On the move again, with just a bit of trouble?

Once we accomplished our goal of getting the hydraulic pump fixed, we had several other things we wanted to do.  We spend so much time in southwestern Colorado, specifically Durango we wanted to really explore the front range and see how it compares.  Now with our unexpected change of plans we knew we didn't have nearly the time we had originally scheduled, but we still wanted to give it a go after the coach got fixed.

Colorado Springs is a big city, but it does have a smaller town feel.  You can certainly get anything you want there, transportation, medical facilities, grocery stores, lots of outdoor activities, friendly people, at least the ones we talked to, a winter season absolutely, but interspersed with sunny, fairly warm days all winter long.  There is a town we wanted to take a look at, just to the west about 30 minutes, Woodland Park, which is a stepping off point for another area we are very interested in, the South Platte River, one of the absolute star fly fishing areas in this part of Colorado.  Our travels had never taken us to this stretch of water although we had quickly driven through Woodland Park several times previously without really looking.  One thing that jumps out at you is the incredible view of Pikes Peak.

It's a small town, 7500, but it is vibrant and alive, lots of shops with a real downtown, several grocery stores, 2 fly shops, and of course we found a good restaurant there.  Yeah food pics.  We saw they had an Asian place that served sushi that had good ratings and even though we were a bit skeptical we gave it a go, Japan Fusion.  And we were very pleased with delicious, fresh food, good service, and a nice feel.

Delicious pot stickers

Great fresh sushi

Awesome ramen soup!

Then we headed north to Deckers, a small dot on the map which is the epicenter of fly fishing on the South Platte.  It's an easy scenic 20 miles to the north of town.  And wow, we saw why the river gets so much good press, it is small enough to wade, large enough to contain some large fish, scenic, and yes, popular.  With our shortened schedule, we didn't have enough time to fish it this time, but we will be back!

The river in the "heart of Deckers"

We ran out of time to make the big loop we were originally planning so we drove back down to Woodland Park and back to COS.

Another view on the way back

Our colds are still with us, unbelievable, but we are medicating ourselves and feel we are slowly winning the battle:-)

Cheers!

So time to move on, we went south and west back over La Veta Pass, 9380' and noticed we were running a little warmer than we ever have, could it have to do with the rebuilt pump?  Well, we don't know.  We are hoping that the radiator got plugged up a bit from all the ATF flying around.  We got some Simple Green and when the wind cooperates we are going to do a good cleaning to see if that fixes it.  We are now in South Fork, CO, with gusty winds, night time lows in the low 30's and snow and rain.  It's so odd with so much of the country in a heat wave, spring is taking a long, long time getting here this year.  But some of it has been great news for this area, snowpack in many places is 400% normal!  And that will go a long way to help the perpetual drought.  The manager here at Peacock Meadows said Wolf Creek Ski Area got 47.5', yes feet of snow this year!

Our site for Memorial day

An early morning visitor, still fuzzy from the winter

We went out for a picnic and to hike around, and maybe fish one of our favorites in the area, Big Meadows Reservoir, and found it still closed up, so we continued up to Wolf Creek Pass, 10,857', and had our lunch there.

Top of the pass, still a winter wonderland

After South Fork, we are going north a few miles to Creede to Antlers for a few days, and then we had planned to go to our boondock place another 20 miles up the road toward Lake City, to chill and fish for a few days, so we decided to take a ride up that way, reconnoiter, and have coffee.  We went through some very hard snow squalls on the way, even covering the road.

Can't do it justice with this picture, but it is snowing hard

Unfortunately Clear Creek where we wanted to fish was blown out with the spring melt, so we won't be fishing, but we will still stay a couple days there for the peace and quiet, beauty, and will survive the cold, over 10,000' as we are confident spring is coming very soon:-)  We went on around the corner to our "coffee spot".

Quite the view!

Coffee, and Jan's homemade apple turnovers
Yummy!

Now don't think we've just been hanging around, we did manage to get another project done.  Remember back to our wipers not working in the pouring rain?  And how I ordered a new clockspring?  Well, with us under the weather, I couldn't bring myself to tackle it, and I have to admit I was a little intimidated by the install, one I have never done before.  I had read mixed forum posts about on one hand it was very technical to reports of it being easy.  Now I had no real idea what a clockspring even was up to now.  Suffice it to say that any steering wheel that has controls on it, pretty much every one nowadays, has to get those buttons and circuits to work on a wheel that rotates around, so they put in a clockspring. It is basically a ribbon that has many individual wires embedded in it that will allow the wheel to go lock to lock while winding and unwinding.

This gives you an idea.  There is a lot of "ribbon"
in there to give enough slack to turn each way

So we gave it a go.  First you have to get the steering wheel off.

The cap off.
Now where the 2 angles are is where I have already
removed the nut that holds the wheel on

But we can't just pull off the wheel, I tug and tug with no result.  So I go rummaging around to find a puller that I have somewhere, but it's the wrong kind.  I guess I'll have to pick up a puller at a NAPA store when we go to lunch tomorrow, but then I get to thinking, always a scary thing, and determine with some rube goldberging I may be able to rig it up.

Yes, that is a stack of quarters under the puller
that is hooked on the angles I inserted.
But after putting a hole through 2 quarters,
IT WORKED!

Now before you get the wheel off, it is important to mark it to be sure it is pointed straight ahead, because it is imperative the clockspring be exactly in the middle so it is able to go to the the lock each way without breaking.  This was the part that had me a little worried, but our new clockspring came pinned in the center.

Getting the cover off

The old clockspring

You've got to remove the covering on the steering
column to get at the connector at the bottom.
Yeah, a little dirty under there:)

The new pinned clockspring next to the old

So very carefully we removed the old one and installed the new making sure it was exactly lined up before we pulled the pin out.  Then back together, test to be sure it worked, tighten up the nut to hold the wheel on, and boom, done!  So in actuality, it was a piece of cake, at least in our coach.

Ready for the new one

Making sure it is aligned perfectly

All back together!

A happy (finally) update

We, as I said, decided to grit our teeth and drive the coach up to Colorado Springs where we had a reservation, and now an appointment with a shop to pull off the pump, rebuild it, and put it back on.  We opted not to tow the truck and cover it in ATF again.  

Jan following me, at a good distance, on the way north to Colorado Springs

Good thing we didn't hook up as we were dripping ATF off the back of the motorhome when we pulled in.  I left you wondering where in the world was our rebuild part.  Well, first thing Monday morning I called to find out and was told, oops, they were supposed to send it Thursday, but it never went out until Friday..........  I will admit after several choice statements they were good enough to reimburse me the $71 in overnight fees.  So we tracked it and sure enough it was delivered in Taos on Monday afternoon.  We are SO thankful we hadn't gotten too deep into the project while we were in Taos as we would have been waiting all weekend and most of Monday.

So on Tuesday Jan and I drove the truck 208 miles back to Taos, picked up the 1/2 pound package, had a nice lunch and drove back 208 miles to Colorado Springs.  I should mention the first part of the journey was in blizzard conditions, the Colorado Springs schools actually had a snow day on May 21st!

We touched base with the shop and confirmed our 8am appointment on Wednesday.  We woke to more snow:-(

Now I don't usually name names, but I am going to make an exception.  Our work was done at Phases Truck and Auto Repair.  We pulled in at 8am and they were waiting for us. I showed them where the PTO was mounted on our coach and discussed the air filter with them.  You could see a lot of the swirling ATF was sucked into the intake and I wanted to replace the air filter for peace of mind.  They said that was no problem.  We left to have breakfast and at 10am we found out they had already pulled the pump off, disassembled it, had it in the parts washer, and were ready to rebuild it and had already replaced the air filter!  We checked in again at 11:30 and they had remounted the pump, and were refilling the reservoir and were going to run it, get it up to temp and check for leaks and operation, so we went to lunch.  At a little before 1pm they said it was all done and we could pick it up!  I can't tell you how pleased we were with their service.  Great shop, great communication, professional, and when we got the bill it was very, very fair.  I highly recommend this shop if you are near Colorado Springs!

So now we can get back to our travels, we are all fixed up now, and almost recovered from our colds.  Jan spent more than an hour cleaning the back of the coach and of course did a fantastic job.

This gives you a small idea of how bad the rear of the coach was

All shiny now!

So hopefully our run of bad luck has been broken, and I hope we will be able to get back to our travels and pictures of our adventures.

The continuing saga, we are still plagued

As I stated in my last post, we normally take these problems in stride, but we both have to admit, we are getting very close to being absolutely demoralized.  Yes, our problems are continuing.

I already covered the messed up brake indicator lights on the braking system, yes, that I screwed up and fixed, the water drain pipe that broke, the slide lock breaking, and of course the biggy, the one that altered all our plans, the slide out rollers breaking.  Unfortunately, we have been besieged with even more issues!  And the fact that Jan and I both have colds that will just not let go, doesn't help at all.  It must be part of our testing as neither one of us has had a cold in 2-3 years!

So to catch you up on our travails.  First our U-turn took us to Branson, well actually outside of Branson in Oak Grove, AR right on Table Rock Lake to the Ozarks Luxury RV Resort.  We went there for a couple reasons, it was originally one of our stops on our original route, and we have run into many expensive challenges altering our plans.  In this day and age, more and more RV parks are requiring full payment up front for your stay, and have greatly restricted their cancellation, read refund policies.  In fact we have had to pay for stays we had to cancel with no refunds at all!  Well this resort was one with a tight cancellation policy so instead of completely cancelling we changed our reservation in order to keep our money.  And in all honesty, we thought a nice relaxing 2 days at a resort might allow us to calm down a bit after our abrupt change of plans.

The drive to the resort began as beautiful, green grass, green trees, rolling hills, gorgeous views as we wound our way up and down for miles and miles until we got to the point where we were both worn out from the up and down, and back and forth ad nauseam, and wondered if we were ever going to get there, but we did, and it truly was gorgeous, landscaped sites and grounds, right on the lake with killer views, and we were ecstatic right up to when we were escorted to our site.  Well the tilted, ramped up entrance freaked me out, we drag easily, I almost cancelled right there, but we were both exhausted, so I raised the coach as high as I could and very, very carefully pulled into the site, and thankfully made it.  We got settled in, made a couple drinks and sat outside enjoying the view.

Beautiful, right?

We were there just two nights and that night we heard the pitter patter of raindrops, that intensified and continued right through our only day there.  It was okay, we made soup and relaxed, and all we could think about was extricating ourselves from our site when we went to leave:-(

So morning comes with a much nicer day, and I go to fire up the coach, it starts, I press travel mode on our leveling panel and get a beep, no that's not right, the steps aren't working, hey what's this weird message ABS communication failure????  I shut it down, start it again and all the problems are still there?  I go into what we call our Front Run Bay, it holds all our chassis related fuses and circuit boards, 14 of them to be exact, and find that only 2 are lit up and powered, now what?  We shut it down and start troubleshooting.  We start in the Rear Run Bay where all the high powered items are and from where the FRB gets its power and all seems fine.  So back up to the FRB and yes we have voltage to all the supply wires that power that bay, so why aren't circuit boards powered?  In about the middle of the panel, there is an unlabeled relay that diesel mechanic Jan is convinced is the problem, I say I don't think so and anyway we don't have a replacement anyway, but she says she thinks we do and proceeds to find one!  We exchange the relay and voila, it all works, now I will admit I don't necessarily think that solved it, but I'm sure not going to complain.  So now we have to back out, and after at least 15 solid minutes of back and fill, wiggle here and there, raise the coach as high as it will go, we manage to sneak our way out, and it was so funny, because without any pretense when we stood together after getting out we both said in unison, "We are never coming back here again!"

So our day of travel across Kansas took us through bands of hard rain, and I turn on the wipers, or I should say I attempt to turn on the wipers as they don't turn on.  Oh wonderful.  We have a smart wheel and the wiper controls are in the wheel, so I frantically start pushing every button that has to do with the wipers, on, off, high, low, intermittent, and off.  And finally get them to go on intermittent, now it is raining hard and the wipers wipe once every what seems like eternity, just at the point where I think we'll have to pull over, we get a swipe, and then coming out of the rain they won't turn off, sounds pretty funny telling the story now, but believe me it wasn't too funny then.  So at a rest stop, one of the very few places to pull over along our 2 lane road I call the manufacturer of the smart wheel and he informs me he is 99% sure it is my clock spring.  I say okay send me one, and he says, they don't make the clock spring, just the wheel and the control module........  So after some research I find a company that does sell the clock spring and get one ordered and then we fight for a few more hours our very cantankerous wipers.  Finally the weather clears and we pull into the Wellington, KS KOA which was very welcome about that time.  We spend an uneventful evening.

The next leg is into Colorado, and whenever we head west we long to get that first sight of the mountains, and sure enough, we caught them in their snow capped glory.

Welcome to the West!

So we pull into our next stop at the John Martin Reservoir Hasty Campground which was pretty nice for a public campground, only electric large private site, and we could only get a back in site so as we are unhooking the truck we notice a lot of something all over, like oil?!?  The back of the motorhome has a bit on it as well, we look all over everything and can't find anything, but remember we went through several miles of brand new paving and figure it was wet enough to through some oil up on the truck.  We take a nice walk around, and settle in for the night.  The next morning dawns bright and sunny, Jan takes her shower, and then I go in for mine, and as I am all soaped up the water flow stops, and starts, and stops, and starts, and I frantically try to get all the soap off before our water pump totally craps out.  OMG, yet another thing.  Jan and I start talking about houses:-)

So on to Taos, we need to stop here on our way by for some very important family items, and of course to see Karen, Jan's sister, and Tom.  So as we pull into the Taos Monte Bello campground where we always stay, we notice now the truck and the back of the motorhome are soaked in something, oil, water, coolant, what?  This time we look things over and sure enough we have a leak under the motorhome.  The hydraulic pump is dripping, so we are covered in automatic transmission fluid, which is what is used in our hydraulic system which runs our power steering and radiator cooling fan.  Oh man!  We get in the site and crawl under for a better look and sure enough the pump itself is dripping at the front, not good, compounded by the fact we are in very remote Taos. So Karen comes down and takes me to a couple garages that might be able to help, one refers us to another, then another, and finally we find a guy who is knowledgeable of our problem, is willing to help, but can't for a week!  We decide to let things cool down from the drive and the next day crawl under, clean everything off real well, and see exactly what the problem is.  We do and find a part number on the pump and after much research find the company Sauer Danfoss no longer builds this pump, but another company QCC has bought the rights and still manufactures it.  After numerous calls we find out there would be at least a 4 week wait for a new pump, it would be horribly expensive, but we could get a rebuild kit for $30, but wait minimum charge is $50, and add overnight to it, well you get the idea.  So we order, are assured the kit will arrive on Friday, our last day in Taos, and we further decide to extend one day, even though we wouldn't be able to get any money back from our next destination in Colorado Springs and tackle the job ourselves.  And as all this is being done, I happen to walk into the coach and look up and see the cabinet above the driver's seat is falling down!  I'll tell you about now we really are ready to get a house.

Our clue all is not right:-)

Yup, it's leaking

This picture shows the pump leaking,
the red is the PTO off the transmission,
and its seal is dry

We had hoped it was the connection between the PTO and the pump as that would have just required a gasket.  This way when the pump has to come off to be rebuilt, the 55 quarts of ATF in the system has to be drained, one of the interesting challenges.

So while we wait we decide to tackle the falling down cabinet.  Funny while we were driving into Taos, we hit a bridge at the bottom of a draw at the same exact moment a semi hit it and we heard a very loud crack, we immediately figured we had caught yet another rock and had broken the windshield, again, but we couldn't find anything.  We now think that was the moment the screws, only 2 broke and allowed to cabinet to come down a bit.

There isn't supposed to be a gap

It's pretty big

So we get the cabinet doors off to see what we can see and find out only 2 screws have been holding this side of the cabinet up, and I should mention this cabinet extends all the way across the front of the coach and back about 4 feet on each side.

The 2 now broken screws

So we jack up the cabinets and put in numerous screws and as they say it is now better than new.

Jacking it up for repair

A few more screws this time around

Back where it should be, now to put the doors back on

Now just in case you think all is well in Mudville, hold your horses.  So as I said the rebuild kit was overnighted so as to be here Friday.  We made a list and went out to get the items we felt we'd need to do the repair, and waited til UPS made its delivery.  And, I'm sure you've guessed by now, it never arrived...........

Too late to get a hold of the company that supposedly sent it, so here we are Friday afternoon, a weekend ahead of us in which we can accomplish nothing, another week in Colorado Springs KOA all PAID for starting Saturday.  What in the world are we going to do!?!?!?

After we calm down a bit I call a truck repair facility in Colorado Springs and talk to them about our problem.  Could they do this, especially if I have the rebuild kit in hand?  Yes but they are a walk-in shop only, no appointments, first come, first serve.  Wow, don't know if we can handle that, but out of curiosity, do you think if I drove out 200 miles to COS, would I hurt anything other than make a mess.  He says as long as you make sure the fluid level stays up you should be okay.  Hmmmm.  I ask if he could recommend another reputable shop that does do appointments and he gives me another number.  I call and have a long talk with them, so right now we are driving it to COS, and have an appointment to have the pump removed, rebuilt, and remounted.  Monday we will find out where in the Hell is the rebuild kit and we will drive back here to Taos in the truck to pick it up if need be.  Keep your fingers crossed.

In the meantime we have had a very nice visit with Karen and Tom. And, oh yeah, we are still sick:-(

I'll leave you with the very beautiful view from Karen and Tom's porch

The promised update and explanation

We usually take our motorhome problems in stride.  After all it is a big box, not unlike a small house that bounces down the road trying to shake everything loose, and the fact our coach is now almost 12 years old, we accept there are going to be problems now and then.  But right now they seem to be coming a little too quickly for us, and this last one is a doozy, perhaps one of the worst we've experienced.  Yet, we are still thankful, it hasn't affected us going down the road, it just may cause us to have to spend a lot of money and has caused us to alter our plans completely until sometime in July.

First problem was the leak in the drain pipe that I shared in the last post, then our slide lock broke.  Jan and I have a routine when we leave, she starts up the coach while I unhook our electric, water, and sewer, and usually by the time I get that done, the motorhome is up on its air suspension and the slides are ready to come in.  When I see it is clear I indicate to her to retract a slide, and as she was I noticed the slide lock was broken and got her to stop.  Now only our front driver side slide has locks, one on the front and one on the rear.  There is a lever at the bottom that hits a plate on the sidewall and with a pulley system it extends the locking arm on the top to hold the slide in when you go down the road.

A closeup of the lever with the plastic cover off

At this point in time, we checked and felt we could just close the slide anyway and it wouldn't hurt anything one time, but it needed to be fixed or removed soon.  So we continued, and have since removed the lock, and are operating right now with only one.  Unfortunately it did internal damage to it and will have to be replaced, and further, unfortunately, the company that made them is no longer manufacturing them.  One place has several pairs, yes, they are sold in pairs, left in the whole world, so we broke down and ordered a replacement set for a lot of money.  This was the easy problem.

The next day, as we pulled in the slides, I noticed the passenger side front slide was much lower than normal.  Since it was pouring at the time, I decided we would take a look see later.  Now I need to explain, this slide is what they call a raised floor slide, the slide mechanism pulls it in and out and is supposed to support most of the weight of the slide, then the slide bottom in our case rides over 3--9" rollers that are mounted in the floor of the coach under the slide, and on 2 other 5" rollers that are mounted in the bottom of our galley cabinets that roll over the floor of the coach.  If you have been reading my blog you have seen pictures of our roller woes when we replaced the floor several times.  Now Monaco when they built our coach only put 3 rollers in the floor that go from the front of the slide to about the 2/3's point down the slide, so the weight is not evenly distributed, the slack is supposed to be taken up by the 2 rollers mounted in the cabinet bottoms.  I know, a lot of info but important to the situation.  We arrived in Longview, TX on our way east and I went under into the basement to see what was what, yes, before we attempted to extend the slide and found 2 of the 3 outside rollers had broken.

Look closely and you can see where the rollers in question are

I will include a few more pictures to try to explain these rollers.  They are adjusted up and down with a single bolt in the middle that moves the saddle the roller spins on, there is a locking nut that holds it in its adjusted position, and here's where it's really important, a nut welded to the case is what allows the bolt to move the roller, it had broken free on 2 of the 3 rollers, so the slide was sitting down on the opening in the side of the coach, NOT GOOD!

This shows the similar roller that is mounted in the cabinet bottom
but you can see the adjusting bolt, the lock nut just below the head,
and the nut that is black that is welded to the case

Another view, here you can easily see the setup, and the black nut welded to the case

And one more

Now so far this is bad, but big deal, replace the bad rollers and proceed, ha.  When I look up at the bottom of the rollers, I can see no way of getting them out, no mounting bolts, nothing except the adjusting bolt and the broken out nut!

Now, there is really only 1 place in the whole USA that I would trust to fix this, and that is Elite in Oregon, and in the case of a real emergency I would go to Alliance Coach in Florida.  I call Elite and have a long conversation about what to do, and find it very interesting they say they have never heard of this before!  But yes, the entire slide would have to be removed to replace those rollers.  That folks is a huge and very expensive, time consuming deal, so I hang up to regroup, then call Alliance and they confirm the same solution and also allow as they have never heard of this happening before.  That is a hard thing to hear when you obviously have HAD it happen to you.

Look close and you can see one of the broken rollers
You can see the nut popped out of its weld rendering the adjusting
nut useless, and you can also see there is no way to get it out of there.

Well, I get to thinking, could that nut be welded back in?  I get on the internet and find a welding and fabrication shop in Longview and give them a call, it's 4pm on Friday to put this in perspective, and they say sure they would take a look, but probably not til Monday, then they ask where I am.  When I tell them they say, wow, you are only 2 miles away from us, we'll be right over to take a look!  And they show in a few minutes, take a look, confer for a bit and say they think they can fix it without setting the motorhome on fire:-)  The campground won't let us do it there, so Jan and I move the coach over to their place.  It is a big place, kind of muddy, but everyone seems very professional and they jump right on our job.

Getting set up

Tacking one nut in place

And then the other right above the fuel tank

After, they say it is as good if not better than new.  We tentatively raise the slide just enough to clear the bottom and so far it works, but the $64,000 question is for how long?

So Jan and I stopped and tried to contemplate all the ramifications of this, what should we do, where should we go?  We decided that we felt confident the place to repair this was Elite in OR, but we were planning on heading to Buffalo and PA then west to NM, CO, and MT.  

So Jan and I have spent literally hours changing, cancelling, altering reservations, and routing to accomplish this.  The very soonest Elite can take us is June 17th, but we are making a U-turn and heading west.  They are expecting us, and we have our fingers crossed our repair will hold until we get there.  There is a small chance, hope I'm not jinxing it now, that with an adjustment of the slide mechanism to relieve a lot of the weight on the rollers, and if the new welds are as good as they said, we may be able to avoid the 25-40 hours of labor to have to pull the slide.  So cross your fingers with us as we daintily proceed with our new westward plans.