriction was not in the upstream plumbing.

By mid-morning Butch was ready to make a parts run so I grabbed my short shopping list and rode into Logansport with him. When we got back I disconnected the kitchen faucet hose from the restrictor/adapter and then disconnected the restrictor/adapter from the 8mm outlet tube. The garbage disposal was in my way so I disconnected and removed it temporarily. Initial inspection revealed that the restrictor was clogged so I started taking it apart and Butch finished the disassembly. I reinstalled the adapter without the restrictor parts and tested the flow. It was now very strong, which meant that the valve cartridge and valve body were OK and did not need to be serviced or replaced. That was a good thing as we had not been able to remove the cartridge earlier when we tried. With the water shut off I removed the flow restrictor/adapter cleaned out the entire assembly, and removed one small rubber O-ring. I reassembled all of the pieces, turned the water on, and checked for leaks. I did not see any so I turned off the water and cleaned up the area.

The Tarheel roof mount antenna lifter.

It was early afternoon by the time I finished the faucet project—too early to stop working on such a perfect weather day—so I started working on the wiring for the Magnum ME-ARC remote, which I want to relocate from the electrical bay to the house panel in the kitchen. Because of the difficulty of running wires between these two locations I decided to follow John Palmer’s advice and re-purpose one of the two nine-conductor serial cables that connected the old Heart Interface EMS-2800 inverter/chargers to their remote panels in the house panel.

I decided to use the cable labeled #2. I removed the snap-together Amphenol DB-9 connector from the house panel end and cut the molded DB-9 connector off of the inverter end. I tried using Butch’s RJ-11 strip/crimp tool and discovered that the wire in the cable was one size too large to fit in the stripper so I stripped and trimmed them by hand. The wires were stranded so I twisted them tightly but found that I could not get them inserted and lined up properly in the RJ-11 connectors I bought at Home Depot the other day. Ugh. Time for Plan B.

While we were working today plans got made for dinner at the Hibachi Grill Supreme Buffet in Kokomo, Indiana at 6:30 PM. I decided to drive myself and leave early enough to go to Discount Tire in Kokomo and have them balance all four of my tires. They closed at 6 PM so I stopped working around 3:30 PM, changed into cleaner clothes and headed for Kokomo at 4:15 PM. Kokomo is about 30 miles south of Twelve Mile and takes about 45 minutes with speed limits and stop lights. It used to be on US-31 but Indiana has made significant changes (improvements) to US-31 so that it is now a four lane divided limited access highway in many places and bypasses a lot of towns, including Kokomo. What was US-31 is now SR-931. Why they named it that instead of “Old US-31” as they have done in other spots is a mystery to me.

Before I got to Discount Tire I passed a Gordon Food Service (GFS) and a Menard’s located next to one another. I needed things from both but wanted to get the car taken care of first. Discount tire said it might be 90 to 105 minutes before they could get to me. I could not wait that long but had them write it up anyway. They took my car in about 25 minutes later and had it done in another 15 minutes, so I had time to do some quick shopping.

I got a package of 25 16 oz. hot cups at GFS to go with the lids we already had. At Menard’s I got two surface mount 4-wire phone jacks and a double-ended phone cord for my Magnum inverter/remote project. Butch and Fonda also stopped at Menard’s looking for dryer vents to use with their bathroom and shower ventilation fans.

Dinner at the Hibachi Grill Supreme Buffet was a family gathering. Beside Butch and Fonda (and me) we had Butch’s mom and dad, his sister Robin and her mother-in-law Betty, Butch’s brother Tom and his wife Tracey, their son Brock and his wife, and another young couple and their kids. I think the wife was Tom and Tracey’s daughter. There were four or five kids whose names I did not get. We all ate too much. The food was OK, but Butch’s family and the conversation were more interesting. It was 9 PM by the time we got back to Twelve Mile and I headed off to bed to take care of correspondence and writing.

2014/10/22 (W) Plan B

You always need to have a “Plan B,” or be prepared to come up with one on short notice. Backup plans are not a sign of indecision or a lack of commitment to a primary plan. Rather, they are an acknowledgement of the reality that things do not always work the way you thought they would no matter how brilliantly conceived, carefully planned, and skillfully executed. So it was with my inverter/remote re-wiring project.

I spent most of the day working on the wiring that would allow me to move the Magnum ME-ARC remote from the electrical bay, where it was plugged directly into the Magnum MS4024 inverter/charger, to the house systems monitoring and control panel next to the refrigerator. It was simple enough in concept, but I had to make sure it was correct as I did not want to damage the inverter or the remote unit.

I used four of the nine wires in one of the old serial cables (#2) that runs from the electrical bay to the house panel. Since the phone line cables with the RJ-11 plugs on the ends used Black, Red, Green, and Yellow I decided to stick with those colors all the way through. However, because of the way the RJ-11 connectors are assembled onto the cable the signals move back and forth between pins. I ended up wiring the cable end in the electrical bay to the same color wires in the baseboard outlet and mounted it to the ceiling of the bay. I cross-wired the other end of the cable to another baseboard outlet and mounted it to the side of the cavity behind the house system panel. Fortunately the back side of the panel is accessible via a removable panel in the back of the closet that is on the other side of that wall.

With all of the wiring done I used a jumper with alligator clips on each end to bridge two of the wires in the electrical bay outlet and do a continuity check at the house panel outlet to verify the wiring. Everything looked good so I unplugged the remote, brought it inside, and plugged it in. It worked! Now all I had to do was mount it.

There were already two cutouts at the bottom of the house systems panel from the old Heart Interface EMS-2800 remotes (the coach had two of these inverter/chargers when we bought it and each one had its own remote). The cutouts measured 4.625″ W by 2.875″ H. The housing on the ME-ARC was slightly wider than the opening but not as high. Depth was not an issue. I borrowed a small roto-tool from Butch with a small router bit and carefully opened up the left hand edge of the right hand cutout. Using the remote as a template I marked the locations for the four corner screws, moved the remote out of the way, drilled out the holes, moved the remote back into position and attached it to the house panel using four #6 machine screws and Nylok nuts that I got from Butch.

The house systems panel with Magnum ME-ARC remote installed at lower right.

While I was working on my project, I periodically asked Butch if he needed any assistance, but Fonda was providing the needed help. They managed to mount an 18″ H by 24″ long piece of 3/4″ plywood to the back wall of the Oasis/water bay with a 1/4” heavy rubber separator between the wood and the metal. Butch then mounted their Shur-Flo 4048 water pump to the plywood. This should cut down considerably the noise and vibration transmitted from the pump to the structure of the bus and into the living quarters, but only experience will prove if that is the case. Butch moved their fresh water tank slightly to make room for their portable water softener. They also installed the two dryer vents, one on each side of their bus, which they picked up at Menard’s last night. Their final project for the day was to cut a hole in the roof and install a right angle cable junction box that will be used to route coaxial cable and other lines from the roof into the passenger-side cabinet in the bedroom at the rear of their bus.

I looked at installing the remote readout for our Progressive Industries EMS-50 and decided it was more work than I wanted to start late in the day. Butch suggested that I do it the same way I did the Magnum remote, re-purposing some of the wires in the old serial data cables. That was going to require additional parts, so I started a list for my next trip to town.

My final project for the day was to try and fix the lighted entrance handle and the non-functioning patio light. The lighted entrance handle had a badly deteriorated gasket behind the top securement so I fashioned a replacement from a piece of heavy vinyl shower pan liner that Butch and Fonda had. The bulb was an LED I installed some time back. It was still working but the socket was loose so I tried to squeeze it down a bit. Butch pushed the spring loaded center section out, stretched the spring, and put it back in. The bulb is now nice and tight.

The patio light proved to be more difficult. The lens was cracked and difficult to get out but I finally did. It’s a florescent fixture with two F8T5 bulbs. I tried turning them in their lampholders but that did not help. I pulled the wires far enough out of the wall to find two butt connectors. I was able to get my multimeter probes far enough into one end of each connector to verify the presence of 13 VDC that was controlled by the same switch as the lighted door handle. I removed the two bulbs and tested them in the fixture over the kitchen sink. They both worked fine, so the problem appeared to be the ballast.

The way the fixture is designed there was no way to get to the ballast to replace it so I put the bulbs back in and got them to glow faintly. I tried to replace the lens, which was already cracked, and the top inch split off all the way across. Fonda though she could fix the cover and epoxied the two pieces back together. While the epoxy was setting up I noticed that both lamps had come on full bright. By the time Butch reinstalled the lens they had both gone out. Definitely a bad ballast.

As it turned out, Butch had an almost identical brand new fixture that he did not intend to use. The only difference was that his fixture had an on/off button on the underside whereas the one on our coach has a plastic plug in that hole. His fixture has black end caps, which is fine, and is not painted to match the color of our coach, which is also fine. Removing our current light fixture will be a bit of project and will have to wait until next week.

I ended up going to Logansport at 7:15 PM for a few parts that I would need tomorrow. I got back around 8:30 PM and it took me 20 minutes to get my dinner ready and take it into the house. I was straightening up the bus after dinner and looking for a new roll of paper towels for the kitchen when I discovered a mouse nest in the small cabinet between the sleeper/sofa and the kitchen base cabinets. I put on nitrile gloves and cleaned it up and then inspected the compartment. It was open at the back to the area above the HVAC chase that is part of the bus. The more I have peaked in and under cabinets the more I have come to realize that our coach is a lot like Disney World; there is a network of passageways that are hidden from view but interconnect the bays with the areas behind and under cabinets and furniture, providing an subterranean road system for small critters. It’s always something when it comes to bus conversions. The long term challenge will be to figure how where the critters are getting in and see if we can plug those ports of entry.

2014/10/01-07 Bus Work Plus

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This post covers October 1 – 7, 2014

2014/10/01 (W) Aqua-Hot (Plus)

I woke up this morning sometime between 7:00 and 7:30 AM and worked for a while in the bedroom. By 8:30 AM I heard voices, which meant Butch and Fonda were up and dressed, so I emerged from the guest bedroom to see what the plans were for the day. I knew they would involve trying to fix our Aqua-Hot diesel-fired hydronic heating system, but I was not sure exactly how that work would proceed.

The first task, however, was to have breakfast. Granola with fresh blueberries, red raspberries, and blackberries, plus orange/grapefruit juice and coffee. Ahhh, coffee. I did not get any yesterday, so I enjoyed having some this morning.

Butch & Fonda’s Aqua-Hot in a bay of their MC-9.

Sometime between 9:30 and 10:00 AM Butch and I got to work on the Aqua-Hot situation. We tried firing up my unit multiple times but it would not ignite and we had no evidence of fuel getting to the nozzle. Butch added water to his unit and fired it up just to verify that it worked. We unplugged the controllers from both units and connected my controller to his unit to see if the controller was the problem. It wasn’t; his unit ran fine with either controller. We put his controller on my unit, just to check, but the unit still would not ignite.

We decided that the most expedient course of action was to simply install his burner in my unit. That was the point at which we realized that our units are not identical. Ours is an AHU-103-000, originally made in the late 1980’s and early 990’s while theirs is an AHE-100-02s (?? check this). The differences are minor but important, namely:

the fuel connections into and out of the burner are not the same so our fuel lines would not connect directly to their burner.
their burner had two fuel lines that ran down to bulkhead connectors while our unit did not use bulkhead connectors.

I had agreed to buy their entire Aqua-Hot to use for spare parts, so we started by removing the burner from our unit and setting it aside. My plan is to repair it eventually or disassemble it for parts. The problem is that I suspect the fuel pump and/or fuel valve and/or fuel valve solenoid are defective so I would have to determine whether that is the case.

Removing our burner was a bit more complicated that we thought it would be. Besides the fuel lines, which had to disconnected and plugged, we had to disconnect a wiring harness that had four wires running into the main boiler box for the temperature control thermostat and over-temperature safety thermostat. These wires were terminated in female spade connectors pushed on to the male spade lugs on the thermostats. Rather than try to feed them through the small hole in the case I made a diagram of which color wire went where and then cut the connectors off allowing the wires to pull out easily. We had to repeat this procedure on Butch’s burner. Quite a bit of diesel fuel leaked out of various fuel lines and I kept soaking it up with paper towels. With our burner out of the way we evaluated the situation and decided to take care of two other issues before proceeding with the Aqua-Hot. That’s how it goes with bus projects.

The first issue was the check valve on the Parker FPM-50 Fuel Polishing Module installation, which had been leaking at the gasket between the two halves of the body since I had redone the fittings and reinstalled it. I had a new (unused) check valve that I should have installed when I redid the fittings, but I didn’t. The fuel line on the inflow side of the check valve was already loose so we disconnected the other end. That allowed us to work in the shop with a vice to help hold parts. We removed the fittings from the old check valve, cleaned them up, and assembled them to the new check valve using pipe thread compound rather than Teflon tape. We then reassembled the new check valve assembly back into the FPM-50 system. We turned the FPM-50 on and did not have any leaks; finally.

The second issue was related to the fresh (potable) water plumbing. When we purchased the coach five years ago the fresh water system had two 12VDC water pumps plumbed in parallel with independent shutoff valves for the input and output sides of the pumps. The system also had a surge tank. Last spring (or fall?) I had replaced these two pumps with a single Shur-Flo 4048 model, removed the surge tank (which was not needed or recommended for the 4048), and used flexible hoses and various adapters to get the new pump connected in to the existing plumbing, including plugs to seal unused fittings. That left a lot of plumbing in this part of the bay (just off the end of the Aqua-Hot) that did not perform any useful function and was in the way of other things, like the FPM-50.

All of the original plumbing in the coach is Quest, which is no longer made. After studying the system for a while Butch realized that that Quest tubing at the valve on the end of the outlet hose had to be connected by being slipped over a barbed fitting and tightened with a swaged band. If we could cut the band and get the fitting out of the tubing we could cut a different section of tubing, allowing us to remove all of the unnecessary plumbing, reinsert the barbed fitting into the cut line, and put a clamp on it to seal it. Butch had a special tool for clamping bands on PEX tubing and it appeared that the bands were a compatible size for the Quest tubing. He also had his tubing cutter handy, so we removed the band (which was copper and easily cut), and proceeded as just described. The PEX band swaged down nicely and passed the “Go /No-Go” test (a special tool that gages the clamped band to ensure it is tight enough without being too tight).

We turned the water pump on and had a leak at the plastic double-ended male nipple between the end of the hose and the Quest fitting. With the pump off Butch removed the hose and then the nipple. It was cross-threaded but the threads were OK. Both the hose and the fitting are sealed by rubber gaskets anyway, not by the threads, so I reassembled the three pieces snug but not over tight. I turned the water pump on (up in the house portion of the coach) with Butch watching for leaks and we did not have any. It was shaping up to be a very good day.

With those two issues resolved, and lots more room to work on my Aqua-Hot, we removed the bulkhead fittings from Butch’s unit and cleaned them up with a wire brush wheel in his shop. Butch reassembled some of the parts in the shop with pipe thread compound and I installed them in two unused bulkhead holes in our unit. I then threaded in the two final fittings on the outside of the unit and had Butch do the final tightening. He is stronger than I am, and very experienced at working with this sort of technology, so he has a good feel for how tight things need to be and can make them to correct tightness.

It was finally time to install their burner in our unit. I stripped the ends of the wires that go into the burner box, set the burner roughly in place, taped the wires to a piece of plastic banding, and fished the wire harness up into the boiler box. Butch installed the new female spade connectors onto the wires while I was doing something else, but I do not recall what it was. I installed the connectors onto the mating pieces on the temperature limit switches. (Because of the way my Aqua-Hot is installed I have to work bent over at the waist. This is very hard on Butch’s back, and by the end of the day my back was a bit sore and stiff as well.)

The burner assembly is held against the combustion chamber by two captive bolts that swing into position. The bolts have flanged nuts on them that tighten down and hold the burner snug to the boiler. Because our unit is installed “sideways” it is very difficult to see and reach the nut on the lower back side of the burner. The nuts are 10mm (Webasto is a German company) and a ratchet with a 10″ extension is needed to reach them. I found the best way to attach the burner was to hold it in position with my left hand, get the upper/outside bolt in position with my right hand, and then run the nut down with my right hand, but not too tight. I continued to support the burner with my left hand while I reached over the top to find the other bolt by feel, flip it into position, and tighten the nut enough to keep it from slipping off.

I knew I had to be very careful with these bolts as over tightening them can crack the mounting flange on the combustion chamber; a big mistake. I held the burner with my left hand and made sure it was fully and properly aligned with the combustion chamber flange and then alternately snugged the two nuts down. The specifications on these nuts is for “20 to 40 inch-pounds.” That is not a lot of torque. Butch had a really good digital readout torque wrench, but it only went down to 60 in-lbs, so I had to guess.

With burner re-installed, Butch attached the two burner fuel lines to the appropriate bulkhead fittings. These are flare connectors so they did not use pipe thread compound. I then attached the supply and return fuel lines to the appropriate fittings on the outside of the bulkhead connectors. These were barbed fittings that the rubber fuel lines slipped over and were secured with band clamps.

We turned the unit on (in the coach) but it did not fire. One concern, which I will remedy tomorrow, was that the level of fuel in the tank might be close to the lower end of the pickup tube for the Aqua-Hot. These tubes are usually installed so that accessory devices, like heaters and generators, cannot use the last 1/4 tank of fuel, ensuring that there is fuel available to start the main engine and travel a reasonable distance (to get more fuel). It took three tries to get it to ignite and when it did it produced a lot of white smoke, which is unburned fuel.

While the unit was running Butch checked the exhaust leak and said it appeared to be under the coach, not up at the Aqua-Hot itself. That was a lucky break and big relief. The beginning of the exhaust pipe slips over a pipe thread nipple that is threaded into an elbow and is secured with an exhaust pipe clamp. Butch saw telltale streaks of black soot indicating that exhaust gases were leaking out at this point. We shut the unit off and let it cool down enough that I could remove the pipe clamp securing the exhaust pipe to the nipple. Both bolts were very rusty, and did not come off easily, but I got them off. Butch had one clamp of the correct size on-hand so I installed it. I will get a second clamp tomorrow when we go to town, plus a replacement if a Butch wants one.

We turned the unit back on and again it did not want to ignite. Butch though it was a fuel delivery problem, such as a loss of prime, or perhaps air was getting into the line. After a couple of attempts I turned the Parker FPM-50 on and let it run for a while, thinking that it might re-prime the line. I turned it off after 10 minutes and turned the Aqua-Hot on. It went through a long pre-combustion purge stage and then finally ignited. It produced copious amounts of white smoke initially, but after 10 minutes there were no visible exhaust fumes. Butch is suspicious of the FPM-50, either the unit itself or the installation, but I have run the Aqua-Hot successfully many times subsequent to its installation until it failed to fire this summer. Clearly the situation requires further investigation which will happen tomorrow or Friday, depending on the weather.

The unit heated up fully and shut off automatically after which I turned it off. I then mounted my burner onto Butch’s combustion chamber, both to protect it and to make sure some small animal did not take up residence in the combustion chamber. The only thing left to do on our Aqua-Hot was to mount the new Oasis expansion reservoir. We determined that we could mount it to the side of the unit with short sheet metal screws. I held it in place and marked the hole locations, center-punched them, and drilled the out using a bit that Butch gave me. The housing is stainless steel and was difficult to drill even though it was thin. I had 1/2″ screws and Butch found some washers. It took some fiddling, but I finally got it attached through all eight holes. We will switch the overflow tube from the undersized reservoir that came with the coach to the much larger Oasis reservoir tomorrow after the unit has cooled down overnight and drawn most (all) of the coolant back into the boiler. I put the cover back on the burner end, we put our tools away, and called it a day. And a good day it was.

Butch’s brother, Tom, and his wife, Tracey, came over during the late afternoon. It was 7 PM by the time we were done working, so we got cleaned up (sort of) and drove down to the Old Mill Restaurant just west of town on SR-16. I had a small pizza, no cheese, with onions and mushrooms. They made the crust thinner than their usual and it baked up very nicely. Once we got back to the house I worked on this post while Butch dealt with e-mail and Fonda worked on the wedding dress she is making for their daughter Jean, who is getting married just before Thanksgiving. After we turned in for the night I off-loaded all of the photos I took of our day’s work and then went to sleep.

Our Aqua-Hot in a bay of our Prevost H3-40.

2014/10/02 (R) Aqua-Hot (Or Not)

I was up at 7:30 AM and fixed breakfast in the coach at 8; granola with fresh blueberries, red raspberries, blackberries, and almond milk. A glass of orange/grapefruit juice, but no coffee.

Butch and I left at 9 AM to run errands in Logansport. He stopped at a filling station that sold kerosene and bought four gallons. I will explain why later. I got a big cup of coffee there and it was a decent brew. Our next stop was NAPA Auto Parts where I bought a 1.75 inch exhaust pipe (muffler) clamp and Butch picked up some things he had ordered. Next stop; Rural King. We do not have this chain anywhere near where we live. It’s a kind of hardware, sporting, and home goods store that carries an interesting assortment of items that might be of use to farmers. It’s not a fancy store, but it carries a lot of stuff and is well organized. Butch needed some carpet tacks and I bought a fruit fly trap and an insect fogger. Rural King also has free popcorn. (Now you know the real reason we stop there.) I got some on the way in and on the way out. 🙂 Our last stop was at Aldi’s where Butch picked up some things they needed for their dinner tonight.

When we got back to Twelve Mile I changed clothes and got to work. The weather forecast was for rain and warm temperatures. Rain had already wet the pavement around the buses so Butch gave me a large sheet of corrugated plastic to lie on while I installed the muffler clamp on the Aqua-Hot exhaust pipe. I installed it next to the one I put on yesterday but pointing in the opposite direction. These clamps are just “U” bolts with a matching saddle that completes the other half of a circle when slipped over the U-bolt and tightened with the nuts.

The Aqua-Hot had cooled off overnight and suctioned all of the coolant in the expansion reservoir back into the boiler. That allowed me to disconnect the overflow tube from the bottom of the reservoir with a minimum of mess and attach it to the main fitting on the new Oasis tank. I added a 50/50 mix of water and ethylene glycol antifreeze to the tank until the level was halfway between “minimum cold” and “maximum cold.” This should have been the final Aqua-Hot task, but it would not ignite when turned on even though it worked yesterday after the burner swap.

I removed the service cover and Butch and I started to puzzle out what the problem might be. When I turned the switch on at the dashboard the blower came on immediately but the fuel valve apparently did not open. We don’t know if the spark igniter was working, but the burner never lit and eventually the blower shut off. When that happens, the controller “locks out” the unit from even attempting to turn on again and I have to turn the switch off to clear the lockout and then turn it back on.

Butch had me disconnect the supply and return fuel lines on the outside of the bulkhead and replace them with clear fuel lines about 5 feet long so they would reach into the bottom of the kerosene container. (Remember the kerosene Butch bought earlier? Now you know what it was for. He will eventually use it to fuel a heater.) He thought we might have an air leak in the fuel lines/connections and the clear fuel lines would allow us to see the air bubbles. By drawing kerosene out of the container, pumping it through the unit, and returning it to the container we could recirculate it indefinitely as long as none of it was being burned. Even with combustion taking place most of the fuel gets returned as the unit only burns fuel at the rate of 1/4 gallon per hour.

With the kerosene setup we had taken the coach’s diesel fuel lines, including the Parker Fuel Polishing Module, completely out of the system. Butch suspected the FPM-50 might be the culprit and thus did not except to see air bubbles, but we did; a lot of them. And the unit still wasn’t firing. We were perplexed and a bit frustrated. On the other hand, it appeared that the FPM-50 was no the culprit, or at least not the only culprit.

Since his burner had always worked well in his unit we figured the problem had to be something in my unit. Butch got the service manual for his unit, which is almost identical to mine, and we started looking at wiring diagrams. The units have four thermostats; two for the diesel burner and two for the 120VAC electric heating element. We thought those might be the problem and checked the two for the burner but they were OK and appeared to be functioning correctly. There are also six fuses. I pulled and checked each one and they were also OK. When Butch works on his unit he often starts it by connecting a jumper wire across the two terminals for the switch wires to save himself the trip to the bus (where the switch is located) and back to the bay (where the unit is located). He connected a jumper wire across the switch terminals on my unit and it fired up after the normal 25 second purge cycle. It was good that it started, but not good that we did not know why.

We were still seeing a lot of air in the kerosene and Butch decided to remove the secondary fuel filter from its holder and change its orientation so the output was lower than the input, ensuring the outlet was covered by fuel. The air bubbles lessened considerably when he did this but did not clear up completely and the unit was producing a lot of white smoke (unburned fuel). It always produces some on startup until the combustion chamber heats up, so we decided to let it run. The exhaust fumes eventually cleared up and the coolant eventually expanded to within 1.5 inches of the top of the (new) overflow reservoir when the unit reached maximum operating temperature, automatically shut off the burner, and completed the purge cycle.

We wanted to cool it down so we could test it again so I removed the jumper wire to keep it from restarting. I then opened all of the coach windows, opened all three ceiling vents, turned the ceiling exhaust fans on high, turned the three Aqua-Hot house thermostats on, and turned them up to their highest temperature settings. I also turned on the engine pre-heat coolant circulating pump. As the unit cooled down it started drawing the coolant from the reservoir back into the unit. We turned the unit on using the switch at the dashboard and it fired up. At this point we had not found anything wrong and had not fixed anything, but it seemed to once again be working correctly. While the unit was heating up and cooling down Butch repaired a flat tire on a semi-trailer that they used to store parts for their business.

I still had the fan coil heat exchangers and the engine pre-heat running to cool the unit down. The power for these units, and for the coolant circulation pumps, is independent of the diesel burner as the Aqua-Hot can also be heated by an electric element and by the main engine. When the unit had cooled sufficiently I removed the temporary fuel supply line and reattached the supply line from the diesel fuel system. I left the clear fuel return line connected at the bulkhead. I removed the heavy rubber fuel line from the bottom of the FPM-50 check valve, cut the clear line to a workable length, and attached it to the bottom of the check valve. By leaving the section of clear line in place we would still be able to monitor for air bubbles.

After cleaning up diesel fuel that had leaked out of hoses and fittings I turned the burner on using the front switch. The unit immediately came to life and the burner ignited the way it is supposed to. We still had some air bubbles in the return line, but no worse than before until I moved the secondary fuel filter back into its normal horizontal position. That created a lot of air bubbles so I moved it back so the outlet was lower than the inlet. I am suspicious of this filter and/or the lines attached to it. The unit was working and there was no point in bringing it up to full temperature so I shut it off and installed the service cowling. It will be interesting to see if it ignites tomorrow morning when it is cold.

Butch and Fonda worked on uninstalling their Aqua-Hot while I unloaded most of the parts, supplies, and tools from my car and put them on a cart in their now mostly empty warehouse. As I was finishing it started to rain lightly. We quickly gathered up our tools, stowed our tool boxes, closed up our bus bays, and moved everything else into the garage. I shut off the ceiling exhaust fans, closed the vents, and then closed all of the coach windows. I shut off the three house thermostats and the engine pre-heat pump and then moved my car back to its usual parking spot. By that point it was raining harder.

Today was Fonda’s birthday but they did not have any special meal plans. Around 4:15 PM I decided to go fill the fuel tank on the coach. Gallahan’s Truck Stop is only 10 miles from their house and an easy run there and back on SR-16 and US-31. I arrived on Tuesday with only 3/8ths of a tank and I wanted to eliminate the main tank fuel level as a potential source of the no-fire problem. I was going to need fuel anyway for the trip to Elkhart and back next week and any subsequent movement of the bus. I texted Linda from the truck stop to let her know it was Fonda’s birthday and suggested that she call their house later.

Butch and Fonda had leftovers while I was out so I dined alone in the coach. I had a large green salad, some pretzels with hummus, and a tofu hot dog. Apple cider and reheated apple/pear crisp topped off the meal. Yum. I brought my dishes and cutlery in the house and washed them.

Linda called while I was eating so I did not get to talk to her. Butch was very tired and turned in early so I chatted with Fonda for a while about their various family members, many of whom I have met over the years, and what they were up to before retiring to my room to check e-mail and work on this post. Although not as productive as yesterday it was still a long and tiring one. Actually the days when you don’t feel like you have accomplished anything definitive are the hardest.

2014/10/03 (F) The Other Bus

I got up at 7:30 AM, got dressed to work, and then spent a half hour doing some preliminary packing. I had breakfast in the coach (granola with fresh berries) and was enjoying my first cup of coffee while cleaning up a few dishes when Butch knocked on the door. He was curious if I had tried starting my Aqua-Hot. I had not, so I turned on the switch for the diesel burner. The blower came on right away and then the burner ignited after a short purge cycle of perhaps 15 seconds. The combustion was clean on startup with no visible exhaust smoke. I checked the expansion reservoir and the coolant level had dropped overnight to the “minimum cold” reference mark. The unit was running well and I left it on to complete a full heating cycle.

When I arrived in Twelve Mile on Tuesday I noticed some small flies in the kitchen as I was setting up the interior. We had not used the coach since mid-June and had left a couple of windows slightly open to keep it aired out and prevent it from getting too hot. We did not turn the refrigerator off, which adds heat to the interior. The windows have screens, but the little bugs could have gained access through any number of places. I set up the fruit fly trap I bought yesterday to try and rid the coach of the little bugs.

I also bought a fogger yesterday that I had planned to use today just before leaving for home, but the directions said to only leave the fog for two hours and then ventilate the space. There were also cautions about removing/protecting food and cooking/eating utensils and eliminating ignition sources, including the refrigerator. The refrigerator (and freezer) are full of food so that was more trouble than I was prepared for today. I put dryer sheets in the cabinets under both sinks (kitchen and bathroom) and in the bay by the Aqua-Hot. We found several acorns inside the Aqua-Hot when I removed the service cowling on Wednesday and I have read that animals do not like these dryer sheets. The sheets cannot do any harm so there was no down side to trying this.

Our major focus today was two interior projects in Butch and Fonda’s bus, a 1987 MCI MC-9 Crusader II NJT (New Jersey Transit). Like most owner-converted buses, it started life as a seated coach in revenue service and got a lot of use over the years before being sold for a small fraction of its original cost. In the case of their coach the New Jersey Transit Authority ordered a large number of these MC-9 model coaches with special modifications for use as commuter buses, as opposed to a city bus or a tour bus. The MC-9 proved to be a reliable coach and used ones make an excellent but economical platform for a DIY conversion project.

They needed help installing a piece of “FRP” (Fiberglass Reinforced Plastic) on a section of wall. They have used this material, in white and almond, for wall paneling and as a ceiling headliner. The material comes in 4’x8′ panels and is flexible but durable. It brightens the interior, as it reflects light, and is very easy to clean. The piece had to be fitted, marked, and trimmed several times. This project occupied Fonda for much of the day, Butch for some of the day, and me for a small part of the day.

Butch & Fonda’s MC-9 conversion in the process of being wired.

The other project was electrical wiring for switched kitchen outlets and the ceiling lights in the kitchen and living room. I spent most of the day working on this. Butch had finally decided that I know enough about electrical work that I can be entrusted with these tasks. He is using Wiremold surface mount boxes and wire channels, which makes a lot of sense in a bus conversion where you cannot necessarily run wires through the walls of the bus.

Butch had previously installed Wiremold 2-gang base plates for electrical boxes to hold switches and outlets. We routed electrical cable (10, 12, and 14 AWG wire, both NM cable and separate conductors) between base plates and the AC power distribution boxes. I wired up outlets and switches and tied in lines and loads.

Larry “the scrap metal guy” showed up about noon so Butch had to use the forklift to load a pallet of old Crosley radiator cores into Larry’s truck. After Larry left Butch used the forklift to remove their Aqua-Hot from their bus. Fonda and I helped get it off the forklift into the back of my Honda Element after which we returned to our electrical and paneling work.

I quit working around 2:15 PM, changed out of my work clothes into something cleaner and more comfortable for driving, and washed up. I finished packing and then loaded the car for the trip home. I had planned to leave at 3:00 PM and pulled out of their parking area at 2:59 PM. I did not have lunch and would not be having dinner until 8 PM, so 30 miles up the road I stopped at a BP/McDonald’s, topped off the fuel tank, and had some French fries. The stop added 30 minutes to my ETA but it took the edge off of my hunger which made for a more comfortable drive.

On the drive home I suddenly had the vague feeling that I had not turned off the 12VDC fresh water pump in the bus. I called Butch and had him check it. As I suspected, it was on so he switched it off. The only reason this was a concern was that a leak downstream of the pump would result in the (full) fresh water tank eventually being pumped dry (lots of water flowing somewhere) and the pump then continuing to run until it burned out or burned up (fire?).

A little farther down the road it occurred to me that leaving the Aqua-Hot turned on tomorrow, while Butch and Fonda were gone for most of the day, was probably also not the best idea I’ve had recently. I stopped at the Travel America on M-60 at I-69 and called Butch again to ask him to turn the Aqua-Hot off in the morning right before they left.

On the drive home fall was definitely in the air and perhaps even an early touch of winter. I drove through heavy, blinding rain with strong cross winds just northeast of Elkhart, Indiana and was in and out of rainy/windy conditions for most of the drive in Michigan. I called Linda as I passed Charlotte, Michigan which was less than an hour from the house. I got home at 8:10 PM and she had dinner waiting which was nice. We had a green salad and an Amy’s Roasted Vegetable pizza. After dinner I unloaded everything from the car except the few tools I had brought back with me, and the defective Aqua-Hot. We were both tired after long days and turned in early.

2014/10/04 (S) Chores

It continued to rain overnight and into this morning and we awoke to temperatures in the upper 30’s (F). We went to our ham radio club breakfast and lingered until 10:15; longer than usual. When we left we headed to Country Squire in downtown Howell to pick up the hose and cover for the Broil King outdoor grill. We stopped at the bank and then at Teeko’s for three pounds of fresh roasted coffee beans. Our last stop was Meijer’s, just across the street from Teeko’s, to stock up on non-perishable food for me for the next week. While we were there I got a phone call from Chuck and agreed to meet him at his bus garage at 1 PM. By this time it was already 11:30 AM. We unloaded groceries at home and had a quick lunch of hummus, chips, and grapes. I left at 12:30 PM and Linda settled in for the afternoon to work on her bakery project.

Chuck had re-installed his repaired tachometer and installed his new VDO speedometer and I wanted to see how the speedometer/odometer was wired and get the model number. It was a VDO-437-152 85mm 85/130 (MPH/KPH). Chuck had also purchased a dual multistage battery maintenance charger and we had a long chat about where to install it and how to wire it in. While I was there Linda sent a text message asking me to pick up rolled oats so she could make another batch of granola.

I stopped at the Meijer’s in Wixom, topped off my fuel tank, and bought three bags of Bob’s Red Mill Thick Rolled Oats and two bottles of wine. Back home I started doing the laundry and working on my computer off-loading photos from my camera. Linda wrapped up her work and took a break to read before starting dinner. I backed the car up to the garage and we unloaded the spare Aqua-Hot onto a wheeled platform. The unit was very heavy, but we got it out and down safely.

For dinner, Linda made a nice green salad, cooked up a really yummy squash we had not tried before, and made seitan stroganoff served over basmati rice. After dinner she read and played online word games with her friends and relatives while I edited blog posts at my computer. I brought the laundry up and Linda helped get my clothes packed for tomorrow. Butch called to let me know that they were back from their family reunion and the Aqua-hot started right up when he turned it on. Cool (hot).

2014/10/05 (N) Indiana Bound

Linda helped me get partially packed yesterday and I stayed up later last night than I should have, so I slept in a little bit this morning, but the smell of coffee brewing and breakfast cooking got me out of bed. Linda made a tofu scramble with onions, mushrooms, and green peppers and served it with toast and coffee. That was a nice way to start the day.

After breakfast I checked e-mail and then started gathering up the remaining items I needed to take with me to Indiana. I had more clothes than the last trip since I would be gone seven nights rather than three and I would be involved in working on buses initially and then attending a rally. This time of year the clothing needed to work outdoors can also vary considerably from day to day and even during the course of a day.

By 11:30 AM I was ready to load everything into the car. Bags of food went on the floor in front of the passenger seat, my computer and carry bag went on the passenger seat, and the suitcases and bag of shoes and coats went behind the front seats. I then backed the car up to the garage and loaded the items we hoped to get rid of at the FMCA Great Lakes Converted Coaches (GLCC) Surplus and Salvage Rally later in the week.

With the car packed, Linda reheated the seitan stroganoff from last night for lunch. Even left over it was delicious. By the time we finished eating and cleaning up it was 1:15 PM. There wasn’t anything left to do at home, and Linda was waiting for me to leave before she got to work on the bakery software conversion project, so a farewell-until-later kiss sent me on my way. I pulled out of the driveway at 1:24 PM.

The weather looked and felt more like early winter than early fall with moderately strong coldish winds moving an endless layer of mottled gray clouds from west to east. It was neither gloomy nor foreboding but had that wintery edge to it. I thought about alternate routes out of town but decided to take Hacker Road to M-59 the same way I do in the bus. Most of my route was the usual; M-59 west to I-96 west to I-69 south to M-60 where I stopped at a McDonalds to rest and get a cup of coffee. I then took M-60 west through Three Rivers to M-40 where I made a rest stop and topped off the gas tank at the Shell station. Regular was $3.19, a price I have not seen in quite some time. I took M-40 south seven miles to US-12 and headed west to M-217 (the Michiana Parkway) which runs south into Indiana where it becomes CR-17. Instead of continuing on to US-20, however, I took CR-4 west to Elkhart Campground.

I stopped at the campground to make a reservation for Wednesday through Sunday (for the rally) but found out that I did not need one. I confirmed the availability of 50A electrical service while I was there, took the opportunity for a pit stop, texted a trip update to Linda, and then continued my trip to Twelve Mile, Indiana. Since I was in Elkhart and had a good phone signal I called Michele Henry of Phoenix Paint to remind her that I would be in Elkhart later in the week and that we had talked about getting together to review and finalize an article I had written some time ago on the process of renovating the exterior of our coach.

I took SR-19 south through Elkhart to US-20 west to US-31 south. The conversation with Michele lasted about three quarters of the way to Twelve Mile where I finally reached an area with no Verizon cell phone service. (I find it odd that there is any stretch of US-31 without Verizon service as it is the major connection between Indianapolis and South Bend.) I exited at Rochester onto SR-25 south and took that as far as Fulton where I took a couple of small county (farm) roads down to SR-16 at a point slightly west of Twelve Mile and drove east into town. The trip took almost five hours, including the two stops, and covered 245.7 miles.

I had a marginal cell phone signal so I sent a text message to Linda letting her know I had arrived and asked her to call my hosts’ phone around 7:30 PM. I said “Hi” to Butch and Fonda and then excused myself while I unloaded the car. I unpacked the suitcase and stored most of the clothing in the bus, taking enough items into the house for the next couple of days. I also unpacked and stored all of the food in the bus pantry. I put my technology, toiletries, shoes, and work jackets in the house and then went back to the coach to have a quick bite of dinner.

I made my final trip for the night from the coach to the house just before 7:30 PM but managed to be in the house when Linda called. She chatted briefly with Butch about some business related forms and then chatted briefly with me. She will be working at the bakery most of the week, but plans to drive to Elkhart on Friday morning to visit with GLCC chapter members, have dinner, and participate in the business meeting. She’s the chapter Treasurer. She will stay the night, and through breakfast and lunch on Saturday and then head back to the house. We can only leave the cats alone for so long.

Butch was working at his computer but cleared a chair off for me. He had his 2m ham rig dialed in to the Miami County Amateur Radio Club repeater and they started their weekly net at 8 PM. We had a long chat before I retired for the evening around 9:45 PM.

The plan for tomorrow is to continue working on the kitchen and ceiling light wiring in their bus. I also have a few more places to look for the diagrams and installation notes for the Zena 24 VDC engine-driven power generating system. Butch has an appointment on Tuesday morning and will pick up some things while he is in town. I need a fuel line coupler (double barbed male) so I can remove the fuel lines from the final/secondary fuel filter on my Aqua-Hot, connect them together, and see if that eliminates the air bubbles. He also needs parts for the rigid links he is making for the leveling valves for the bus chassis air-suspension system. He is going to get extra material and make a set for me too. It should be an interesting and varied week.

2014/10/06 (M) No Fuel Flow

Getting our Aqua-Hot to work is proving to be quite a challenge. When Butch and Fonda got home early Saturday evening Butch turned on the burner and it fired up perfectly within the normal startup cycle time limits. He left it on and I assumed it was working correctly when I arrived yesterday. It wasn’t until this morning that I realized I did not have hot water. The switch was on but when I checked the expansion reservoir it was below the minimum cold level. The unit had obviously cycled off and then failed to restart sometime later. Once that happened the control circuitry locked out the fuel and ignition spark as a safety measure. I tried cycling it four times but it would not ignite.

Butch found a small inline (secondary) fuel filter and I replaced the one in the unit. It still would not start. I disconnected the fuel line from the outlet of the Racor fuel filter (which feeds to Parker FPM-50), disconnected the fuel line from the outlet of the FPM-50 (which supplies the burner), and connected the supply line directly to the Racor filter. It still would not start. Based on what we could see in the transparent secondary fuel filter the unit was not getting fuel. There are a limited number of things that could be wrong: no fuel; bad fuel; clogged/restricted fuel line(s); clogged/restricted fuel filters; weak/broken fuel pump; stuck fuel valve or defective fuel valve solenoid; clogged nozzle. We started the generator, which may use the same main tank pickup tube as the Aqua-Hot, and it ran beautifully. I turned the electric toe-kick heaters on to put some load on the genset and let it run for a while.

Our next step was to change the Racor fuel filter / water separator and/or by-pass it, but it started to rain. The forecast was for rain throughout the morning turning to thunderstorms in the afternoon with temperatures in the upper 50’s. I did not want to work in those conditions so I put away my tools, closed up the coach, and spent the rest of the day (except for a quick lunch break) working on the 120 VAC wiring in Butch and Fonda’s coach. I hope we have power to their new switched kitchen outlets and ceiling mounted fluorescent lights by the end of the day tomorrow.

I had leftover Ghallaba for dinner. It was delicious.

Butch ordered a VDO-437-152 electronic speedometer/odometer for me from PartDeal.com which is part of ISS Pro (Instrument Sales and Service) with overnight shipping. He then called Joe and got the address of the place in Quartzite, Arizona where we are thinking about spending part of the winter. He and I spent some time checking it out on Google Maps, Google Earth, and Google Street View before turning in for the night. I spent some more time checking out Quartzite and distances to the nearest towns with decent shopping. I dealt with several e-mails, worked on yesterday’s blog post, and finally turned out the lights.

2014/10/07 (T) Loose Connectors

I was up much too late last night and stayed in bed this morning until just after 8 AM to make sure I got my 7 hours of beauty rest. I was up and dressed by 8:40 AM, just in time to converse briefly with Butch before he took off for a shopping run and an appointment in Logansport. Our plan was to attack the Aqua-Hot fuel flow problem when he got back, weather permitting.

After Butch left for town I had my usual bowl of yummy homemade granola for breakfast. Rather than make coffee, however, I went across the street to the Small Town Brew coffee & bake shop that Lisa Paul opened a little over two years ago. Lisa wasn’t there, but her friend Ashley was covering for her. Coffee is on a donation basis and the only small bill I had was a $1, so I got a large mug of coffee, with a refill, for a buck. Ashley was engaged in a conversation with a local farmer when I arrived. She was very friendly, and included me as much as she could, but they were discussing local issues (of course) which involved family relationships and property sales, none of which meant anything to me.

I found out that Ashley’s boyfriend, Jeff, is slowly trying to buy up the whole town of Twelve Mile and turn it into a rental community. Ashley helps Jeff renovate each property to make it rentable. What they are doing probably makes some economic sense but long-term will destroy any sense of community that may exist in this place. Renters simply do not have the same stake in a community as owners. The town is very small with very little employment but is only 12 miles from three much larger towns (Logansport, Peru, and Rochester) and only 30 miles from Plymouth (north) and Kokomo (south), so it is possible to live here and drive to employment elsewhere.

Although Twelve Mile has a bank and a post office it seems like the sort of place younger and middle aged folks might rent for a while rather than someplace to settle for the long term. I am, of course, looking at this through the eyes of a lifelong urbanite. Butch and Fonda have lived here for a very long time and it has certainly met their needs for a place to live and run their business, as well as build/store their bus conversions.

I finished my coffee and returned to our bus to see if I could remove the defective speedometer. The dashboard cover just lifts off, providing access to everything on the back side. Not good access, as the dashboard is fairly close to the windshield, but access nonetheless. I can also see the back side of the dashboard clearly through the windshield, so a second person can help direct tools into position if needed.

The old speedometer is held in with a U-shaped bracket secured with two Nylok nuts on machine screws that are part of the case. The machine screws protruded far enough beyond the nuts to require a deep socket or a socket with a large enough through hole to allow the screws to pass through. In order to get the socket onto the nuts I had to hold wiring cables out of the way. I traced the wires coming out the back of the speedometer and discovered that the instrument connector was disconnected from the mating piece in the wiring harness. The connector for the instrument lights was also unplugged. Whatever the condition of the instrument it was guaranteed not to work in this configuration.

I do not recall how this situation came to be. I was working on the dashboard wiring this past March while we were in Williston and presumably cleaned these contacts as the intermittent speedometer was the primary thing we were trying to fix. Presumably I either failed to plug these connectors back together or did not plug them together fully and they eventually worked loose. Having the connectors touching loosely could certainly have caused the intermittent and erratic readings I was seeing. I decided to leave the speedometer in the dash, reconnect it, and see what it did on the drive to Elkhart. I will have to decide whether to install the new speedometer when it arrives or keep it as a spare. Either way I will need to test drive the bus. Whatever I decide I do not plan to return the new one since it is the correct replacement part (per Prevost) for a speedometer that may eventually fail if it hasn’t already.

While Butch was away I worked at my computer selecting and editing photos for a few of the late September blog entries that I have not yet posted. I should have some free time at the upcoming FMCA GLCC Surplus and Salvage Rally to get the blog and website caught up and also get some writing/editing done on articles for Bus Conversion Magazine.

With regards to my Aqua-Hot, Butch’s plan was to install short fuel lines on the inlet and outlet sides of my Racor fuel filter / water separator, insert T-fittings, reconnect the normal fuel lines to the T-fittings, and attach vacuum gauges to the T-fittings. This configuration would allow us to monitor the relative pressure in the fuel lines on either side of the Racor to see if there was a restriction. I have a replacement filter cartridge for the Racor but we did not want to install it unnecessarily. It would have been easier but provided us with less information.

Although there are several components inside the Aqua-Hot that could restrict or prevent fuel flow, all of those came from Butch’s unit and were known good components before we swapped them over. We also had the unit in our coach operating as recently as this past Saturday. At this point all indications are that the no-start problem is fuel supply related and external to the unit, i.e., in our coach. Ugh.

My new VDO speedometer arrived while Butch was gone. I could not find Fonda so I signed for it. I was eating lunch when Butch got back. He bought barbed brass couplings for 1/4″ fuel line and 11′ of fuel line. He did not buy T-fittings because he had a quantity on hand. Unfortunately we could not find them so I made a quick run to Logansport to get the missing pieces.

Pressure gauges and T-fittings for testing the Aqua-Hot fuel delivery.

When I got back I hookup up the two vacuum gauges as previously described and initiated a start cycle on the Aqua-Hot. We did not see an indication of a restriction but the unit still would not fire. On two prior occasions we had gotten it to ignite by using a jumper wire across the two terminals where the cockpit switch wires connect. We tried that again and it lit up. It was producing a lot of black exhaust so I let it run long enough to clear up.

The jumper wire may be a coincidence but I developed a hypothesis that we could test. If the initial switch closure provided a sufficient voltage and current to start the operating cycle but then dropped below some lower threshold the controller would never open the fuel valve or apply power to the ignition coil for spark and the blower would complete the shutdown purge stage of the operating cycle. I recall a quote from Thomas Huxley: “The great tragedy of science – the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.” With the cockpit switch closed (on) Butch measured 12.7 VDC across the terminals without any noticeable drop. Even so, we investigated the switch and it’s wiring to see if the contacts might be intermittent. They were not. We did discover that the small “grain of wheat” light bulb in the switch was not coming on even though the filament appeared to be intact and there was voltage on the wire pair from the Aqua-Hot that powers it.

One of the house systems switch panels. The Aqua-Hot burner switch is one of these.

We cycled the unit on and off several times and it ignited every time. I removed the vacuum gauges and T-fittings, spliced the supply hose back together on the inlet of the Racor fuel filter /water separator, reconnected the outlet to the inlet of the Parker FPM-50, and installed a new piece of 1/4″ fuel line from the outlet of the FPM-50 to the inlet of the secondary fuel filter. I checked all of the band clamps, turned the unit on, and it started right up.

I did a little more interior electrical work on Butch and Fonda’s coach, helped them install an FRP panel, and called it a day. Since I was leaving tomorrow I did some preliminary packing of stuff in the bedroom. I made and ate my dinner in the coach and then did some straightening up before returning to the house and turning in for the night.

2014/09/24 (W) Marilyn Redux

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We were up a little before 8 AM and had a light breakfast of fruit and toast with our usual orange/grapefruit juice and coffee. Linda left at 8:30 AM to fetch Marilyn and I stayed home to work on some minor house projects.

Before I got started I got a call back from Darryll at DCM Heating and Cooling. He agreed that the thermostats should not allow the temperature to rise 5 degrees above the set point and offered to bring out new ones. I suggested that I keep an eye on them for a few days and let him know if they continue to work as described in yesterday’s blog post. He said he would check with his supplier to see if they have had any other reports of faulty units. I mentioned that the gas pipe coming through the floor for the kitchen range was too long and he offered to take care of that if/when he was out here to deal with the thermostats. I turned both the garage and library thermostats on and set the temperature up to take the chill off of those rooms since that was where I would be working this morning after checking in with the blogs I follow. I checked a little later and the units had shut off with the thermometers reading only 1 – 2 degrees above the set point; still not right but a lot better than 5 degrees or more.

Karen called from Bratcher Electric at 9:30 and said that they could come on Friday between 9 and 11 AM to convert the whole house generator and do the annual maintenance. That was good news as it will take care of our last propane to natural gas conversion. The new outdoor gas grill and the new gas fireplace logs are just that, new appliances that do not need to be converted. The fireplace logs have to be installed, of course, but we will have someone do that. I will have to attach the extension hose to the outdoor grill and perhaps replace the existing quick-disconnect with the one that comes with the extension hose if they turn out not to be compatible. With any luck both of those will arrive on Friday. If not, it will be another two weeks. We are also waiting on a cover for the outdoor grill.

When I finally got to work on my projects I started by installing the door latch/knob set for the utility closet. I then replaced a duplex outlet in the NNW wall of the garage with a GFCI outlet that would also protect all of the downstream outlets on that circuit. After completing the GFCI installation I discovered that I had installed it at the wrong point in the circuit. I turned off power to the circuit, removed the cover plates from all the outlets on the circuit, and disconnected all the wires to isolate each outlet. I turned the power back on and used my non-contact voltage sensor to find the supply wire. It was in a shallow single-gang box with three 12-2+g NM cables, so there was no way the GFCI was going to fit in there along with all the wires. I wired it up anyway and will get a box extender to create the needed space. The better solution would be to just install a GFCI circuit breaker for that circuit, and I may do that at some point, but I am trying to use up parts I have accumulated over many years of house projects rather than buy new ones.

Sister Marilyn and her sister Linda relaxing on the back deck and pretending to ignore the camera (and the photographer)..

Linda and Marilyn stopped at Meijer’s on the way back to the house and got home around 12:30 PM. We had lunch and then they worked in the kitchen using the new range to make a batch of granola and some apple crisp while I used that time to finish reassembling and testing the outlets in the garage. When I tested them the duplex outlet between the garage doors it did not have power. I thought it did when I checked earlier so perhaps the feed came loose from the upstream outlet. I think I know which outlet that is and recall having to attach one of the hot wires to the side terminal because the push-in connection wasn’t holding. Perhaps the other push-in slipped out. I will check that tomorrow.

When I was done with the outlets I took the cover off the sub-panel, removed the 240V/30A breaker I had previously installed for the radial arm saw, and replaced it with a 240V/15A breaker which is the correct size for that tool. I have the parts I need to install the outlet but I still need to pull the wire which was not on my project list for today. I put the birch plywood cover panel around the box and put the cover back on the box to hold it in place. My last electrical task for the day was to change the two fuses in the disconnect box for the new a-c compressor.

My next project was sanding drywall compound in several places and applying another coat, after which I cleaned up my tools and took a break. I started up my computer and had 1173 e-mails. 1100 of them were from 550 e-mail notifications to two different e-mail accounts resulting from failed login attempts against two of our websites. The brute force login attack has not succeeded, but this is starting to get annoying. I also had an e-mail from Bill confirming that he and Karen and two others would be coming to our house on Sunday for a visit and dinner. I suspected that the other two would be Mike and Kathy (Bill’s sister), which he confirmed later in the day.

Since I was in my work clothes I thought I would cut the grass but couldn’t get the lawnmower started. It’s been a year-and-a-half since we last used it so I was not surprised. I always use Sta-bil in my gasoline, but 18+ months is a long time. I added fuel to the tank but that didn’t help. It’s possible that the fuel I added had oil mixed in with it for small 2-cycle gas engine powered yard tools. If so, that only made matters worse. I put the mower away and will deal with it tomorrow, if I feel like it.

I turned my attention to the bus and removed the cover from the end of the Aqua-Hot to see if I could determine why the burner won’t ignite. I ran it through three start cycles but it would not fire. There appeared to be fuel flowing through the final filter but I had no way to know if it was an adequate flow and I could not see any other obvious reason why it would not start. I jiggled the spark ignition wires and made sure they were fully attached to the ignition coil, but that didn’t help. I also confirmed that there was no white smoke or diesel smell at the exhaust pipe, which really suggests that fuel is not getting sprayed through the nozzle. Stupid machine.

After the apple crisp was done baking Linda started working on dinner. She made a warm Farro pilaf with dried cranberries and roasted some Brussels sprouts. While the main meal cooked we had a kale-chard-spinach salad with sesame seeds, cranberries, and tomatoes and a raspberry vinaigrette dressing. I really like the way we eat, and Marilyn also enjoyed the meal. She has been trying to make healthier food choices after seeing the results we have gotten.

After dinner I made a run to Lowe’s for a spark plug (for the lawnmower), electrical extender box, and a single gang Decora-style outlet cover plate. I stopped at the Shell station for some fresh gasoline and then at Meijer’s for a small towel rack. I had a quick chat with Steve (N8AR) on the South Lyon 2m ham radio repeater while driving home. Linda and Marilyn were just finishing a game of Quadominoes when I arrived, after which we had the apple crisp they made earlier. Linda had warmed it up using the “warm” feature of the new oven. New tools are fun.

The sisters were both tired enough to turn in by 8:30 PM but decided to stay up a while longer. To stay awake they played Scrabble online with their brother in Pennsylvania. They called Ron to make sure he was online and then ganged up on him. Never underestimate the power of a nun and her sister.

2014/08/18 (M) Tasks Menagerie

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I woke up early, before 5 AM, so I got up, showered, shaved (not a daily occurrence), got dressed, and sat in the living room to read. I started making coffee around 7 AM, which provided Linda the clue (incentive?) to get up and get dressed. Ahhh, breakfast (homemade granola).

No more limbs hanging over the bus.

Linda was on tap to babysit in Ann Arbor today and left around 8:15 AM. I got the Little Giant ladder out of the front bay of the bus and set it up as 14′ extension ladder. This is the only ladder we own that will get me onto the roof of the bus. I took a brush to clean off the roof of bus and a pole saw/pruner to trim tree branches encroaching on the bus. When I was done on the roof I collapsed the ladder and put it back in the front bay as this ladder goes wherever the bus goes. I trimmed lots of other trees from the ground and then gathered up the limbs into a pile to get them out of Keith’s way so he could cut the grass. (Monday is grass cutting day this year.)

I wanted to run the Aqua-Hot but discovered we had left the electric heating element on so the coolant was hot enough the diesel burner would not come on. We have been told by Aqua-Hot service technicians in seminars that the unit should be run at least once a month to keep it in peak operating condition. I turned the electric heating element off and checked to see what else might be on that wasn’t needed.

I looked at replacing the overflow reservoir with the larger Oasis one I got from Butch, but it would require stand-offs or brackets to clear existing water lines (at least until I rebuild the water bay) and I did not feel like getting involved in that today. Besides, the overflow reservoir was just below the full/hot mark from having left the electric heating element turned on, so I needed to let the system cool down before I could do anything anyway.

No limbs hanging out into the pull-through driveway.

I chatted with Keith for a little while after he finished cutting the grass and then had lunch, after which I settled in to work at my desk on the SLAARC WordPress website. I took a break mid-afternoon and made several phone calls. My first call was to Heights Tower Systems in Pensacola, Florida to start finding out what I need to get our used Heights tower erected, how to order it, and what it’s going to cost. My chat with Katie made it sound like they might not be all that helpful. They need measurements, photos, and the name of the previous (original) owner as a starting point and I said I would send her that information as soon as I could.

I called Paul’s Tree service next to see if Paul Keech might come out and trim our trees. The gal who answered the phone said Paul was trying to get out of the tree-trimming business but wanted to know if we needed trees trimmed or felled? We need both, but I was primarily looking for trimming. I guess that was the wrong answer. I left my name and phone numbers and asked that he at least give me a call. I suspect we will have to find someone else to trim several trees in places I cannot reach.

My last call was to EZ-Connector in Tulare, California. I talked to Joe and was ready to order until he suggested I double check a couple of things first, specifically the number of circuits (wires) I need and the length of connecting cable. I need to get these parts ordered, but I’m not sure when I will find time to verify these things.

Linda stopped at the Whole Foods Market in Ann Arbor but still got home ahead of the afternoon traffic. She bought an Amy’s roasted vegetable pizza for dinner which we enjoyed with red grapes and sweet Bing cherries. I worked some more on the SLAARC website creating pages for business meeting documents and uploading them. I also uploaded my blog posts for the last five days of July to our personal blog. I added more projects to my bus project list, got discouraged at its growing length, and went to bed.

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.

2014/06/03 (T) Work-n-Play

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Linda made a tofu scramble for breakfast with sautéed onions, mushrooms, and asparagus. Nutritional yeast, soy sauce, salt, and pepper rounded out the dish. The texture and taste is very similar to the same dish made with eggs.

We resumed work on the fire pit at 9:30 AM and had it finished by 1 PM with the original burn pile raked out level. I did not count the number of bricks we used but I think it was around 80. The weather was much more pleasant for this work than the previous two days with highs in the 70’s, lower humidity, and brisk west winds. I would like to get a six foot diameter metal fire ring and install it centered in the fire pit and flush with the top of the top course of blocks. The space between the blocks and the metal ring would be filled with dirt and a top layer of rock such as egg rock.

We had a light lunch of apple slices and chickpea salad spread on rye toast and then got cleaned up. I worked at my desk for a few hours, off-loading photographs from the Sony alpha 100 and onto my Dell laptop. I edited blog posts going back to May 26 and uploaded the ones through May 31st.

Ed Roelle (Great Lakes Converted Coaches chapter) called and left a message while were working in the yard. The message indicated that he had spent the last five days working on his Aqua-Hot hydronic heating system. Apparently the fresh water tubing was clogged, severely restricting the water flow. He attributed this to the extremely hard water in Florida where they have spent most of their winters in their Royale Coach bus conversion. He knew we had just spent the winter there and wanted to make me aware of the potential issue. I was vaguely aware of having read, or been told, that the Aqua-Hot units really prefer to have softened water run through them. We have a portable water softener that I used to fill the fresh water tank most if the time we were in Florida, so I am hopeful that we are avoiding this problem to some extent.

We met Kate at The Pound in downtown Brighton at 6:30 PM. The rooftop patio was being used for a private party so we had to sit downstairs. They had the roll up doors open, so there was plenty of fresh air. Kate brought her official certificate from the Guinness Book of World Records for her participation in the Rosie The Riveter event last year at Willow Run Airport. She brought her iPad and shared photos of some of the places she and Brian had been in the last six months, including the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas. Kate is a very good photographer, and SXSW affords unique photographic opportunities due to the stage lighting at the various venues.

Linda and I had large dinner salads that were excellent and Kate had a chicken wrap. A few bottles of beer were consumed as well. After dinner we went for a stroll on the boardwalk along the Mill Pond. There were lots of Mallards and Canadian Geese with young but the highlight for use were the turtles and 30″ carp. As best we could identify them the smaller and more numerous turtles were painted turtles, Michigan’s state reptile. We also saw half a dozen common snapping turtles, a couple of them quite large. We strolled around Main Street until we found ourselves in front of Two Brothers Coffee Shop and decided to have an after dinner cup of coffee. By the time we finished it was after 9:30 PM and Kate needed to get back to Ypsilanti, tomorrow being a work day for her. We got home and watched the next episode of Doc Martin on Amazon Instant Video.

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.

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Tag Archives: Aqua-Hot hydronic diesel furnace

2015/12/19 (S) A Gypsy Journal Milestone

2015/10/16 (F) Desk Installation

2014/10/16-22 More Bus Work

2014/10/01-07 Bus Work Plus

2014/08/18 (M) Tasks Menagerie

2014/06/09 (M) Mobile Service

2014/06/03 (T) Work-n-Play

2014/05/06 (T) RESA Redux