First the good, since the new Delco Remy alternator was installed we have driven 450 miles to Missoula and it has worked perfectly. What a relief, but I will admit I am still so gun shy it's almost funny, I must look at that voltmeter 50 times a second.
We were hoping that as we moved we might lose some of the smoke, no way, if anything it has gotten worse. Our route took us north to West Glacier for one night, then to Lakeside right across the road from Flathead Lake, then south to Missoula. We plan to be here for 2 weeks, our longest stay this summer so far.
West Glacier KOA is the nicest KOA in the USA, hands down. It is so well done with large sites, patio and super patio sites, incredible landscaping, 2 pools, one for adults only, right next to the entrance to Glacier National Park, and stellar views. But it was hot! 96df when we arrived only to pop our breaker a couple times, but the park replaced it immediately. With the heat and the draw of everyone using their AC's, and the fact that campground circuit breakers are used as switches which they were never designed for, it isn't unusual with these high draws to find they wear out. It is a plus when the park understands this and doesn't start telling you you must have a problem with your coach.
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| Smoke! |
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| One of the avalanche sheds on the railroad south of GNP |
And Jan served a nice treat that evening for dinner, rack of lamb lollipops!
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| A view from our site |
BUT, on our way to West Glacier, after we had stopped for lunch, and Jan had cleaned up, she noticed a puddle on the floor! Poking around we found out the flexible hose that is the drain line for the galley sink that we had repaired in 2018, had broken again. Wonderful:-( When we repaired it, we had modified the 1 1/2" pipe to 1" flexible PVC thinking it would be more flexible and not break, but if it did, it would be simple to fix. So our dinner dishes had to be done in the bathroom sink, very convenient.
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| Our temporary galley sink:-) |
So the next morning we head to Home Depot to get the hose, and they don't have any, and aren't sure where we might find it, nice. So we try Ace Hardware and sure enough they do. So back for our repair which we figure we should be able to knock out in less than an hour, HA!
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| The circled spot is where the hose broke The trolley it is attached to is what lets the hose bend and be supported as the slide moves in and out |
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| You can see the 2 hose clamps holding the hose to the barbed fitting we installed when we modified it to make the repair easier should we have to do it again, and sure enough, we do. |
The trolley was a problem as I didn't want to have to remove it all the way, I remembered it was a real bear to get it back in place and fastened to the pipe. So I found I could just nurse out a screw holding the strap that held the flexible pipe. Success, we're right on time, yeah, right until we tried to get the hose off the barbed fittings. No leverage, hardly any access to get a knife in, or a hacksaw blade. We found out that flexible PVC is tough, almost impossible to cut, almost impossible to stretch, but we finally got it off, only added about another hour to our estimate. Okay, no problem, now all we have to do is cut the hose to length stick it back on the barbed fitting tighten the hose clamps, reattach the trolley and we're done. HAHAHAHA We couldn't get the new hose over the end of the barbed fittings, and with hardly any leverage I couldn't make it go. So we try boiling water on the hose for 15 minutes and manage to get it on about a quarter of the way. Ugh, okay, I'll just take it back off and put it in boiling water longer, oh no, it won't come off either! We are both thinking what a good time we are having. Jan gets an idea to use her hair dryer, and sure enough after 10-15 minutes of heating it and one more mighty effort I finally manage to get the hose all the way on. We button up and looky there, it only took us 3 1/2 hours:-)
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| Finishing up finally |
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| Someone is NOT happy about our project |
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| Yummy! |
We happened to be looking at Google Maps the evening before we were supposed to drive 97 miles down to Missoula, actually Wye, MT a few miles west of Missoula and noticed miles of red. We did some research and determined there were delays of up to 1 hour and 15 minutes all due to construction just north of our RV park. So instead of going directly south we decided to detour around and go down the east side of Flathead Lake and approach Missoula from the east, all well and good except we would be adding 60 miles or so. Normally no problem. We had last bought fuel outside of Billings in Hardin, MT and had planned to get fuel again in Missoula. We were already stretching things more than normal so this would squeeze it a bit more. We don't like to get fuel too much below half a tank, but sometimes out here it gets to be a challenge. We had a beautiful no traffic drive, and popped into Loves, and proceeded to put the most fuel in that we have ever before! 120 gallons into our 150 gallon tank, our gauge was below 1/4, 765 miles! But it all worked out fine. We pulled into Jim and Mary's RV Park, one of our absolute favorites. A beautifully landscaped and laid out park in amongst the trees, but still with satellite access, flowers everywhere, paved roads, large sites, quiet, dark, peaceful, and with no amenities, not bustling with kids. And always full to the brim every night. Here are a few shots of the many flower beds around the park.
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| Our site for 2 weeks |
You're probably wondering where is the other bad, well as we were fueling we had started the generator and if you remember it had been surging and I had replaced the fuel filter and we thought that had solved the problem, uh no. So we shut it down and I did more research on what could be causing it. From forums and the Onan manual there is a governor actuator that is usually the culprit if the fuel filter doesn't solve it. I had read that several forum friends had replaced theirs for about $300 and it fixed their problem. But it turned out that their generators were an older version and on ours it was a $600 part. I sure didn't want to experiment with a part that expensive if it didn't fix it and they wouldn't take it back. So in the manual they mention 3 ways of evaluating the actuator, so we figure before we order the part, we should at least see if we can get to it, get it out, evaluate it, all before ordering a pig in a poke. So that was today's project, and now looking back on it it wasn't that bad. We tried to get to it without removing all the panels around the generator, but once we did it was fairly easy.
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| Getting the top cover off |
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| Blowing out the incredible amount of dust that had accumulated |
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| The whole side and rear cover had to come off as well |
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| Out for testing |
First the manual says to check for resistance between 2 and 4 ohms, it was 2.8, check. Then see if the plunger moves in and out smoothly by hand, check. Then when applying 12 volts to it see if the plunger retracts smoothly, check. Hmmm. Glad we checked it out before ordering because it certainly appears to be working properly. So we cleaned up the already clean connection, added a tiny bit of dielectric grease and put it all back together. We could only run for a limited amount of time being we are in the campground, but after 30 minutes it didn't surge. So once again fingers crossed, but won't know for sure until we leave here and let it run for hours.
And speaking of crossing fingers, keep them crossed for the weekend out here. Sunday's forecast is for a high of 62df, and 90% rain all day, that could mean wonderful things for the fires and firefighters. 🤞🤞🤞
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