A Quick and Happy Update

I wanted to let everyone know that we have almost entirely dealt with our triple whammy.  I showed you our repair of the hydraulic cooler which left us with the generator and the surge guard and transfer switch.  We went to the generator service center at 8am as directed and they took us right in, and before I get any deeper into this explanation, I want to give kudos to this shop, CMD Powersystems., what a first class, friendly competent operation that carved out time for us in the midst of their busy schedule, thank you.  The tech checked here and there methodically and pulled the brushes and found them in terrible shape, luckily they had them in stock so he quickly installed them.

The bad brushes, they are supposed to be the same length

Then he tried turning it over to see what effect the brushes had, but it was still producing high voltage which called for a new control board, unfortunately they didn't have one in stock, but an overnighted board from DC took care of that, so we went back to the campground and found the surge guard and transfer switch arrived, so we got that installed with the generator output still disconnected.

The old transfer switch, 
and the wire nuts are the generator output

It is a straightforward, fairly easy job replacing the switch, a little busy work, and a bit of man handling some stiff wires.

Switching connectors over

New switch in, without the generator connections

So we waited with bated breath for the call that the control board came in, and sure enough CMD called at 11:00am to say it arrived and could we come over at 12:45?  Absolutely!

Over we went, the tech tried the new board before installing it permanently and sure enough it worked!!!!!!!  I wish he hadn't added that if it doesn't the unit will have to come out.  But it worked perfectly, started right up and the voltage is dead on.  Man did we dodge a bullet!

So all we have now is to connect the generator to the switch which I will do today, and then the monitor that was ordered with the switch to read voltage, amps, faults, etc turned out to not be the right one, so we have ordered that and it should be here tomorrow.  So it is coming together, with only some pain in the wallet.  Hooray!!!

OMG, We Got the Triple Whammy!!

Be careful what you wish for, as I left you in the last post we were stomping at the bit to move on down the road.  Before we left Scarborough we had our final, at least until late July, lunch at Billy's for shrimp day.  But before we did I cooked dinner for a change.  I don't do it too often anymore, but I still can:-)  I made seared scallops with spicy fried corn medley over mashed potatoes.

Our last Billy's lunch

Our generator has been getting more and more reluctant to start, so I decided to replace the 3 glow plugs to see if that might help.  They had never been replaced in the 16 years and 1900 hours of the gen's life.  It was an easy job, and like fools we didn't start it to see whether it worked, the campground frowns on running a generator in the park.

The wire you see goes to the front plug

They were tough to remove, they had quite a bit of residue on them

So after a delicious lunch,

Homemade lobster roll

we launched, and noticed we appeared to be leaking something as we pulled out of our site.  But Jan went back and said with all the rain, it was just pouring off the roof, okay, good to go.  It was only 56 miles to our next campground, Chewonki, a small very nice park with killer views of the tidal marsh and inlet.  We pulled in and Jan went inside to check in, and since we decided to unhook the truck, I walked back and found we were absolutely pissing out hydraulic fluid (automatic transmission fluid), bright red all over their paved entry!  I ran back turned off the engine, ran in the office and announced to Jan we had a BIG problem.  Got the truck which was totally covered in ATF, disconnected, with some discussion we were permitted to move to our site and we immediately put a tarp under to catch the fluid.  It was all over the rear of the motorhome and we left a path to our site.

Doesn't actually look that bad here, we were too busy to take any real pictures:-)

Keep in mind this is a Wednesday, and we are only there until Saturday.  It looked like the cooler leaking, but this was the cooler we had replaced 6 years previously in Wyoming and only put 66,000 miles on.  I called the supplier, Source Engineering in Oregon, he said be absolutely sure it is the cooler before you order it, and I wouldn't be able to overnight it to you until tomorrow anyway.  So while Jan watched carefully I started the engine again to pressurize the system and sure enough she could see it coming out in an area at the front bottom.  We had to get the truck cleaned up some how, it was so slippery and covered you couldn't stand on the running board without sliding off.  Also we had to find Floor Dry, and lots and lots of ATF, the system holds between 50-55 quarts!

The nearest manual carwash we could find was 17 miles away.  With me spraying, and Jan wiping with Dawn soap we were able to get the truck pretty well cleaned up, found some Floor Dry, but only quarts of expensive ATF at a nearby NAPA store.  We came back, poured a lot of the Floor Dry under to absorb the ATF, and tried to figure out what to do next.  At least we were in beautiful spot with beautiful weather for a change.

We had to fix it or we wouldn't be able to move, so we sent an email to Source in OR, that we wanted a new cooler overnighted, and he said he would call back in the morning with a quote and get the CC number if we opted to go ahead, and he was almost sure he had one in stock.  With the 3 hour time difference we had nothing to do except try to find 5-10 gallons of ATF that was somewhat affordable, so Walmart in Brunswick was the destination.  We had, before all of this planned to go back to the Dolphin restaurant in Harpswell, but I was getting nervous that Source would call while we were there with no cell phone coverage, so we ended up at a hole-in-the-wall, Fishermen's Net, and had a delicious lunch topped off with a call from Source that they did have one and the cost including the overnight only took me to my knees, not all the way down, so we ordered yet another new cooler.

Shrimp, haddock, clams, and scallops with amazing onion rings

And fabulous shrimp tacos

Then over to Walmart where we bought out their supply of ATF, only 5 gallons.  So not too much more to do until we were sure it would arrive the next day.  We cleaned the louvers up.  And put some rags around to try to absorb some of the fluid.

A bit gooey

Then set up for HH and enjoyed the gorgeous evening, and waited until the next day to get our tracking info.

Next morning bright and early the initial tracking info said we had a guaranteed delivery by 4:30pm, but it might come between 8:40am and 12:40pm, we crossed our fingers and got to work getting the old one out, cleaning up and getting ready for the new one.  It was truly a mess, although much of the ATF we must have left on the road between Scarborough and Wiscasset:-)  The area between the cooler and radiator was particularly bad, doesn't seem a good design, tons of leaves, debris and so much mud that it looked like the radiator was plugged, although we have never had high temps.

What a disgusting mess!

Cleaning it up, thanks to about 10 cans of brake cleaner and a lot of scraping and digging

Then, what to do with the old one, no one would take it, so we finally decided to wrap it up carefully and carry it around until an opportunity presents itself.

Everything was a mess including the tow bar 

But we were living right, it showed up at 11:45am!!!  And we didn't have much to do to get it installed.

In!!!!!!!

We poured all of our 5 gallons of ATF in and still needed more, so that prompted a trip to Bath to get 3 more gallons.  It seems to be good now.

Happy Hour was really enjoyed that evening:-)

In the meantime we found out Karen and Tom's plans had changed and we would be meeting them near Bangor at Pumpkin Patch, our next stop for an evening, so we left in the morning with a big smile on our face.  Little did we know.......

We stopped for lunch and decided we'd better try out starting the generator and see how it does, well, it didn't want to start, it stumbled, shook like a wet dog, but finally settled down, but we were reading unusual voltages, 188 on one leg and 190 on the other!  It is supposed to be 115-120 range.  It wouldn't hook up to the coach thankfully, so we shut it down, I cycled the circuit breaker on it a few times, and restarted it, now we had no voltage at all!  Oh no, we have a big problem, and we really need our generator, it provides AC going down the road, but most of all with our plans of doing quite a bit of boon docking this year we depend on it for power and recharging our batteries, damn.  Well, we'll deal with it later, on to Bangor to see Karen and Tom.  Uneventful ride although raining, pull into our site, plug in shore power and get a fault reading from our combo surge protector and transfer switch, bad enough that it will not connect.  So now no power from the campground, no generator, and obviously we aren't going to run our engine for days, now what?!?!?  We're sure the generator fiasco fried our transfer switch, but I better check the voltage at the pole, and of course it is fine.  I open up the switch to see if there is some way I can jury rig it to get power, of course having a blast as it's raining this whole time.  I unhook the end of our power cord in the switch to see if I can just bypass it and go directly into the coach, but the cord is fastened in lots of places and I can't move it enough without tearing down the basement ceiling, but Jan remembers we have a 10' extension power cord, hmm.  I remove the end of the cord, we move the coach so we are right across from the pedestal, and I am able to hook up the short cord directly to the coach's electrical system.  Tada, power, can't read it, and don't have any protection, but we have power.

The power cord is in the center of the photo unhooked from the transfer switch
right to the right of my left hand is where the coach's terminal is,
looks like 3 rows of 3 screws

The jury rig installed, the short extension going over the top
 and into the coach

3 punches in a row, man it was nice to go over to Karen and Tom's to visit, drink, and eat a delicious dinner and unwind!

So Karen and Tom left the next morning and I still had to find a replacement surge guard and transfer switch, and what do I find?  Our model that talks to our Aladdin, our system reader on which we can see voltage, amps, faults, etc isn't made anymore.  So I find the replacement which requires another separate monitor, but decide to sit on it being a Sunday and see if I can't come up with something better.  We decide we deserve a Guiness, we have one about three times a year, so we went to a cool Irish pub downtown Bangor, Paddy Murphy's.  Nice lunch, haddock tacos, wings, and champ, and of course 2 awesome Guiness, and just relaxed.

This morning having not found any other replacement, I ordered overnight a new transfer switch and surge guard along with the required monitor, now just have to wait, but first I went over to a generator service company a few miles away to see what they thought about our gen.  I told them the whole story, they kept nodding their heads, so I finally said, is this bad?  My answer, if it is what we think it is very bad, will require removal of the gen from the coach, take 2-3 weeks, and cost between $3-4,000!  We have an appointment to take the coach over on Wednesday morning for them to take a quick look see to confirm what is wrong.  This all is turning out to be extremely painful to the wallet:-(  Time will tell.

So now what to do, go out to lunch to a new place for us that turned out phenomenal, Eagle's Nest in Brewer.  I have always thought Billy's lobster stew was the best in the world, and that Trevett's fried haddock was the best in the world and we found we were wrong, this place just usurped both of them!