Category Archives: rig maintenance

Tooting Our Own Horn

The horn on Sprinter vans is a joke, sounding like a clown car. Ours died last winter in California and I haven’t replaced it, to Sally’s delight since she hates horn honking and enjoys watching me hit the mute horn when a light changes and someone is texting or I get cut off by an aggressive driver.

The rig is overdue for inspection (see previous post for why) so I needed to install one that works. Cue YouTube for advice.

I bought a replacement horn, with a lower tone, and it was a pretty simple installation once I realized that it only works with the ignition on.

The new horn was an easy fix once I checked the fuse and put new connectors on the wires. Ready for inspection.

I was tempted to install a big truck multi-horn system with some real blasting power but want to keep piece in our 24-foot travelling home.

Replacing the Airstream’s gas range

Several years ago, a metal brace in the Airstream’s oven snapped, probably from the fatigue of a decade of travel over bumpy roads. I got it welded but then found that the collapse had also damaged parts of the propane dispenser — and ended up disabling the oven completely. It turned into a great storage space for pots and pans and the range continued to work fine. And since lighting the oven was always a scary proposition — nothing, nothing, then woosh — Mary certainly didn’t miss it.

We lived with that for the last couple of years, using a small toaster oven to “bake.” Of course, it only worked when we were plugged in to a power supply and even then, left a lot to be desired. (Sawing a frozen pizza into sizes that fit was fun as was cutting cornbread recipes in half and then still having them ooze all over the place.)

I considered a lot of options — replacing just the stove top and putting a microwave underneath (again, you need power to use it), continuing as we have been (it detracts from selling the rig), or replacing it. That’s the option we chose and I found a replacement unit which came by Fedex yesterday.

Even though it’s not a difficult job, there were challenges. Pulling the old stove out was easy – just a matter of unhooking the propane line and four wood screws. It’s not heavy, about 70 pounds, and so I got it out the door and up into the pickup without problems.

The opening was a bit too large for the new unit but shims solved that.

The opening was a bit too large for the new unit but shims solved that.

We are fortunate to have a metal recycling operation just a few miles away so since I was going to town yesterday, I swung up there early. I drove on to the truck scales for a “before” weight, tossed the oven in the big pile of light metal objects, and got weighed going out. The attendant said, as I walked into the office, “Well, maybe you can get a cup of coffee.” The payoff was $1.95 but he rounded it up to two dollars. Just about what I expected but the stove is on its way to reuse – perhaps I’ll be shaving with it next year.

The opening for the old stove was a bit too large for this one so last night, I cut some shims to tighten things up, slid it in, hooked up the propane and tested for a leak, and lit her off.  The burners worked fine – the oven, which should be easier to light than the old one, will get tested soon.

The new Atwood gas range ready to go.

The new Atwood gas range ready to go.

It will be nice, wherever we are, to have the capability of baking or even broiling — and we can still use the oven for storing our cookware. Off to new maintenance/repair ventures.

Spring Break is Over – for the Airstream

When we get home from the Southwest, after negotiating our driveway and doing some unloading, we wait until the ground firms up and then park the rig — and forget it for a month or so. About two weeks ago, I moved it down to the only semi-level spot we have and now it time to start to tackle some of the many niggling items that I wrote down as we spent fifteen weeks living in it.

 

The Safari waits for repair work and local travel.

The Safari waits for repair work and local travel.

Of course, I’m always thinking about alternatives to the ’99 Safari and read advertisements weekly for newer and larger units. One week it is a longer unit with a slide out, for which we’d need a new truck, and likely, given our driveway, a new home. Then it is upgrading by about ten years to get more windows and less repairs but it seems that it’s mostly the same, just more expensive. So, we sit tight with our budget rig where we know it’s problems and attributes, and keep fixing and tuning things up.

We have had a vent/fan in our bathroom that has not worked for several years. The fan blade disintegrated after many years of use and the motor sounds a little suspect. So today, I visited our local parts dealer, Vintage Trailer Supply, to see if they had a replacement. This is not a “vintage” part per se but they had one in stock and I was in business. We are very fortunate to have this great outfit right in town — most of their sales are online but it’s neat to be able to talk with them in person.

This replacement fan unit should slide right into the opening for it.

This replacement fan unit should slide right into the opening for it.

My list of tweaks is fairly long: leaky faucet, loose shower stall, cabinet that needs gluing, new hangar for paper towels, and perhaps, a new back bumper. I’ll peck away at them this summer — and stop wasting time on want ads. This rig is just what we need for most of our traveling and is a known entity.

We plan to take it to Massachusetts this weekend while we visit Jen and her gang after too long an absence. Penny and I will boondock in the woods — it will be a good time to see what other fix-it items show up.

Getting Buff

One of the things I’ve noticed in the Southwest is the amount of car washing that goes on — cars and trucks are washed continually. There are small setups everywhere – no do it yourself but rather guys who tackle the job as a team. Here in the RV park, roving entrepreneurs will wash your rig or your vehicle for very reasonable prices. Needless to say, they are hard-working Hispanics. When I got a haircut the other day, the young barber said that next time, I could get my truck detailed while I got my hair cut — they had a guy to do that.

So when we arrived, we had by far the filthiest RV unit in the park. We had hit a lot of slush and grubby roads on our trip down from Vermont and the first time I had a chance to tackle the job was when we got settled here at Americana RV Park. You can’t use the potable water system for vehicle/RV washing but there’s an abandoned water system here that available. The water has a lot of minerals but it gets the caked mud and salt off leaving lots of spots and cloudy areas. That prompted me to start working again on polishing, not just for aesthetics but more for protection of the aluminum.

So far, so good.

So far, so good.

I brought my polishing supplies and equipment with me so for the last several days, I have spent an hour or two dabbing on polishing compound and buffing it out. The system I use has a coarse grit, a medium one, and a final polish. I’m working with only the medium stuff and it is slow going, and pretty dirty. I have to wait until people are up and about since the buffer is noisy, and need to finish before the sun gets too high and the temperature too hot — and a morning when I’m not birding or otherwise engaged — so it will be a slow process. It’s a pretty good upper body workout to wrestle with the buffer while balancing on a stepladder.

I’ve got about a quarter of the rig done and will do a little more here before we leave. It’s good to see the unit shine — just to know that it’s better protected. It also sets it off from the SOBs (Some Other Brand) that fill these parks — Airstreams are few and far between.

DIY Repairs

Owning an older Airstream is always an adventure, whether you are trying to find a leak in the roof, a mouse in a cabinet, or solution to a problem you yourself caused.  This is a short story of owner-caused damage and DIY repair.

You learn pretty fast that you need to know how to fix things when you travel with an RV of any type. I’ve repaired dents, replaced punky floor segments, and done many along-the-highway fixit jobs. This time, it was my back yard.

I was setting up the ‘stream on the back lawn for a few months and needed some planks to keep the wheels from sinking in and to level things out. As I drove on to a long plank, the tire caused the wood to swing up and bashed the rod to the grey water tank – tore the whole thing off. (I don’t have pictures because I was too mad a myself to think about getting a camera.)

The foot-long rod with its handle lie there, looking pretty lonesome, and the guide for it was pulled out by the rivets. I could, however, get a hold on the rest of the rod and pull it out.  I had visions of traveling with a Vise-Grip this winter.  First thing I did was to try to epoxy the old rod onto the remaining section.  Two days later, a test pull ended that experiment.

Some good friends of mine, Shawn and Helen, had recommended a local RV dealer who I had never visited. It’s a small mom & pop operation called M’s RV Sales & Service.

ValterraWI know that no outfit likes to work on grey or black water tanks and was dreading the visit but decided to go down and talk to them about options. What a breath of fresh air! As soon as I showed Marcel and Joanne the broken rod they not only made me feel better by saying, “We see lots of those,” but also came up with an easy solution — a rod extension kit.  Marcel gave me some ideas on how to proceed, how to deal with the rivet that was still on the other end of the rod, and sent me off with a “We like to work with owners that do their own work — give us a call if you get stuck.”

The fix went rather easy after the coaching – I was pleasantly surprised. I also was pleased to find a small dealer who will be a great “go to” person if I need one down the road. I might be calling him for repair advice from Florida this winter. Hopefully not.

I you are in the Central Vermont area, M’s is just south of Montpelier on Route 12. Good people, great service.

Some great customer service

I’ve had two situations this summer that sort of restored my faith in the integrity of RV equipment manufacturers.

The first involved the replacement of my trailer hitch. I have been using the ball and hitch that the previous owner used and I knew that the trailer was riding a bit nose high but there was no way to adjust things.  So I did some searching and purchased an adjustable hitch (Eaz-lift Bolt-Together Ball Mount Kit 48110) from a vendor (Makarios) to replace a fixed hitch.  The product I received looked fine and went together ok.

Eaz_Lift_48110_Ball_Mount_Kit__36351.1405460125.1280.1280

I was planning to use the weight bars (1000 pound) from my original unit were about 15 years old but in good shape.  As soon as I tried to hitch up the bars — even though the shaft opening looked the same size, the depth apparently wass not and the clips would not settle into the grooves of the bar. The bars just fell to the ground.

Screen Shot 2014-10-11 at 10.23.19 AMAfter some study, I figured that the depth of that opening had been shortened just a bit (probably a quarter-inch or less) with the new unit — so it looked like I was facing an additional $150 or so for a pair of bars.

I wrote to the folks at Makarios, who were great, and they had me email the manufacturer, Camco.  Within a couple of days, I got a call from Mike at Camco saying that he would ship a couple of new bars that would work.  Sure enough, within a week or two, the bars arrived and I put the chains on them, tried them out, and everything worked fine. I know Camco is an immense operation but this attention to detail really made me a fan of their products and their customer service.

My second experience involved the tongue jack whose difficult installation I chronicled last year. It worked fine, when it worked, but almost from the start, it would quit for a bit, and then decide to operate again. We took it across country to California last winter but it was always a little tense to see whether we’d have issues. Most of the time it was great but more than once, I had the truck and trailer jacked way up to install the bars and it died. A little rap on the head seemed to get it back running.

I had talked to Steve at Vintage Trailer Supply who sold me the unit — he talked to the company and told me that there was a two year warrantee. Well, I kept putting it off until a few months ago when it seemed to act up even more.  I called Ultra-Fab, explained the situation, and they said that they would send out a new one with return postage for the old one. Again, the new unit came shortly thereafter and the replacement was a snap (since I had done all the grunt work with rusty bolts last year.)

TJack

The new jack is great and has operated without incident.  It’s great not to have to hassle folks in situations like this — and I highly recommend the product (Ulta 3502 Electric Tongue Jack) and the company.

Installing the Refrigerator – Cool job

I ordered a replacement refrigerator from PPL, an outfit from Houston, and tracked its shipment to the Mid-west, then Manchester, NH, then to just across the river in Lebanon.  The delivery guy had a tractor-trailer and there’s no way he could make it to our house so I met him with my truck down by the highway and we looked the unit over.  It had some road rash from its journey all the way from China but nothing appeared serious so I accepted it and brought it home.

Reefer2AW

I got the packing off, used the moving dolly to get it over to the Airstream, and asked Mary to grab one end while I got it up through the door.  It was about 140 pounds and between the weight and the stonewall she had to maneuver against, we stopped that process.  I just slid it up, with her guidance, and after some maneuvering, got it into the recess — snug.

Reefer2BWI decided to test it before locking it in with bolts and screws and did so, hitching up the electrical and the gas line.  I opened the door and the light came on — a good sign.  After some purging of the gas line, that system lit off and I could hear the gas unit running.  We left it for a couple of hours and checked it later — cooler and still running.

The next day, I decided to load the old unit into to truck and dispose of it.  As I drove the back roads to the transfer station, I passed several old appliances out by the roadside — their owners hoping that someone would grab them for parts.  They’ll be there in July.

I told the woman at the entrance that my unit was dead, no fluids, but she said that “Our tech still has to certify it so that it would be $40.”  I didn’t hassle her but did say that I could see why folks dump them on back roads.  She agreed.   The tired 15-year-old reefer ended up with a host of old air conditioners, televisions, and refrigerators and hopefully will be recycled.

Reefer2CW

All in all, the installation was much easier than I expected — which is very unusual with my projects.  I’m really glad that we limped home with our dead unit, took our time to replace it, and did it ourselves.  No bruised knuckles or egos — a successful Mansfield event.

Replacing the Reefer — Episode 1

Our 15-year-old refrigerator died on us in Texas and we limped home tripping over coolers in the Airstream.  We also started with ice at $.99 for 20 pounds and saw the price increase to $3.75 for 10 pounds as we headed north, where banks of ice awaited us along our driveway.

Reefer1WAfter some research and reading, I decided not to screw around with repairs but instead replace the unit with a factory-new one.  And in the Mansfield tradition of never hiring someone when you can mess up the project yourself, I ordered a refrigerator and removed the old one yesterday.  It’s probably not a tough job — famous last words — but I read the manual, took some photos of wiring and fasteners, and went for it.  The unit weighs a little over 100 pounds but it fit through the door and I have a hand truck with which I could move it.  So we now have a refrigerator in our garage.

Reefer3WI am hoping that the new unit, when it arrives, will fit into the opening ok.  It should (and I should check the measurements as we prepare.)  I’ll likely need some help getting it into the Airstream and into place but then, the connections should (emphasis added) be rather easy. (I slid the old one out since it is toast.)

I have a go-to guy, my brother Barry, who has installed two refrigerators in his Airstreams so if I get into trouble, he’ll get a call.  He’s coming by today so I plan to pick his brain about finishing this task.  We’ll miss stumbling over the coolers as we move about the rig.  Stay tuned for the next, and hopefully final, installation episode.

 

Rig is Home Again

We have a large aluminum lawn ornament in front of our house after I moved it yesterday from its storage place downtown.

Hey, you're blocking the view!

Hey, you’re blocking the view!

Many thanks for our friends Shawn and Helen for loaning us some flat space beside their big rig while we waited a couple of weeks for the snowbanks to melt and the driveway to firm up.

We must have made a half-dozen trips to pick up items we’d left back at the Airstream and needed.  The worst was Saturday when I was baking bread — well, I wasn’t really baking because I had the dough through the three rises, the oven up to temp, and realized that the bread tins were eight miles away in the rig.  (Good preflight, as I love to say to others!)

I have a long list of items to fix, including the replacement of the refrigerator.  I’m starting with a leaky shower hose and a leaky faucet unit in the kitchen sink.  I picked up the parts today and will tackle the work in the morning.  Much of this can wait but it will be nice to tweak things in case we want to do some early summer camping.

Airstream2W

We’ll move the unit down to the only flat space on our property once we get completely unloaded and some of the major work finished.  Nice to have it home safely.

Trying To Chill Out

Back at Balmoreah State Park, I wrote about our string of calamities and promised to provide an update on our malfunctioning refrigerator. Here’s the update: it’s dead and probably needs a complete replacement. Got ice?

It began about the day, weeks back, when Mary bought a lovely group of yellow tulips for the Airstream. Even in their coffee mug holder, they were lovely until they began to emit a strong odor. We put up with it for a couple of days but then ditched them – but even wrapped in plastic, they smelled.

It wasn’t until later, in Lost Maples SNA, when I had a fellow camper, who has done a lot of rv fixing, take a look at the refrigerator unit. Since I had no power to the unit, he was going to check electrical circuits. He took one look at the scene shown below, noticing the yellow stain and the still-lingering smell of "tulips," when he said, "Your unit has corroded and all the ammonia is gone. It’s dead."

We discussed options which included:

*replace coolimg system with an Amish-overhauled unit. (He had done this with his and felt it was still penny-wise etc since you still had 15 year-old circuit boards.

*find a big RV outfit in San Antonio or Houston and see if they could install a new one.

*limp home and get a local rv outfit to do the work

*limp home and replace it yourself

I had an email exchange with my brother who has a lot of Airstream experience ans am leaning toward enlisting his brains and brawn and do it in Vermont. In the meantime we have a plan which is working.

We had no cooler with us so I bought one in the first Walmart we came to after Lost Maples – about 60 miles away. We used that, and the refrigerator, with ice.

Then, once at Goose Island, I found a cooler that runs on 12 volt power and so far, is doing well. (Friends have said that they burn out, don’t work well, but all it has to do is last three weeks more.)

We are at a place with $.99 ice so it’s only costing a buck every two days. We have quickly learned to buy less perishables, and shop more frequently. We miss the ice cream and have fond memories of the nearly-thawed pints of Ben & Jerry’s we had to trash, after stuffing ourselves, when the unit died.

I’m tempted, in the Vermonter way, to loosen the damn thing up and kick it out the Airstream door on a back southern road and keep driving. Thinking more rationally, I’ll end up hauling it a thousand more miles to East Montpelier, pay the disposal fee, and stay out of southern jails.