Yippee, Hooray, Hallelujah, Tada.....!!!!!!

Jason came this morning as promised and after fighting with it for a bit got the relief valve out and the new valve in.  And best of all, IT WORKS LIKE A CHAMP!!

NOT GOOD

Jason came over as promised, crawled under the motorhome to change the relief valve, accidentally stripped it with the wrench when it wouldn't budge, switched to vise-grips, and couldn't get the valve out!  Soooo.  We are stuck until we get it fixed.
Jason is coming back Sunday morning to as he says, Get the valve out!  We sure hope so.  It is especially difficult as the access to it is horrible.  He is contorted up under the rear axle reaching up to the tank which is mounted against the floor way above him, dodging around air lines and wires, so it is a challenge.  Here's hoping we, I mean, he is successful.

Busy days

We remarked to each other when we got here that the month would fly by and before we knew it we would be leaving.  Well, here we are with just a few days left.  We have been having breakfasts, lunches, and dinners with family and friends before we say good-bye.  Had a nice visit with Ann and Dick, which we found out are not going to be in Pagosa Springs this year as they usually are.  We're pretty disappointed.  But lives and situations change.
We had a special, superb dinner of Paella with Ray and April and Jason and Jessica.  Ray and I made the paella and Jan made dessert while April made the sangria.  A good time was had by all.
We've been putting off washing the motorhome for one reason or another so yesterday was the day.  We rented a pressure washer so we could finally get the roof clean.  We had been parked under pine trees for quite awhile in Atlanta, and they did a number on the roof.  Absolutely black from the mildew!  I mentioned earlier that Jan and I had spent hours on the roof on our hands and knees trying to clean it with only limited results.  The pressure washer did the trick.  Nice and clean now.  Then we continued to wash the coach and waxed the front end in preparation for the love bugs.  Yeah they are coming out now.  For any of you who haven't experienced the delights of these bugs on their vehicle, they stick like glue and are a royal pain to clean off.  I swear they actually turn to glue when they hit your car!
Then last evening we took my mom over to the jetty for an hour or so just to watch the boats, birds, dolphins, and the water.  A gorgeous evening.  Then had a simple dinner with her that we enjoyed very much.  So Jan is off to play Mahjong and I'm off to run a few errands.  Retirement is okay!  Whoops, not official yet ;-)

Finally! But always something

Well, the good news is the air leveling compressor works as it should, finally!  After a couple days, we heard the compressor run, and only run for about a minute, exactly as it is supposed to do.  So at long last it appears that item is fixed.
Now on to the relief valve.  I know these things happen to everyone now and then but it seems that almost anytime you try to get a part from a brick and mortar store for an RV, it is a hassle.  First let me show you what we are talking about.

This what the relief valve looks like.  And in the next photo if you look near the top and on the right side of the tank you will see where it lives.

As I said I had called Lazy Days in Tampa on Sat and they said they had the part.  I drove up first thing Monday morning, went into parts, refreshed their memory, paid for the part, $85!, then went over to another parts department to pick it up, and the part's guy hands me a tiny little check valve?  A duplicate of a couple check valves that I have that cost me $6 each, not $85.  I said, no, no, it's supposed to be a relief valve.  He said the part number you paid for is a check valve.  Damn.  He said go back over to the parts lady and get your money back.  Then he asked specifically what I was looking for, he looked in his computer, said they didn't have one, but did some more checking and called the manufacturer of the air system and found I could probably get a generic relief valve much, much cheaper than if they ordered me an official one.  Cool.  Back over I go, get my money back, she hands me another valve she says is the one I need, charges me $35 for it and off I go.  I go back to the second parts guy, about a mile away and show him and he says I could use it in a pinch, but it needs to rated for 150 pounds where the one she gave me is good for 125 pounds.  Either way they don't have one.  Now what, oh yeah, it's a 65 mile drive up here from the campground.
I call Freightliner, a truck place, they don't have one.  I call another big truck parts supply warehouse, they have to check and call me back, so I go across the street to a TA truck stop, and although they don't have one they are real helpful, and call the same big truck supply warehouse I called and find out they have seven of them in stock.  So off I go the several miles over there.  It's a huge place, but friendly and I get my valve for $6!  Yippee.  I should have gone back to get a refund of my $35 for the overpriced wrong valve, but I don't feel like driving all the way back there, so I drive the 65 miles back to the campground.  On the way back I get 2 phone calls, one from the same warehouse where I bought the part to confirm, yes they do have ONE in stock; and then I get a return call from the service center where we have had our coach worked on before, which I had called on Sat, to confirm they had the correct valve.  I told them I had already found and bought it, she asked me where I had gotten it, and when I told her she said super, that's where we would have gotten it!
A long story, but it feels good to get it out to relieve a bit of frustration.  We will go back to Lazy Days on our way north to get our $35 back.
So, one more time under the coach and we should be FINALLY good to go.

Maybe we are really jinxed?

Jason came as promised and used a flashlight to find out he had been trying to undo the pressure switch at the wrong spot.  Got that straightened out and immediately got it off after releasing some air from air tank by pulling on the relief valve.  The old pressure switch was found to be corroded and bad, as we suspected.  New switch in, and good to go.
Not so fast.  Got it started and leveled, shut off the engine and all we hear is air pissing out, from the tank as it turned out, right out the relief valve that Jason used to release the pressure.  So under he goes again, wiggles the valve and voila!  Success.  Not so fast, turns out the relief valve when it releases pressure automatically won't reseal itself like it is supposed to.  Needs a wiggle or it keeps pissing air.
NO GOOD!  When the engine is running and we are going down the road this valve releases air about every 5 minutes or so.  So it has to be fixed.  Found one in Tampa at Lazy Days, so monday morning I will run up there and get it, and then Jason, one more time, is going to crawl under and replace the relief valve, and then FINALLY we will be fixed!  Tada....

A great time was had by all!

Last night we went out with friends, Dick and Ann; and Jack and Betty to Pop's, a bar/restaurant right on the intercoastal waterway in Nokomis.  We had good drinks, good food, good company, and were serenaded by a very good local band, RPM.  It was pretty out of character for us, but it was a super time making us realize we need to do more of this in the future.  The place was packed with lots of people having a good time, partying and dancing.  No I didn't go so far as to dance!  You know me, so no way :)
We came back to Jack and Betty's campfire and visited with a few other people who dropped in during the evening.  The park is getting pretty quiet now, most folks have headed north and home by now.  Another large group will leave when we do on May 1st.  The season is winding down.
This morning Jason is coming back down to see if he can finally address this leveling compressor issue.  He said he is going to get the pressure switch replaced one way or another!  We'll see, hopefully, I'll report positive results.
I mentioned a potential coolant leak on our engine that we were going to get checked out on our way out of dodge.  Well, yesterday I put in only about 12 ozs of coolant to bring the level up to where it is supposed to be.  The last time we put coolant in was 3500 miles ago, this is in a coolant system that holds about 10 gallons.  I tightened up all the coolant clamps that I could find, so we decided to monitor the level very carefully before we have it checked since the usage is so small.
Big weather is supposed to be coming in later today, tonight, and tomorrow.  Don't want to complain since Florida needs the rain so desperately.  Just as long as there are no tornados!

Still no air!

We got the parts I ordered for the leveling compressor, the pressure switches, the check valves, and a couple fittings.  So Jan and I decided to replace the pressure switch because we believe that has to be the problem.  Well, Jan couldn't get the present switch off.  It is connected to the airline with a push-to-connect fitting.  It is designed to just push the air line into the fitting and it locks, and it is supposed to be easily released by pushing on a ring that goes around the air line.  So after Jan was unable to get it to release, I went under to see if I could get it off.  I'll tell you, it's pretty tight under there!  And I have unexplainably become more and more claustrophobic over the years, and well, I couldn't get it off either in the short amount of time I could stay under there!
So Jason to the rescue, except he couldn't get it to release either, and since we were getting late for our special Lobster dinner, we had to leave it.  Jason is going to come back Saturday morning and try again.
I was going to wash the coach today, and maybe wax it, but the weather folks are already warning all of Florida for severe weather, and tons of rain over the weekend so I decided there was no reason to absolutely guarantee that weather developing, so I'll wait until next week.

Recession?

As you know, I have mentioned a couple times in our travels about the appearances of the present recession, and how many of the observances don't indicate any slow down in business.  We just read in the paper yesterday that here in Florida, specifically Southwest Florida has had its best and busiest winter season EVER!  It is apparent to us as we travel around how crowded the roads are, how busy the restaurants are, and the beaches, and the sidewalks, and of course the businesses.  Can't figure it out.  Things are supposed to be grim out here.
Our campground here in Nokomis is already completely booked for next winter's season, as in every site is reserved!
We had an easy day yesterday, just relaxed, after our walks in the morning, went to a park in south Venice, and got a consensus of opinion from a panel of judges there that our observations were correct :)

And the spokesman from the group heralded the news to all who could hear!

I know, looks like I've lost it!
We got another job done on the motorhome.  We have Carefree awnings over our slide outs on the coach.  They are metal covered and have a removable panel to facilitate cleaning.  When Carefree manufactured the awning they used a pushpin arrangement with a spring that with a small pin you could press in to release the cover.  When we replaced the awning fabric last year we noticed that several of the springs were very corroded and a couple were barely there.  They are what holds on the cover.  The cover is a piece of aluminum the goes the entire length of the slide, so if they break, it would be a large piece of metal flying off the side of the coach!  We needed to get this fixed.  Well, Carefree realized the spring arrangement wasn't such a good idea, and stopped equipping their awnings with them in 2007, ours was one of the last ones.  The answer for us was to buy all new end caps that fasten the covers on with capscrews instead of springs.  It makes it a little more time consuming to clean, but so worth it in safety and security of the covers.  So again, after renting 2 10' stepladders from Home Depot, Jason came over and he and I replaced all the end caps on our 4 slide out awnings.  It was one of those projects that cost quite a bit, took about 2 hours to do, and nothing except piece of mind was realized!

Are we jinxed?

I told you how Jason crawled under and installed the new leveling system air compressor.  Well, we waited and waited for it to run, sometimes it takes a few days.  Instead we got a message on our leveling control panel that we were out of level!  The leveling system checks level periodically, then adjusts, and if it needs air, which it obviously did, is supposed to start the compressor with a pressure switch.  Didn't work.  So then I wonder if the brand new compressor doesn't work??  Jason and Jessica came over for dinner and I had Jason wiggle under and put power directly to the pump, and, boom, it works great.
So I got on the computer and ordered 2 new pressure switches, 2 new check valves, and a couple of fittings.  Will then install a new pressure switch and see where we are.  Running out of things to replace!
Took a nice ride down to Naples a day ago to have a nice visit and lunch with Joyce.  And to see her new place, very nice by the way.  Drove through a bit of smoke.  Florida is a tinderbox right now.  They are having a very severe drought.  They need rain desperately, but I have to admit the weather has been fantastic, sunny, warm, but not too warm, nice breezes, and very acceptable humidity.  I know, I should wish for rain, but.....

Owls, hitchhiker, and Mount Vesuvius

We went down to the courthouse in Venice to transfer the tags over to the new Jeep.  When we got out of the car, we noticed people looking up in the trees behind the parking lot.  We checked it out and it seems a Great Horned Owl and it's mate started a family in a nest way up high on an antenna over the building.  The babies were still in the nest, but dad was up in a tree watching over things.

We had never seen a Great Horned owl before.  Hard to tell, but this guy is about 2 feet tall!  Huge!  He looks quite regal and a bit terrifying as well, especially if you were a mouse trying to make a run for it across the parking lot.  He turned his head back and forth surveying his territory.

We watched for awhile, than headed in to pay the state of Florida vast quantities of sales tax and to become legal with our plate.
Jan came back and was going to take a bike ride, but had to deal with the little guy who was hitching a ride.

We have a device called a Sani-Con for our waste system.  It is a macerator pump that takes the waste from the tanks and pumps it through a small 1" hose into the campgrounds sewer.  This accessory came with our motorhome, an option as compared to the normal system which is gravity flow through a 3" hose.  A completely fool=proof system by the way.  What's nice about the Sani-Con is it is completely sanitary, waste, both black (from the toilet), and gray (from the sinks and shower) are chewed up and pumped under quite a bit of pressure, even uphill to wherever you want to dump.  Well, it was dump day today, so I opened the black tank, turned on the pump, and started the process of dumping the black waste into the campground's sewer.  It takes awhile so I decided to check the oil in the engine in the meantime.  While I was doing that, I thought I caught a whiff of something not so sweet.  Unusual.  So I go back to the hookup side of the coach, and there through a very small leak in the side of the hose is spraying not good stuff about 8 feet through the AIR!  Right toward my neighbor's motorhome!  Thankfully, he wasn't home to witness this exciting event.
Luckily, we have a back up hose, so after donning my hazmat suit, got things cleaned up, bleach poured all over the offending area, ran water everywhere to dilute it, replaced the hose, dumped the tanks, and even ordered a new hose.
Good times.

A productive day

Jason came over and essentially replaced the air compressor himself.  A couple times he and Jan were under there together.  He fit where I couldn't fit and Jan fit where he couldn't fit.  Anyway, it's all replaced.  It came with a new check valve as well.  Now we just have to wait and see.  It normally takes a day or two before the leveling system needs any air....and it hasn't happened yet.
Also we replaced the accumulator tank, a bit tight, but an easy switch.  And now we seem to have more water pressure.  Don't know how that could be, but we'll take it.
Had a nice evening last night around the "campfire" at friends in the park.  Jack and Betty host a fire almost every night, and last night was our first visit, so now we are members of the Deadbeat Senior Citizens club also:)  They have had 121 different people join the fire this season!
It's a beautiful Easter morning, cool, sunny, and peaceful!
Enjoy your Easter.

Jan's back early!

I got looking for a non-stop from Pittsburgh, and found out AirTran had one that left at 5:30pm which worked out perfectly, so I picked her up in Tampa last night.    The leveling system automatically checks for level periodically, adjusts if necessary, then the air compressor runs if more air is needed.  So the motorhome is listing a little bit since the air compressor is disabled.  Today is going to be project day.  Hopefully we can also enlist the help of our son, Jason to help with replacing the compressor, and then we get to see if that is truly the problem :)  Also while they work on the compressor I hope to tackle the accumulator tank.  Sounds like a lot wrong all the time with a motorhome, but you have to remember it is a house bouncing along down the road, and it seems to happen in groups.  You go along with no troubles, then all of a sudden, you have 3 things to do.
Once we get these projects done it only leaves a few others; wash and hand wax the coach, check and clean up the battery cables and connections, replace the end caps on the slide topper awnings, and that should do it until we have the batteries completely evaluated later this spring.
I've had a fairly busy week, walking each day, visiting with friends here in the campground, had a very nice visit and dinner with Dick and Ann, very good full-timing friends, visiting with my mother, a nice dinner with Jason and Jessica, they even brought and cooked the food!  And looking forward to Easter dinner with Ray and April, Mom, and Jan and I.
Happy Easter everyone!

"Diesel Mechanic"

It dawned on me after I made the last post that a lot of you aren't familiar with my reference to Jan as the diesel mechanic.  It goes back to the motorhome we had before our Navigator, a 2000 Safari Continental, or the motorhome from hell.  Unfortunately we ignored a few subtle hints when we bought it and ended up with tons and tons of trouble.  For the first couple years until Monaco finally fixed it once and for all, each time we took it out we would have at least 5 things go wrong each day!  Well, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but not much.  We had an intermittent air leaks on several fittings way, way under the coach, no way I could get in there so Jan would shimmy in, pull the offensive line out and reinsert it and off we'd go.  Now that isn't to imply that was the only problem that she took care of underneath the coach, oh no.
I'll give you an example of one of our mornings.  We traveled for many years with Jan's parents, Vern and Viv, and very good friends, Ray and April.  We were on our way west and had stopped in Medora, ND so we could visit Teddy Roosevelt National Park.  We were all getting ready to go when the 5th wheel next to us started to pull out.  Well, catastrophe struck, the mount on the 5th broke off, and the 5th fell right down on the pickup truck smashing the 5th and the truck and scaring all of us, most of all the 5th people.  We ran over to help, but of course there was nothing we could do.  No way to lift it up without some heavy equipment.  So Vern, Ray, and I all fire up, and as our coach builds up its air suspension we roll more and more to one side as if we are going to roll over!  Now Vern and Ray have no idea so they pull out of their sites and start to hook up their toads.  Meanwhile Jan and I are wondering if we are going to roll all the way over.  So the intrepid diesel mechanic slides underneath finds the loose air connection and reinserts it and we roll level and off we go, only to see Ray and April come running out of their motorhome to release the parking brake they had left on when hooking up.  We could always be sure there were many surprises and events when we all traveled together.  Sure do miss those times now!  And off the fearless threesome went.

Ice!

I've got ice in the freezer!  Murphy's law, of course, when the freezer manufacturer asked me if I was handy with a screwdriver cause that's all it would take to replace the cooling unit, I said yes.  Well 3 hours later I finished replacing the cooling unit.  It was an all in one piece, compressor, flexible copper lines, and the cooling fins for the box.  Very unwieldy with very flexible lines.  Anyway, it's done and working great.
After scoping out the accumulator, I plan to wait for the "diesel mechanic" (Jan) to get back from PA as she is much smaller (yeah, I know) and more flexible to get into a very difficult area.  Also last night at 3am, the air compressor that I have mentioned before that is supposed to run when the air leveling computer tells it too, that we thought we had fixed, decided to run off and on constantly for 25 minutes!  I had to get up and pull out the fuse to get it to stop.  Another project to replace the compressor itself, the only other thing we haven't done to solve the problem.  Also in a place that's small and tight.  I wish the designers and engineers that design these systems would have to work on them once in a while!
Weather's been fabulous.  Visited with my Mom, she's doing pretty good I'm happy to say.  Had a nice dinner with April and Ray, will be nice to be nearby for a month.

Been a few days

Well, internet problems abound!  We left Lazy Days and headed down to Royal Coachman/Encore park in Nokomis, FL.  We were early for our reservation so we had to boondock before we could move onto our reserved site.  As I mentioned, we are welcoming this as we plan to do a lot more in the future.  We had a lot of issues with Tengo Internet, the provider at this park as well, so we had no internet at all for several days.  We have been playing with the AGS (Automatic Generator Start) to see how it works.  We are a bit stymied though.  It seems to be starting the gen for no reason.  You can set the generator to start based on interior temperature or battery voltage.  The idea is if the coach gets hot, the gen will start to allow the AC to run and cool things off, and if the batteries run down, it will start the gen to recharge the batteries.  We can monitor the voltage, so we know where the batteries are when the gen starts up.  We thought we had everything set correctly, so we're sitting there reading with the batteries reading 12.5 volts, we had it set to start if the batteries got down to 12 volts, and boom the genny starts up.  Turned out, we think, that the temp parameter which we thought we had turned off kicked on the gen.  Made some adjustments, and we think it is operating correctly.  Now though, it appears we may need new house batteries.  We bought our coach used, it was owned about 6 months, and sat for about 6 months, so unfortunately we don't know how it was treated during that time.  We had to replace the chassis or starting batteries already, they were weak and mis-sized anyway.  We have AGM batteries, Absorbed Glass Mat, they have a lot of advantages over regular wet cell batteries, no maintenance, more recharging cycles, quicker recharge, don't leak or gas, etc, BUT, they are expensive!  We have 4 huge house batteries that are now about 5-6 years old, and may need to be replaced.  We just are not getting the time out of them we expect with the amount of current we are drawing.  I think we will plan to stop by a Lifeline Battery dealer in Texas this spring after we leave our daughter's, and have them do a load test and see where we are.  Hopefully they are good, but we'll see.
I have some other maintenance issues this week to take care of.  Jan's away, so I'm batching it.  She and her two sisters are taking their mom on a visit to relatives in PA.
As I mentioned our freezer died, so I will be fixing that by installing a new cooling unit.  Our accumulator tank for our water system needs to be replaced, so that's on my agenda as well.  We noticed while boon docking our water pump would run the moment we turned on the water.  The accumulator's function is to smooth out the flow so the pump builds up pressure in the tank, then when the pressure goes down the pump starts, just like your well pump and house system work if you have a well.  At first I thought the tank had lost it's precharge, but when I tried to check it water came out the air valve.  It is a bladder tank, so no water should ever get to the air valve.  So I'll get that replaced as well.
I also want to wash and hand wax the coach.  We have never ever hand waxed the motorhome before, always paid to have it washed and waxed and buffed out.  But now with retirement, I'm telling myself I need to get a really good coat of wax on it.  The people that had done it before did a nice job, but the liquid spray-on wax never lasted too long.  We will be sitting here for a month so a lot to do!  Good!