I guess since I was complaining so much about the weather, we got a reprieve. It has been glorious this last week or so, highs in the high 70's and windows open sleeping at night. Who knows, maybe the squeaky wheel does get some oil:-)
The KISS principle, maybe you are familiar with it already, it simply means when something goes wrong, always "Keep It Simple Stupid", and it is actually something we try to do, although sometimes it takes a great effort when my brain starts jumping to all sorts of conclusions. We had a real case in point with this over the last week or so.
We have a M&G braking system on our truck when we tow. It is an excellent product, it gives proportional braking to the truck when we are braking in the motorhome, it has a breakaway feature that should the truck become unhooked from the motorhome, a cord pulls a plug/switch which then applies strong braking to stop the truck as a final safety factor, and it has a alert light that is mounted by the driver's seat to tell me when the truck brakes are being applied. It is easy to hook up, an air line, normal electrical cord, and the cable for the breakaway, and it is totally seamless and invisible when just driving the truck. So to start this story, several times this last year, when we would be idling out of a campground, when checking the alert light, it wasn't working. I would stop and the 5 amp fuse on that line in the truck was blown, I'd replace the fuse and all would be good for weeks or maybe months, and then it would repeat. The switch that controls the light lives out in the open in the front of the engine compartment of the truck, so I just figured with the rain, dust, dirt, etc, it would short and blow the fuse periodically. Well, on our last leg down here to Florida from Atlanta, the alert light didn't work, I checked the fuse, it was fine, so we made sure that the braking system was still working and it was so we pressed on back to Florida. I called M&G and they immediately said they'd send a new switch, for free, as if this was a common issue. All right, when the switch arrived we replaced it.
 |
| The air actuated switch in question |
When the campsite behind us opened up, I figured it would be a good idea to make sure the alert light was working, so I pulled the truck up behind the coach, hooked up the electrical and air lines, started the coach, got the air up and pressed on the brakes, and..................no light! Check the fuse and it's fine! So that got my mind working, unfortunately:-)
I pulled up what info I had on the alert portion of the system, thought a lot about the best way to troubleshoot, or would we have to alter our plans slightly and stop in Athens, TX, home of M&G to have it fixed. I let it fester for a day or so, and after a toss and turn night, the method for testing it came to me. First I had to ascertain there was power to the switch, so the diesel mechanic crawled under with one end of my meter and I grounded my end while she found power to one side of the switch, step one, good. Then I switched the meter to continuity and while she held one probe on the dead side of the switch, I searched for the pin in the plug on the front of the truck that sends the signal forward into the motorhome. Again all good, and I mark the pin. So at this point, all is good in the truck, except we haven't proven the new switch is good, but we assume it is. Then I mark the associated receptacle on the 7 wire cord that goes from the truck to the coach and mark the same connection, plug the cord into the coach, and send 12 volts to that pin so the light will light, making sure all the connections and the wire we ran from the rear of the coach to the light is good, and............no light! Now what?
 |
| The indicator light by the driver |
So I decide to pull out the panel by the driver seat and make sure all the connections are good. A pain by the way, and they are all good, hmmmmm. So now I am going to check for continuity from the rear of the coach to the light, and find it is good?!?! Weird. This is an LED light, it couldn't be bad, could it? We try holding the leads for it across a D cell battery and get no where, so I take it out and jump it across a real battery, and.........no light. Oh man, the light is burnt out, and we have done all the rest of this???????? So after getting a new light, that turned out to be a blinking light, couldn't stand that, and then getting a new non blinking light, we reinstalled the light, buttoned up the panel, and when the site became empty again, well you get the idea, and yeah, the light works now. This folks is exactly how NOT to follow the KISS principle:-)
So now that we have definitely cancelled our Maine plans, we thought we would bring Maine to us. There is a lobster place here in Sarasota that flies in fresh Maine lobsters all year long, so we decided to get a few chickens steamed up, pick them and make our own lobster rolls, and in fact they were so good, we added another one to them and had them two nights in a row! Absolutely delicious, although we would have preferred to go to Maine.
 |
| Lots of Lobster! |
 |
| Soft, toasted buttered buns |
 |
| No stingy rolls here |
 |
| DELICIOUS! |
We have almost all our projects done now. Next week we go and get our awning fabric replaced a couple hours north of us, and then one more week after that and we are on our way.
No comments:
Post a Comment