We Found Our Leak, Thanks to a Frog

 

In my last post, I mentioned a huge water leak from our living room slide.  At that time, we were baffled as to how it occurred.

My dear sweet husband was on a frog hunting mission for me one night, when he discovered our problem.

I have been deathly afraid of frogs and toads for as long as I can remember.  Al knows  how afraid I am and does everything he can to keep my life as frog free possible.

For the past few weeks we have been hearing the all too familiar “barking” sound of a tree frog coming from somewhere on top of the coach.  When you’re in the bathroom, it sounds like it’s in the bathroom with you. 

A couple weeks ago, Al was doing a frog hunt on the roof and managed to catch a Cuban Tree frog.  If you’ve never seen one of these buggers, they are quite creepy.  Sorry, I can’t post a picture of one because that would involve me looking at pictures and I don’t want to do that.  :)  They aren’t native to Florida and have been eating the local frogs and lizards.  They recommend you kill any you find, but we just can’t do that.  We took him on a walk (in a container) and let him go a few blocks away.

A few days ago we were sitting outside and heard the familiar barking type sound of a tree frog. We’re wondering if the first frog came back?   Al discovered it was hiding inside the bathroom vent which is on the roof. No wonder it sounded so close from the bathroom.    Al was unable to catch it that night. A few nights later it was out of the vent hunting, but it hid under the slide topper cover and Al couldn’t catch him.  He worked until well after dark trying to catch it, but was unable to get it.

Since the frog was out of his bathroom vent, Al covered the two vents with screen so he couldn’t get back in.  If they go down into the vents, they can actually get inside and come up through the sink. 

While he was frog hunting, Al noticed that the slide topper had come out of the groove that held it to the side of the motorhome.  There was about a 3-4 foot gap in the center, where the slide met the wall of the coach. This is why we had the leak.  Both ends were still attached, so we hadn’t seen the problem until he went up on the roof.  Thanks to that noisy frog, we discovered our problem.

The next night, Al went on another frog hunt and this time was able to get the frog out of the roller tube and he finally caught him and he’s been relocated to a new home. This time, Al drove him to a new location (not as far as I would have liked but hopefully far enough he won’t come back).

I called Lazy Days on Monday, and was told the first available appointment would be mid August.  I reminded them this was an emergency since we had a leak, so they got us in the next day.  It’s an advantage if you are a previous customer and have bought RV’s from them, I guess.    We expected Lazy Days to be be pretty empty, after all this is “slow season” in Florida.  Boy were we wrong! 

The Lazy Days in Tampa has 220 service bays, and almost all of them were full!   If you’ve never been to Lazy Days in Tampa, you should visit it some day. It still amazes me every time we go there.  It’s quite an amazing place.

There is a shop on the Lazy Days property called Wade RV.  They do custom work like MCD shades, dash covers, window graphics, entry mats, vehicle wraps, solar screens, upholstering, and other things like that.  Lazy Days uses them to do some of their work.    Our toppers are made of a fabric  material that looks to me like canvas but it’s called acrylic.  Wade has the matching fabric and sews it for Lazy Days.

We arrived at Lazy Days by 9am Tuesday.  We checked in and by 9:30 we were back in a service bay hooked up to electricity with the AC running. Gotta keep the kitties nice and cool.  I had requested a specific technician, but he was unavailable so we got one by the  name of Rob.   

We decided to get our Air dryer cartridge replaced (another diesel thing) and also get a four corner weigh of the coach.  They did the weigh for $99, and we didn’t think that was too bad of a price for the convenience of having done while we were there.

Rob took off the old awning topper fabric, walked it over to Wade RV so they could match it and get the right size. They custom made the new awning topper. While Rowas waiting for that, he changed out the air dryer, and then they took the coach to the chassis department for the 4 corner  weigh.

We were a little nervous about our weight.  We have never had a 4 corner weigh done.  We weighed it at a CAT weigh station but that was only the front and rear axels, and not an accurate way to determine proper tire pressure.

Our GVWR (gross vehicle weight rating) was 5270 lbs under the maximum weight.   Yay!

I still need to educate myself a little more, but we didn’t find any major issues with our weights.  It turns out we estimated pretty closely on how much PSI we need in our tires.  The PSI is determined by the tire manufacturer and the weight on each tire. 

I’ll post more about that after I do a little more research.

After the weighing was done, they brought the coach back over to Rob.  The topper fabric was done and he had the slide topper back on before 5pm.  Since it was late, we were tired and they hadn’t gotten the bill ready yet, we decided to stay the night. 

We were snug in our service bay with 50 amp electric, water and sewer if we had needed it, and free and fast WIFI.  We pulled the coach out enough so that we could put up our satellite dish and we were happy campers for the night.

We got up early the next morning, paid the big bill and headed back to Quail Run.

A Few Motorhome Repairs

 

Wesley Chapel, Florida (high 92, low 72)

We have been hanging out, visiting Mom, and working around the coach on things we have been neglecting.

It’s hot every day from morning until evening so we haven’t been inclined to do anything outdoors.  If it’s not storming, we manage to sit outside on the patio in the evenings for a few hours, but usually we need to run a fan due to the heat and humidity. 

The otters have been entertaining us and last week we saw a mother deer with two new born fawns.  They chased each other around for a while, but I didn’t have my camera with me so I didn’t get any pictures. 

This morning the otters were again chasing around on the bank.  I think they were getting ready to mate. 

The larger one was digging in the dirt and acting kind of strange. 

We never did see any mating, and soon they got back into the water and frolicked some more.

Some people walked up with their dog and the otters were checking them out. 

 

We have been working on small repairs on the motorhome.  Small things have a way of adding up, and they never end up being easy, do they?

We have been lucky until recently and never had a string break on a day\night shade.  Our luck ran out and a string broke on our small bedroom shade.  I guess I’ll finally have to learn how to restring these things. 

As I posted earlier, we had another problem with our Thetford Aria toilet.   We thought the foot pedal broke again after just replacing that same mechanism not two months ago.  It’s extremely frustrating.

On top of that our favorite, and only mobile Rv tech moved to North Carolina, so we were forced to find someone else.

With some recommendations from campground neighbors, we chose The Toy Doctor.  It’s a man and his son in law working together. They both seemed to be good and the older man had a lot of experience working on airplanes, boats and RV’s. 

Using a mobile Rv tech, you never know who you’re getting.  Is it someone who just went through 2 weeks of Rv maintenance school and thinks he is a qualified Rv tech. We were happy with their work and will use them again.

They removed the toilet and discovered a new problem.  The cable that operates the flushing mechanism broke.  That was about the only part we didn’t have on hand.  We thought we had  any and all parts we may need, after our last fiasco in the Keys, but apparently there are still a few additional parts that we didn’t have.

Fortunately, they had a replacement cable but it was a tad longer than our old one, but they made it work.  We had them replace the blade mechanism also while they were there, so for all intents and purposes, we have a brand new toilet.  (hopefully)

One problem we discovered last time was that the main mechanism was not installed correctly from the factory.  They corrected that issue, so hopefully we won’t be having this problem again.  The foot pedal seems to be a lot smoother now, so hopefully we’re done with toilet repairs for a long time.

 

On the way home from the Keys last month, we noticed the blower on our dash a/c was only working on high.  We figured it was only a matter of time until high speed quit working, so we decided we’d better try and fix it.  Apparently, this is quite a common problem.

Al removed the blower switch which was located behind the controls on the front dash.  It was a Ford part so he took it to the Ford dealer, who told him it could only be two things.  It was either the fan switch or the resistor. 

We were happy to have found the exact part we needed, and it was relatively inexpensive.  Unfortunately, it turned out not to be the fan that was causing the problem.  We really didn’t expect it to be that easy.  :)

Al was able to locate and remove the resistor which is in the outside front generator compartment near the firewall on the passenger side.  Ford had no comparable part and recommended we go to NAPA.  They had a similar part, except the little connector plugs were a little smaller than the one we had.  He felt they would grab on when we plugged it in and would work.  The part was about $25 and not returnable, but we took a chance and bought it. 

It worked!  Yay……we again have a three speed blower.  In the process of getting this done, we got some feedback from the Monaco owners group and they gave us some places to go find the part, should it ever go out again. 

Merikay and Craig posted an interesting blog about their problems with a dirty radiator and engine overheating.   You can read about it HERE.  If you have never cleaned your radiator, you might want to read their story.  I think we’ll have it done by a professional at Cummins when we get our oil changed.  A lot of people do it themselves with a special Simple Green cleaner, but I think given the importance of this part, we’ll go the professional route.  We’re hoping since our engine has easy rear access it won’t cost as much as theirs!

 

Rv Toilet Install-Part One, Plan B, and Part Two

 

Cudjoe Key, Florida (high 78, low 68)

 

TOILET REPAIRS, PART ONE

We were happy to see the new RV toilet arrive right on time Friday the 13th. 

Al has installed a few residential toilets over the years, and never had any problem, but of course Rv toilets are not the same.

We removed our Aria Classic. No problems there.  I did the lifting to spare Al’s shoulder. 

We soon noticed the closet flange on the motor home floor, wasn’t quite right as far as the bolts matching up to where they needed to be on the new toilet.

This is a picture of a similar product, however the one on the floor is apparently cemented in. You can’t remove it, and you can’t turn it so that the openings for the bolts are where you need them to be.

As it turned out,  the OEM toilet Monaco used doesn’t attach to the closet flange at all.  The seal fits into it, and that is all.  It’s attached with two lag bolts, which are much further apart than the bolts on the closet flange.

What was Monaco thinking?   Why didn’t they install the closet flange so that if you ever needed to replace the toilet, it would match up to other toilets. 

One good thing is that our Monaco motor home has a wonderful feature in which you can turn off the water for each individual item. It’s extremely handy to be able to turn the water off  just for the toilet, and still have water elsewhere in the coach.  It was nice to be able to wash our hands while working on the toilet.

We were extremely frustrated and after a lot of research and head scratching, we came to the conclusion that the new toilet was not going to work for our motor home.  We considered drilling new holes into our closet flange and using lag bolts to mount the new toilet, but the base wasn’t as wide as the old toilet and it would have been wobbly anyway.

 

 

PLAN B

By this time, we were tired and frustrated.    We decided to go with Plan B, although we weren’t exactly sure what that was at the moment.  Shortly afterwards got an email saying part for the old toilet was now available.  They had been on back order and no one knew when it would be available.

At that point, we decided to re-install the old toilet and wait for the parts.  At least we would have a toilet, even though it had to be flushed manually.  At this point we were thankful for that much.

There may be a way to make the new toilet fit without a major ordeal, but since the parts were on the way, we decided to stay with the old toilet.  It’s actually a much nicer toilet and is a solid one piece of porcelain, instead of the cheap plastic base like the new one.

 

So…..it looks like we have made an expensive mistake, and learned an expensive lesson.  Anybody want to buy a brand new porcelain Thetford Style Plus toilet?  We’ll give you a good deal!

PART TWO

The new parts arrived, but we were dreading it and  procrastinated a few days.

We finally got brave enough and tried again.  There are a lot more parts on an Rv toilet than a residential toilet and the instructions weren’t very clear on how to replace the foot pedal, but al figured it out.  As it turns out, the original toilet had some parts that weren’t attached quite on center, which causes the foot pedal mechanism to rub against the side of the toilet. He tried to remove that part, to see if he could center it correctly, but it was tightly bolted down and he was afraid he would break the porcelain if he kept at it.  We would really be in trouble if he broke the porcelain base. He decided to file away the porcelain area that rubs and hope for the best.

Next step was to reinstall the toilet.  It’s much heavier than the one we had ordered and it’s a lot harder putting it back in than it was to remove, but I managed.  Al couldn’t even help me because there is no room in our tiny bathroom.  Al screwed it back into the floor with the lag bolts.

The next step was to reattach the water line, and this is where we had the problem.  For some reason the heavy duty blue water line had shifted a little and didn’t match up to the back of the toilet, although by feel it felt like it was in line.  It doesn’t bend much and only goes up and down a half inch or so.  We both tried and tried and couldn’t get the darned waterline attached.  Of course you’re doing it blind because it’s behind the toilet and only one hand will fit behind the toilet.

Again, we were happy to have the separate water disconnects in the motor home. We had water to the sink in the bathroom, and could turn off the supply to the toilet.  We now had a working foot pedal, just no water supply, but we were better off than we were before!

So, that work around worked for about a week with us both trying again and again to get the waterline to attach.

Finally, Al suggested I try to take a picture to see if we could see why it wouldn’t screw on.  I did, and then he saw the water line was a little high.  He managed to shove it back down a little and was finally able to attach the water line to the toilet! 

 

So….my advice for you all is to buy spare parts for your toilet, because if/when they break, you’ll be very glad to have them on hand.

What an ordeal!

Uh-Oh-Big Problem and no RV Supplies Nearby

 

 Cudjoe Key, Florida (high 82, low 75)

Time is passing quickly. 

We picked the boat up from it’s storage lot on Big Pine Key.  Al is doing some annual maintenance on it, a little at a time. and he’s already managed to hurt hit shoulder in the process. 

It’s been pretty breezy and the seas are pretty choppy, which is pretty typical for March.  Our days are very warm with day time temps usually at 82.  Luckily, our site is close enough to the ocean that we almost always have a wonderful sea breeze.  By about mid afternoon, we’re needing a jacket when we sit outside.   The sea breezes are nice, except for boating. 

We’ve about decided not to put the boat into a high and dry marina.  We’re hoping some of our many neighbors on canal lots will offer us a place to dock the boat….but we’re still waiting.  :)

Fellow blogger friends Rick and Kathy recently arrived and are staying at a nearby KOA.  We met them at Mangrove Mama’s for happy hour,  and again at the Square Grouper for lunch. I neglected to get a picture both times, but I’m sure we’ll meet again, and I’ll remember to get a picture.

We got a rather unpleasant surprise last Friday, right before we were heading out to meet  Rick and Kathy for lunch. It made it a little difficult to enjoy our lunch date, as we had other things on our minds.

You may remember that we had our Thetford Aria Deluxe toilet replaced about a year ago.  It was the push button electric model and it gave us problems from day one.  It was brand new when we bought the motor home.  We found it’s little sister, the Aria Classic which has the regular foot pedal flush and nothing electronic.  The Aria models are the only ones we could find that have the porcelain base and bowl.

The new toilet, often had problems with the pedal flush mechanism sticking.   I intended to buy some replacement parts, but I never did.  Big mistake, because Friday afternoon, all the way down here in the Keys, with very few Rv parts options,  the darn flush pedal  broke!   The beautiful solid porcelain toilet has PLASTIC parts and one of those parts broke off.   There are a few things you can live with out, but a toilet is not one of them!

I have to tell you, we were both in a state of panic.  Yes, we have bath houses here, but none of them are real close.  I also have been dealing with a UTI, which means I’m needing to go more often.  :) 

There are not a lot of options here in the Keys for RV parts.  The nearest Camping World is 280 miles away! We are actually closer to Cuba than Camping World, or even Walmart.

We decided we needed to get something ordered that afternoon, since it was a Friday, we hoped at least it would get shipped before the week-end.

I checked with PPL Motorhomes in Texas. They have a great parts department and knowledgeable people.  We’ve ordered rv related items from them several other times. They didn’t have the parts in stock for our toilet, and as it turns out neither did other parts places we checked.  We decided to go with the recommendation from PPL and we ordered a Thetford Aqua Magic Style Plus toilet.   It has a porcelain bowl, but plastic base.  This is not exactly what I wanted, but at this point, I didn’t care if it had a plastic base or not.

Unfortunately, according to PPL’s website this is that we found: 

NOTE: Due to Fedex and UPS hazmat regulations, expedited shipping is not available for toilets. Standard ground transportation will be used for all toilets.

The Hazmat rules are due to the small amount of toilet chemicals packed inside all rv toilets.

It turns out that since porcelain toilets have to be specially trucked in because UPS and FED EX can’t ship them without breaking them.   The shipping cost was $120.  Yikes.  The price you pay for being in paradise, huh?   The new toilet is scheduled to arrive Friday (the 13th)   Uh oh……   They tell you that you have to open the box and confirm there is no damage before you can accept the package.  Once you accept it, it’s yours.   Yep…it’s arriving on Friday, the 13th.  :)

In the meantime, we have discovered a way to manually flush the toilet with a screwdriver.  It’s not ideal, but at least we can flush.

We love the Florida Keys, but it is one of the worst places to be if you have any problems.  We don’t even have a Walmart within 100 miles.

Still….we are very happy here in the Florida Keys.

Uh-Oh. The Refrigerator is Not Cold.

 

Wesley Chapel, Florida (high 75, low 60)

When we got our motorhome 3 1/2  years ago, Lazy Days was nice enough to install  a brand new 4 door Norcold 1210 refrigerator into our new to us motor home.  I wish we had installed a residential refrigerator, but at that time we weren't really aware of all the refrigerator fires caused by the RV refrigerators.  All the recalls that are done on these refrigerators are really only putting a Band-Aid on the problem and not addressing the real issues.

In the past few years, as I had started to learn more about Rv refrigerators, I started thinking about a residential refrigerator.  Although we never had any problems with our refrigerator, the fire thing was always in the back of my mind.  Unfortunately, installing a residential refrigerator is not as simple as going down to Sears and having it delivered.

Our Norcold is mounted over a furnace compartment and fits right up next to the ceiling.  We were hoping we could lower the platform a few inches to give us enough height for one of the 21 cf refrigerators we had been admiring.  Tim, our local Mobile Rv tech looked at the space we have and he said we couldn’t do any height modifications due to the furnace and wiring below the Norcold.  We would need a refrigerator no taller than 64 inches. That severely limited our choices.   

We shopped at the stores and online and the only refrigerators that would fit were cheap, low end garage or apartment style refrigerators. I sure wished we could have gotten the beautiful stainless steel Samsung like Judy got.   I got discouraged and quit looking, until I happened to meet a lady here in the campground that had recently installed a residential refrigerator in the same size space.  She was nice enough to let us see how it looked installed, and after seeing it, we decided we could live with the only refrigerator that would fit. We really had no other choice and after all, the Norcold is really a cheap looking refrigerator with wire shelves and no freezer light.  The only difference is the $4000 price tag of the Norcold, verses a $450 price tag for the one we got!   We will gain 2.6 cubic feet of space.

The Norcold was running fine, so I listed it on Craig's List, instead of trashing what I thought was a perfectly good refrigerator..

Tim, our Rv guy had put us on the list for service and was going to work us in between more urgent problems.

Things changed on Thursday, when Al  noticed the old Norcold wasn’t cooling.  Uh oh.  We didn’t notice any of the tell tale ammonia smell, which is common when Rv refrigerators fail, but upon checking the outside compartment, we noticed some yellow/green powdery substance.  This is a bad thing, so we immediately unplugged it.  I don’t know if it is repairable, but we are taking no chances with a possible fire. 

Unfortunately the new refrigerator didn’t arrive until Friday, so we had to do the cooler thing for  a day. We have a shed here, so when the delivery people came, it was put into the shed.   It’s plugged in and cold, waiting for Tim install it.  Now I just had to make Tim aware we were one of the urgent calls, and we needed him asap.

I felt a sense of relief when the Norcold quit.  It would have been nice if it would have lasted until  the new one was in the shed and running, but at least we won’t feel bad about trashing a perfectly good refrigerator, and we didn’t sell it to someone else.  The Norcold worked well for us and it failed on our time frame (almost) and not at the most inconvenient time, like if we had been in the Keys.  We feel lucky it  worked out the way we did, even though we did lose some frozen foods.  Good riddance Norcold!

We will no longer have an RV refrigerator that can be run on propane for boondocking, or while driving down the road.  We never boondock, or ran it on propane while driving anyway. We either turned it off for the few hours we drove, or had the generator on.

We’re looking forward to having the new refrigerator installed.

We’re trying to wrap everything up here Tampa.  Our plans (in jello) are to leave for the Keys on the 17th.  I had an unexpected dental visit  last week when I suddenly developed a tooth ache.  I ended up with a crown and luckily, I found a new dentist who understands I don’t like pain, and she took good care of me. 

 

We’re Back in Business

 

Blairsville, Ga (high 65, low 38) rain

 

We have rain today and some colder weather coming, so I guess our period of perfect weather has ended. The past few days were so nice, that it was making it very hard to want to leave.    We may leave on Sunday, but we may not.  That’s the nice thing about having your own lot, I guess.

If you didn’t read the last post, we awoke to no DC power the other morning.  We had no air conditioning, heat, water heater, water pump, or lights.  It was a problem with our 12v system.  Our first thought was that the battery cut off switch had accidently gotten turned off, again. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the problem this time.

Fortunately, we got the problem resolved, and I wanted to document it in case it happened to someone else.

I had gone online to a Monaco forum and was pretty certain our problem was with the battery cut off switch which is also known as the salesman switch.  Ours switch is inside by the door, but it’s wired to a solenoid, which in our case was in the rear passenger bay, near the batteries.   Al tested the voltage on the solenoid, and found it good on one side and bad on the other, so we were pretty sure that was the problem. 

Chuck, one of the people on the Monaco forum, told us how to re-wire the solenoid that would bypass it.  He said most of the other Monaco owners had already done this, because it’s only a matter of time until the solenoid fails.

We saw no good reason to have this switch, and would be happy to bypass it, but we just couldn’t bring ourselves to do  it ourselves.  

The only thing I know about electricity, is how to turn it off and on.  Al knows some, but isn’t real comfortable with this type of thing.  We were afraid we would screw something up and do some major damage to the coach.  

Our local mobile Rv mechanic is getting ready to head south for the winter, so we weren’t sure if he’d be able to come out or not.

Fortunately, he was able to fit us into his schedule.  By the time he got here, we had located the solenoid, so we saved him time having figure out where it was located. Each coach is different.  He tested the solenoid, and also came to the conclusion that it was bad. He rewired it to bypass the solenoid.  It took him all of 20 seconds, I think.  :)

As it turned out, even I could have done the bypass, but that’s okay.  He only charged us for the service call, and we knew it was done right and we weren’t going to blow up as we slept!

I am posting before and after pictures in case this happens to someone else.

This is the bay where the cut off solenoid is located. The solenoid is on the bottom row, to the right of the square box on the left.

Here is a close up of the solenoid as it was wired originally.

Here is the bypass.  The red cable that was on the top was moved to the bottom post.  That’s all you need to do to bypass the switch.  Easy peasy.

 

We took a ride up to the Blue Ridge Parkway yesterday. The fall color was faded, but it was still beautiful.  I’ll post some pics soon.

We’re Happy Campers Again

 

Wesley Chapel, Florida  (high 73, low 56)

 

We’ve been busy around here trying to get ready to head south tomorrow. 

Yesterday, Tim, our mobile Rv repairman, came and installed our new a/c unit.  That was a pretty big job, and took him several hours.  I don’t know yet exactly what we’ll have to pay, but he said the extended warranty company is covering $1431 or something like that.  I don’t know if there will be any additional costs that we will be responsible for, because we haven’t paid Tim yet. The warranty company bases their payments on their costs for the parts, and not freight or any differences in parts prices.   They also have a set amount of time for the labor, and Tim had a little trouble since the new unit had some differences that had to be made to work with our old thermostat.   Anyway, it’s installed but Tim needs to check with the manufacturer on Monday,to make sure he has it wired correctly.  He was a little concerned because the old unit had had 5 connections/wires/something?  and the new one had 12.  It needed some sort of conversion unit to make them match up.  He explained it to me and it made sense at the time, but I can’t exactly remember what he said.  Anyway, I trust him to make sure it’s right.  He will be back first thing in the morning once he calls the manufacturer.

The shroud on the new unit is white and the old one was painted to match the coach.  We could paint it, but I don’t know if we will.   I wish I would have thought to ask him if the shroud came in black.  That would have looked fine.   I guess it’s too late now.  

After he finished with the a/c unit, he had to start on the toilet replacement.   The extended warranty company agreed to pay for the replacement of the circuit board, which is almost $400.   With labor and minus our deductible they will pay around $370, if I remember correctly.   Since we were never happy with the old Aria II Deluxe electric toilet, we opted to replace, rather than repair.   Tim found that they make the exact same toilet in a non electric model.    It’s solid porcelain, including the base.  No plastic shroud around the base.  Just what I wanted. The only thing plastic is the foot pedal and the seat.   It looks exactly like the old one, except for the pedal.  Tim said his cost for the new toilet was $639, so we’ll have some out of pocket expenses there.  The old toilet was nice when it worked, but it was so darn noisy.  

We are both thrilled with this new toilet.  Doesn’t take much to make us happy.   A toilet that flushes is good.

Yep, we are happy campers now!    Isn’t it pretty?

 

In a previous post I mentioned a naked man.   We didn’t actually see him but our neighbors Pat and Ron did.  The other morning, they were sitting in their coach having coffee and they happened to notice a guy in a motorhome right down the road.

Apparently, he came out of the bathroom butt nekkid with the curtains open!    Pat called me and told me to hurry over because she wanted to show me something.

By the time, I got over (then went back and got my camera) the excitement was over.   Darn.    :)

This was the woman.  It looked like she was cleaning.  Pat said the man must have come out of the bathroom after showering because he was completely nude.  You can see with those tall windows, that it wouldn’t have left much to the imagination.  What were those people thinking?  Do they think no one can see through the windows?

 

How about this next picture?  

Al was actually wearing his helmet.  Of course, right before this picture was taken, he got busted for working in the storage bays, without the helmet.    He has hit his head too many times on those darn slides, so he really needs to get into the habit of wearing this helmet.  

The problem with the helmet it that it’s kind of big and difficult to work in a storage bay with that big thing on your head.

Pat found this on Amazon.  It’s a baseball cap with a built in hard hat.  They also sell just an insert that fits into a baseball cap.   I think he would be more apt to wear a baseball hat than the helmet.

Not a bad idea, is it?   Wish I would have thought of it.

 

Al did manage to successfully replace the water pump, and without a head injury.  We picked up the pump at Lazy Days and got the exact same one, so that all the hoses and screws would match right up. The new one pump seems a bit noisier, but as long as it pumps,  I don’t care.

 

So, now all three of our things are replaced.    Hopefully that’s it for awhile.

 

The other night, we rented the movie “Jobs” from Red box.  It was the story of Apple founder, Steve Jobs.  That was a very interesting story and we loved the movie.  Ashton Kutcher did a terrific job portraying Steve Jobs.  The only thing we didn’t like about the movie was the ending.  It was too soon, and we wanted more.

I went online yesterday morning and bought the eBook from Amazon.  In seconds we had it uploaded to my phone, laptop and Al’s Galaxy notebook, for a mere $6.99. 

Walter Isaacson, the author did a great job researching the book.  It is well written and very detailed.   I hope it doesn’t end as early in Steve’s life as the movie.    Can’t wait to get to the Keys, sit outside at the beach and finish the book!

 

So……I think I have caught up on all of our news.    The plan for tomorrow is to head down to Jonathan Dickenson State Park, near Palm Beach.    Of course our history with reservations at Florida state parks, something will probably happen and we’ll have to cancel the reservation.   If by some miracle we get there tomorrow, we’ll stay there one night and then we’re off to the Keys on Tuesday.    We love the drive from Key Largo down to Sunshine Key.    It’s a beautiful drive along the Overseas Highway.

Can’t wait.

 

Good and Bad News

 

Wesley Chapel, Florida  (high 55, low 31)

 

The forecasted low for last night was supposed to get down to 32, but we never saw it lower than 42.  Maybe the prediction for tonight won’t materialize either.  

 

Al went back to the doctor for a follow up on his MRI.   It was just like I thought.  He had a subdural hematoma caused from the bump on the head last November.  There is a small amount of blood between his scull and brain, but the doctor felt it should be re-absorbed and cause no problem.   No surgery, no brain tumor.   Good news.

 

There is not so much good news on the motorhome though.  We did get an authorization from the extended warranty company, for the replacement of our rear a/c unit.    I was a little worried after Merikay mentioned that they have the same company and have been denied for two out of three claims.   Before this, we had only used  the warranty for two different items, and they paid for both with no issues.   We’re pleased with them so far.   We have it through  Allegiance, and purchased it through Go Rv Network, in case anybody is interested.  It cost a little over $5000, so it was pretty pricey.  At this point we have not gotten our money back, but of course we got some peace of mind.  We still have a few more months to go, so we may still get our money back. 

I can tell you from personal experience from the perspective of being a retired claim adjuster, and from one experience with our precious extended warranty company, read your contract.  If you have a problem that you think is covered, find our from the repairman exactly what the problem is, and what caused it.   If they deny your claim, understand exactly why.   On our old MH, the generator went out due to a broken internal bolt.    Our contract specifically excluded broken exterior bolts.    I went a few rounds with the adjuster, but I eventually won the battle and they paid the $1500 to repair our generator.  They finally agreed that the broken bolt was inside the generator compartment and was no where we could have seen.      If I hadn’t have read the contract, and known exactly where the problem was, the outcome would have been different.

 

Okay, back to current issues.

Problem number two with the motorhome is the toilet.  Thanks to all of you who chimed in on which toilet you have.   We’re waiting for Tim to see which toilet will fit and get the authorization for the new toilet.  

Problem number three started yesterday.   We have disconnected the water the past two nights due to the predicted freezing temperatures.   The first night, we noticed the water pump making noise.  It had always been  pretty quiet.   Last night, it kept humming even when we weren’t running any water.  It wasn’t cycling on and off like it had a leak, but just like it was continually running, but noisier than normal.   This morning, it isn’t running at all.    We think it died.  The water pump is only 2 1/2 years old, as it was another of the many things Lazy Days replaced for us after we bought the coach.   

The good thing about all three of these things happening at once, is because our deductible for the extended warranty is per occurrence, no matter how many items are repaired at the same time.    If we get three items fixed at the same time, we only have one deductible.  

The problem is that Tim, our repairman is extremely busy this time of the year and we are planning on leaving town Monday.    Doesn’t it figure?

 

This is just a part of living in an RV.   The water pump is really no big deal except when we are traveling.

These issues are a bit aggravating, but since we got good news about Al’s head injury, we aren’t going to complain about a few minor inconveniences.

 

Feel free to chime in on the water pump issues.  Any idea for quick fixes?

 

and my Keys picture of the day.

Business Sold & Al is Officially Retired (almost)

 

Wesley Chapel, Florida  (high 93, low 72)

 

The past few days, I had been freaking out worrying about the possibility of a hurricane coming to Florida.  Tropical Storm Chantal was predicted to head this way with the possibility of it making landfall on the east coast of Florida, and  cutting across the state and back out into the Gulf of Mexico.  There were some computer models that were showing the possibility a Cat 2 hurricane.   Yes, we are on the west coast of Florida, but I know from experience that it would have still been strong once it went over the short distance from east coast to west coast.  We saw that time and time again in 2004 and 2005.

Our plan has been if a storm is coming, to head north and get out of Florida even if it’s just a tropical storm. Since Florida is a peninsula, there is only one way to go to escape, and that’s north.   The weather forecasters are pretty good about predicting where a storm will go, but not good about predicting the intensity.  We don’t want to be in a motor home in a hurricane.

Since we don’t have PDD  or Eldy DD, if we’re going to leave the state, we need to head out early.

This week was the worst timing for a storm because Al has to be here to wrap up the process of selling his pest control business.

I was literally making myself sick worrying about the possibilities.   I never used to be such a weather worrier, but then again, I used to live in a nice solid concrete block house, instead of a motor home.

I was very relieved when the NHC (National Hurricane Center) reported the storm had died out. Of course there are some remnants from the storm that will bring us some rain, and there is a possibility she will re-strengthen.  I’m trying not to borrow trouble.

Sigh of relief…..

Of course, it’s still hurricane season until the end of November, so our plan is to leave Florida as soon as possible, and we’re working on that.

 

On Tuesday, we signed the paperwork for the sale of the business.  Al is no longer the owner of the business, but one of the terms of the contract was that he would go with the new technicians to transition the customers over to the new company.

That is turning out to be a bit of a mess.  What the owner told us would happen is not what is actually happening.  One of the guys riding with Al was so sloppy spraying chemical that Al refused to have him go with him again.  You know how Harley Davison owners are with their motorcycles?   This guy actually sprayed chemical on the motorcycle, and the owner saw him do it.

The new technician shows up with no business cards, so the customers don’t have any idea who to call if they should have a problem.    The reason we care, beside the fact that these are long time customers and Al has a good relationship with them, is because we didn’t get all of our money up front.  We get paid for the next year for the accounts they do. so it’s to our advantage for the customers stay with the new company.

In the meantime, we’re trying not to stress about it.  We’ve done about all we can do and what happens, will happen.

Between the hurricane and the sale of the business, we have consumed a lot of beer and wine this week!   :)

The good news, is that we are working through the transition and we may be able to head back to the beautiful Georgia mountains pretty soon.

I really need to see some waterfalls, mountain streams and trails.

 

 

By the way.  My suspicion that my washing machine was still leaking turned out to be correct.

Some comments said that was the reason they didn’t have a washing machine in their Rv.  That’s your choice, but in my opinion is that it’s well worth having.  I’ve done it both ways.  With and without a machine and I much prefer having an onboard machine. I hate having dirty clothes around.

Washing machines break in a house too, and you have to have them repaired or replaced.  Granted, they are a little easier to work on in a house, but they still can malfunction. I’ve done a ton of laundry in this little machine and it’s worked just fine.  It’s 11 years old, so I should probably just get a new one, but after putting the new water pump on, I don’t want to do that.

I washed several loads of clothes and no leak.  I had about decided the leak was gone, but decided to check once more, when I found a small leak.  He came right back out and found water inside the foil dryer vent!   He found a water line that was loose and wondered if that was where the water got inside the dryer vent.   I don’t know, but nothing else makes sense.  It hasn’t rained in a few days so I know it didn’t come from outside.   I plan to do a search on some Rv forums today and maybe even call Splendide (the manufacturer).  I have heard they have great customer service.

I called the Splendide hotline and spoke to a tech.  He thinks our cold water valve is bad and they don’t make them anymore.  We will either have to buy a new machine, or switch the hot and cold lines and use only cold water.  I think that is what we’ll do for now.

Blue Ox Base Plate Issues Resolved

 

Wesley Chapel, Florida (high 93, low 72)

 

Blue Box Base Plate

When we had the Blue Ox Base Plate re-installed back on our truck, we paid the $400+ bill, not really expecting to get our money refunded from the company that originally  did the installation.

The bracket that was attached to our Nissan truck was coming loose, which could have caused us to lose the truck while towing it behind the motor home.  Thank God that Al found the problem.   In case you missed it, you can read about it here.

After we had the bracket properly installed at Rv Medic here in Tampa, Al called Rentz Trailers to tell them of the  problem.  They told us to bring the truck and receipt and they would take a look.  It’s about a 45 minute trip over there and we had a lot of other things on our plate.  We really didn’t have the time for a wasted trip (like we thought it would be), but we drove over there first thing Monday morning.

We spoke to Joe, who is the owner.  He is the one we had problems with before.  We had some problems with bad work and when we complained, he was rude.  We were not looking forward to dealing with him again.

Rv Medic gave us a receipt detailing the problems they found, along with the bolts that had no sign of having any of the required RED Lock tight on them.

Joe took a few minutes to read the receipt.  We reminded him of the other problems we had  last year, and that there was a trainee working on our truck.  The trainer was supposed to have been checking the trainee’s work.  Obviously, he didn’t.

Joe looked kind of sheepish, apologized and without question, proceeded to write us a check for the entire mount of the repair at Rv Medic.  He kept the bolts so that he could show to the guy who was doing the training last year.  I suggested they go back in their records and see who else had base plates installed, as they should probably be notified.

Score one for the good guys!

We asked Joe if they could do an inspection on the driveshaft disconnect that they also installed. He said sure, but he couldn’t get to it right now.  They were short two mechanics and already had cars on the two lifts they had.

Now, if it had of been my business, I would probably have taken one of those other vehicles off the lift and checked ours out.  He said we could bring it back another day and they would schedule an appointment.  No thanks.

So….would we use them again.  Probably not.   Now that we have used Rv Medic, we trust them and like the way they do business.

 

Washing Machine Repair

Tim  of Stratton Rv Service  called Monday afternoon to say he could come to fix our leaking washing machine in about 20 minutes. We had to rush to get the kitties in their cages, and empty the closet so he would have room to work. 

He ran an empty wash cycle to see where the leak was coming from, and don’t you know it, the machine didn’t leak a drop!  We told him where we thought the leak was coming from and he found a loose hose. He tightened that, thinking that would solve the problem.  Of course even that little job was very difficult given the small working area you have.

After he left, I put some clothes in to wash and guess what?  Yep….it leaked.

Tim came back again Tuesday afternoon.  Again, the kitties had to go in their cages and I had to take everything out of the closet so that he could work.  You Rv people know how much stuff we have in our closets, don’t you?  Yikes!

This time we put some clothes in the machine and that seemed to do the trick and we again had a leak.  He decided to change out the water pump.   You have to be a contortionist to do that job.

He left without payment again, because he’s waiting for the extended warranty company to authorize how much they will pay.

I think it still might have a small leak though.  I saw some water last night.  I’m hoping it is some leftover water that didn’t all drain out, but I suspect we still have a problem.

I will probably be seeing Tim again today….and emptying the closet out again!

When Tim removed the washer, and disconnected the dryer vent. It was full of lint.  I try to stick my hand in the outside vent to clean out the lint, but I could never my hand in far enough.  I guess we will need to do a better job of cleaning the dryer vent because that could sure be a fire hazard.   Either we will purchase a little hose that I can attach to the vacuum that will fit inside the vent, or Al will have to disconnect the vent occasionally to clean it out. 

 

More on our other news later, as this blog is already too wordy.

Blue Ox Baseplate Install Issues

 

Wesley Chapel, Florida 

As I mentioned in a previous post, we had a problem with one of the base plates on the truck coming loose. We tow our Nissan truck behind the motor home.  Base plates are installed onto the front of the tow car to connect with the Blue Ox tow bar, which is attached to the motor home.  It’s critical everything is connected and mounted properly.

When we were getting ready to leave Georgia, Al noticed one of the brackets mounted on the truck appeared to be loose.  Upon checking, he found a problem with two of the three bolts on the drivers side.  One was broken off, and one one was stripped so that it couldn’t be tightened.

We had the original face plates put on last August, at a place nearby in Clearwater, called  Rentz Trailer Hitches.   We had some issues with them, but ended up getting everything resolved and we were happy.  You can read about that here.  There was some sloppy work to be dealt with.

One of the problems was the owner was rude to us when we wanted some problems resolved.  I don’t like spending thousands and getting rude treatment just because I want the job done right.  They had a new tech working there and he was making mistakes.   When Tony, the shop manager got involved things improved.

Anyway, we have been traveling all this time thinking everything was okay.  Al checked the brackets and tow bar occasionally and all appeared to be fine until last week.

When we got back to Florida, we called Rentz to tell them about our problem and make an appointment to bring the Nissan in to have the base plate fixed.  Al was told by the owners son, that they no longer took appointments and it was first come, first serve. That’s nice in theory, but what if the technicians haven’t finished their work from the day before?  You could arrive first thing in the morning and have to wait all day while they finish up.   We chose not to do that, because it’s a long drive over there with no guarantee that anyone would be able to look at your vehicle. They also didn’t seem to be too concerned about our problem.

We decided to go to Rv Medic here in Tampa to have the work done.  They are where we should have had the work done in the first place.  In order to get at these bolts, the entire front bumper cover had to be removed.  Vaughn, the mechanic showed us what the problem was after he got it all torn down.

Apparently,  these bolts were put on without using “RED Lock tight.” They became loose, which was what caused them to eventually break.  Vaughn said in the instructions from Blue Ox, clearly state that RED Lock tight must be used on these bolts.  

Vaughn showed us the bolts and there was NO lock tight used at all.  Apparently, it would still be visible on the bolts.

Vaughn wanted to check the bolts on the other side as well and he found a broken bolt there as well and one that would break when he tried to remove it.   No Lock Tight there either!

$400 later,  we left with the problems resolved. Vaughn was very thorough and we trusted his work.  Sure wish we had used him in the first place!

Vaughn saved the bolts for us and they wrote up exactly what they did and the problems that were  found.  It was his opinion that not using Lock Tight was the cause of the entire problem.

My guess is the new technician at Rentz never read the instructions for the Blue Ox faceplate install and no one ever checked his work.

We are going to contact Rentz on Monday, but from our past dealings with the owner, we aren’t expecting much.  We will try to deal with the shop foreman Tony if we can.  

We feel they should cover the entire cost to repair their error, but we’re not too optimistic.  Now that it’s over, I’m glad we didn’t bring it to them.  I have no confidence in their work at this point.

If we don’t get any satisfaction from them, we will be spreading this story out all over the RV world and internet.  We will also be making a call to Blue Ox, since they were on their website of recommended shops. 

We can cover the $400.  That’s not the most important thing. The main issue, is that our lives (and others) were put at risk because they didn’t read the manual.  (RTFM is one of my favorite sayings).

Our recommendation to everyone that tows a vehicle behind your motor home is to check all the brackets before each trip.   Check tow bar itself and then also check the face plate brackets. 

We’ll see what happens when we call Rentz on Monday, but in the meantime….just in case, any recommendations of where to spread our story?

Stay tuned to part two!

Fire in the Hole

 

Seffner, Florida

Yesterday morning, I was busy minding my own business, working on the computer and trying to plan the rest of my day.  The morning was slipping by and I needed to get out of my recliner and away from the internet.

I had clothes drying in the dryer.

All of a sudden, I heard a clicking noise which sounded similar to the sound the metal racks in the convection oven make when we’re traveling or the dryer is running.   I got up to investigate and couldn’t quite locate the source of the sound, but then it quit.  It was coming from the right front of the coach.

Shortly after that I got up to check my clothes in the dryer and noticed a burning smell.

Uh Oh!   That got my attention.   This smell was coming from the rear of the coach, near the dryer so I thought that was the problem.  I turned the dryer off, then went all over the coach on a sniff and touch tour.  Did this smell?  Is this hot?  One of the first things I checked was the outside refrigerator vent.  All seemed well there.

Then the next thing I noticed was the clicking noise had started up again.  Occasionally I noticed a very, very faint beep.

Did I mention Al was working and not at home?

I finally pinpointed the source of the clicking.  It was coming from the little box over the front door.  It’s connected to the inverter and gives us a readout of the battery volts. 

I went outside and checked the inverter to see if it was burning/hot/making an unusual noise.  It wasn’t.  I called Al and made sure he was going to worry right along with me.

In the meantime, the burning was still strong in the rear of the coach by the dryer.

The clicking noise continued and I pushed a few buttons.  Of course I didn’t know what I was pushing.

Al suggested I call the Lazy Days Service Center help line.  I spoke to Greg and tried to explain it all to him.  He had me flip the circuit breaker to the inverter and disconnect the remote control line (looks like a phone connection) on the outside inverter.

That stopped the clicking of course, but Greg said in about 4 hours I would not have enough batteries to run  the air conditioning.   It was pretty warm yesterday and our site had no trees, so that wasn’t going to work.

Greg recommended someone look at the coach because the inverter inside panel was now reading “equalizing”.   I don’t know why that happened. Was it the buttons I pushed?  What happened?  I normally don’t push buttons I don’t know about, but this time I did.  

I called a few mobile Rv techs and of course only got voice mail.

We decided to bring the coach to Lazy Days for an emergency appointment.  They are always very busy this time of the year, but they squeezed us in.  Thanks Lazy Days!

Of course we weren’t planning on traveling yesterday, so it was a hassle packing up in a hurry and getting to Lazy Days before they techs went home for the evening.

The tech restarted the inverter and it appeared to be running fine.  It was back to the normal “float charging” like normal, and not clicking.  We don’t know what that was all about.

Rob, the tech at Lazy Days,was really good at listening to what I told him and checking the most obvious sources for the burning smell.  By the time we got to Lazy Days, the smell had pretty much dissipated.  He was at a loss as to where the burning smell came from, but I insisted I smelled something burning, and I was not imagining it.  I was not going to rest until we figured it out.

Thankfully, we happened to notice one of the rear fluorescent lights was burned out.  Then I remembered it had been working that morning because I remembered noticing it flickering like they do when a bulb is ready to blow.   Rob pulled the cover, and noticed a wire had burned!

There was our burning smell.  I guess when it burned, it shorted the light out.   We were relieved we discovered the source of the smell.  He changed the fixture out.  That’s likely to be one expensive light fixture!  Rob says this is normal for these lights as they get older.  Normal to have a wire short out?   We have 7 of these lights throughout the coach and the others will be changed out before we use them again!

So……the clicking noise still hasn’t come back.  It’s hard to diagnose a problem, when you can’t find it.  Maybe it was a fluke.  I think I’ll go online and see if I can fine out if anyone else has had this problem.  Any ideas??

While we’re here, we decided to see if they could do some maintenance work we’ve been needing.  Fortunately, they could fit us in while we’re here.  We’re having the engine coolant changed, a lube job, wheel bearings repacked and the brakes checked.

We spent the night in one of the service bays last night.  For those  of  you that haven’t experienced the joy of of camping in a service bay at Camp Lazy Days, you don’t know what you’re missing!

The good thing about being here is that we have access to the campground and facilities.   We had dinner at their poolside restaurant and then enjoyed the wonderful hot tub!

Al left me alone here and is working on some pest control accounts, so I have to entertain myself in their large waiting room.  Fortunately, I have a comfy couch, and free internet. The kitties are in their cages.  I feel bad for them and of course I worry.

The joys of living in your Rv!

Tony Saved the Day

We got a call from Tony at Rentz Trailers, about 8:30 yesterday morning.  He had already been on the phone with Lazy Days and they gave him some good advice.  They said this coach has had some problems with water getting into a tail lamp bulb and it causes a lot of problems.  They told him to replace the entire switch and they felt certain that would fix the problem.

We packed up again and drove all the way back to Clearwater.

Again, we had pretty sunny skies and a nice trip over the water.

Once we arrived in Clearwater, Tony removed the socket and replaced it with a new one.  We were hopeful that was the solution.

It wasn’t.

By this time we were getting prepared for another long day.  Tony looked all over the coach and checked all bulbs and connections. He kept looking and trying different things.  He discovered we had power on the right side to the front mirror and marker light, but it stopped at the rear tail lamp.

After more looking and thinking, he finally discovered the bulb for the right mirror was shorted out and that had evidently caused all of our problems.  It’s working just fine now.

Yes, Tony is our Hero!

While Tony was looking around, I was snooping around under the engine, looking for any other issues.   Al always does this when he checks the oil before each trip, but this time I found a big problem.   The serpentine belt (which drives the engine) had a small little knick in it.  You wouldn’t see it unless the belt stopped exactly where it did.  I showed it to Tony and he said that belt would have blown very soon.    Thankfully, they would be able to change the belt.  We also had them change the a/c belt while they were at it. 

We decided to have them do an oil change while we were there.  It had been on our to do list, but living in your home make it difficult to get these things done….especially when you have critters!

So…..as it turned out, all the problems with our braking system and lights turned out to be one of those things that “happen for the best.”   Had we not been over there, we would probably not have seen the bad belt until we were stopped in the middle of  I-95 in rush hour traffic,  in the rain, running away from a hurricane. 

Okay….now that all is said and done.  Our opinion of Rentz Trailers.   I probably should wait a few days for it all to sink in, but I know if I do that, I’ll never get back to it.

I want to be fair in my assessment.  Yes, we had some problems.   Yes, some of them were their fault.  One of the major things and Tony said we should have had the coach over there.  He said Joe should never have told us they could do the work getting the truck set up for towing without having the motorhome to check all the connections.  That was their error.

We got  some bad attitude and rude treatment from the owner.  We certainly didn’t appreciate him trying to blame us for everything that happened, especially when they hadn’t even checked our truck.  They made their share of mistakes.

Yes, they connected the vacuum hose up wrong.  They should have caught it when they moved the truck.  I certainly realized the problem immediately.

Yes, the driveshaft disconnect disengaged on  its own after they said it was working fine.  As it turns out, Tony told  when we asked them to put the truck back on the lift so that we could see it, they should have never lifted it the way they did.  It needs to be on a whole vehicle lift otherwise the cable that moves the connection gets stretched.  Tony was upset they did that.  He personally re-checked everything and re-adjusted the cable.  That was their fault. They are the experts.

Yes, they cut the electrical wiring on the old truck.  Tony said the guy thought we didn’t want to use that vehicle to tow any more.   If that’s so, why did we leave the tow bracket on.  That was definitely their error.  Tony said he will fix the wiring for us, all we need to do is call him and schedule a time.

The problem with the Air Force One is a little tricky.  It was working fine before they took it off.  Did it get dropped or mishandled, or was it just a fluke.  We’ll never know.

The lights not working were definitely due to some electrical issues in the motorhome.  This is a 2003 model motorhome with lots of time for dampness and weather to corrode circuits.   They would have caught these things if they would have had access to the motorhome.  We took Joe (the owner)  at his word that they didn’t need the motorhome.

So, would we recommend this shop again?    In our opinion Tony should be running the entire place.  He has more customer service skills than the owner, or at least more than  Joe showed to us. 

Tony went above and beyond the call of .  He only charged us 2 hours labor for at least 4-5 hours of labor.  Of course some of that electrical diagnostics should have been built into the price we paid.  The two hours included  the labor for the oil change and the two belt changes.

The problem here is Tony is not really a mechanic anymore.  He is the shop foreman.  He is the one they go to for questions and he keeps the shop running.  He appears to be a good mechanic and we trust him implicitly.  Unfortunately, he normally isn’t the one doing the work.   The other one working on the coach was Benny.  He appeared to be pretty careful, but he didn’t have the same knowledge or skills as Tony.  I was happy that Tony changed the belts and checked the oil after it was done.  If Tony would do the work or at least check up on the work done, I’d be a lot more comfortable.     All in all, it’s probably no worse than most shops and most of the problems we had were due to the motorhome.  The thing that was wrong with the tail lights was only occurring when we had the headlamps on.  We rarely use the headlamps and this could have been going on for a while.

So, the afternoon thunderstorms were starting.  It was starting to thunder and lightning as we were hooking up.  We had to hook up the truck to the motorhome for the first time with our new Blue Ox hitch, and our new driveshaft disconnect….all in the rain!

We felt pretty comfortable by this time that everything was working as it should.

We headed back over the bridge and again this is what it looked like.  Look familiar?

This time we left about 2:30 so at least we weren’t in rush hour traffic.  Of course with light traffic the idiots could go as fast as they wanted.

Here is a result of that.  Idiot number one.

Idiot number two.

I neglected to take a picture of idiot number three, but there was one. 

It used to amaze me in my days as a claim adjuster.  People would call to report an accident.  They would tell me it was raining like crazy and they hydroplaned.  “how fast were you driving”  Oh, I was doing the speed limit.   “what was the speed limit?”  70.   “oh, so you didn’t slow down even though you said it was raining like crazy?”   Idiots.

grrrrr…

We got home, pulled into a pull through site, extended the slides and felt right at home again.

Now, on to the next problem…..

Have you see the hurricane forecast?   Yep, we are in the “cone of uncertainty.”  That means soon to be Hurricane Isaac could come right up the center of Florida.

We are definitely not going to the east coast as we had hoped.  No sense trying to do any snorkeling over there.  The seas will be high no matter which way the hurricane heads.

So, where do we go?   If we head straight north into Georgia, the storm could go into the gulf and make landfall in the Florida panhandle, and we’d be in the line of fire.   The worst place to be in a hurricane is on the right side of the center.   Many times, these storms make landfall and then take a sharp right and head towards north and south Carolina and then right up the coast.  We’re trying to determine our best course of action.  We do not want to be in here, that’s for sure.  Right now, the storm is expected to make a slight jog.  When it does,  that will determine it’s future path.  If it’s sooner it will head one way, later it will effect a completely different area.   What to do….what to do?

Maybe we’ll join Eldy and Jeanne in Maine!

In the meantime, we’re trying to get things wrapped up around here.

We bought a 4 inch drop receiver for the motorhome.  As you can see in the picture below, it looks perfectly straight.

The problem is that it’s a bit too low and when the motorhome hits a bump, the hitch gets very close (or drags) the ground a little bit.  We need to raise it, but not too much.   Another little issue to work out.

Drip, Drip, Drip

Wesley Chapel, Florida  (high 91, low 74)

We’ve been getting lots of rain this past week.  Fortunately, for us we haven’t had any severe weather or strong winds. 

Between all the rain, we’ve been dealing with a water leak from the front a/c unit.

The front A/C unit started to drip water inside the coach, both when it was raining, and when it wasn’t.    That led us to the conclusion that we had a two issues going on.

Before we left Lazy Days last year when we bought the coach, we had the same issue.  Mike, our technician removed both a/c units and replaced the gaskets. 

Apparently, due to the design of our units, we have two stacking gaskets on each unit.  This is unusual.

There is some duct work visible from the inside that directs the cool air into the vents.   It’s a rectangular silver box that covers up about half the “innards” on the a/c unit.  It makes it very difficult to see what is going on inside the unit, and it also covers 2 of the 4 bolts that are used to tighten the gaskets.

Al managed to tighten the front two bolts, but we couldn’t figure out how to get to the rear ones without removing that silver box.   After he snugged the front bolts, we seemed to be getting more water than we had before.

The picture below is one of the front bolts.  Easy to find and easy to access.

This next picture is where the rear bolts are.  A little difficult to get to, huh?

You are not supposed to over tighten them, and  make sure the gasket is at least 1/2 inch thick so that it does it’s job.  The problem with our unit, is that having two gaskets, you couldn’t tell how thick it was after tightening, and the silver box blocked our view of most of the gaskets.

After tightening the gasket, we were hoping the problem was solved, but then we started having a condensation problem.  A big condensation problem!    Drip, drip, drip.

We have been reading Rv-Net Forum for guidance and most said if you have a condensation leak, it is because:  

1.  clogged drainage tubes.

2.  cracked pan

We have had to try to live with just running the rear a/c unit.  It works well, but just couldn’t keep up with the heat and humidity of Florida.

We’ve been working on this issue for days, trying everything we could think of to do.   Drip, drip, drip.

We finally decided we needed professional help.

We called a highly recommended mobile rv tech Friday afternoon.   He told Al they were closed for the week-end and to call Monday morning.

Monday morning we called, got his voice mail, left a message,  and are still waiting for a call back.

Al did some checking and got the name of another local guy who does nothing but rv air conditioning.  They rebuild units.  Al called and spoke to Greg Bedard.  Al got a good vibe from him, so we asked him to come out. The service call was going to be $75.

Greg came out, listened carefully to the things we had tried, what worked, and what didn’t work.  He got up on the roof to check everything out.  He thought everything looked good. 

He ended up tightening the gaskets a little more, and then totally re-taping up the little silver box.

The cold air comes from unit down to this little silver box.  Then it’s diverted into the vents of the motorhome.   If any of that cold air leaks out, it can cause condensation outside the box which has no where else to go but down and onto the living room floor.

In our uneducated attempts of solving the leaking problem, we damaged the seal on the silver box and probably made the situation worse.

Greg was here a couple hours.  He worked hard, but we also did quite a bit of gabbing.     I was wondering if we were going to be charged his hourly rate for all the gabbing.

I prepared myself for a bill of a few hundred dollars and was pleasantly surprised when he only charged us $75!

Yea…..

So…..the a/c unit ran all night.  It was plenty cool and so far, no leaks!!!!    It rained pretty hard overnight too and we should have had plenty of humidity.

Fingers crossed, we have solved the issue.

We can recommend this company. 

DICK BURGSTROM A.C.  (813-783-7823)

Greg Bedard was our tech. (813-363-8377)

They do nothing but Rv,  a/c work.  If you need a new unit, they can get you a new one, or install one of their rebuilt units.  I think I would trust their rebuilds.

So…..that’s what we’ve been up to.  So far, so good, but the heat of the day will let us know if our problems are fixed or not.

At least we haven’t been dealing with the issues Sherry and David have, or Howard and Linda who need a new engine on their diesel truck, to the tune of $18,500!