As it has been a while since I posted last, this writing will include several things that I have been keeping myself busy with over the course of the last few weeks. As I write this something a good friend and well versed individual once told me is “rv’s are not meant for full time living”. He is right in part as if you are to take on such an adventure be prepared for some repair time spent on the rig keeping it in order. Now with that said what have I been up to now that we are as I call it “Stationary”.
One of my tasks has been to start a reassessment of how to lock down the many cabinets and doors in the rv. As you may have read we suffered a minor setback upon arrival here in Yuma. We found that several cabinet doors had come open during this leg of the trip dumping contents onto the floor, a door that separates the living room from the bedroom had come loose pulling out several screws and bending the roller assembly. A couple of drawers came loose causing damage to them and it seems I also managed to put a dent in the dually’s box rail as well by the center rail tie down.
How did this happen and even more importantly, what have I as a newbie learned from the experience. Making tight turns on uneven ground are a huge no-no causing the clearance between the hitch pin box and the trucks box side to become not existent. Hence the dent and the kind of rocking of the rv to have magically jared every thing open.
Ok as I am not about to attempt to repair the truck box I will concentrate on securing and repairing cabinets and doors.
First off I removed the sliding door between the living room and bedroom loft as it had not been secured enough from the factory and the sliding mounts to the door had come loose and banged around and had gotten bent. I pulled off the attaching brackets and using two pair of pliers managed to straighten both to their correct configuration. Next I moved the brackets to new locations because the screws had come loose. Then I pre-drilled pilot holes then fastened them back to the door using the new screws. Then with the help of my wife we reinstalled the door on its track and then adjusted it for movement and alignment along the sides.
The draw bottoms that came loose were held together with small brads which pulled out. Now I am not going to mention that they are possibly over weighted with content. We are living full time and so are carrying everything we need. I had some small screws with shoulders that I predrilled into the drawer bottoms and now have the bottoms screwed down making a much better hold and support. (special note here I plan on doing this to all the drawers in the cabinets)
One of the cabinets has pull out drawers and both were sprung during the issues above. I straightened the slides on one and used the same screws to repair the bottom of the drawer as well as adding screws to front of the drawers facing. I also plan on doing this to the other as well.
Cindy and I have spent some time in rv stores (a lot of them here) looking at better ways to secure the cabinets for travel. There are several solutions out there but most quite frankly are no better than what is on them now. Cindy did find some positive outside cabinet door locks that she feels will work well, but we still need a good solution for the draws and sliding door.
We have also looked at every stop for a manual electrical transfer switch to replace the auto switch I have had problems with but it seems no one stocks them. So as long as we now have a mail service one was ordered and should be here in a few days.
Our latest adventure has given us a chance to become intimately familiar with the supply side of the rv’s propane distribution system. As you may or may not know just as the rv has two electrical systems (in my case three counting the solar). It has redundant heating, (furnace and hot water) and cooling, (refrigerator) systems running on ether electric or propane.
Before we left we noticed that the connecting hoses to the twin propane tanks on board were very stiff so we replaced them with new ones. At first all was working well but then things started going down hill as it was noticed that it seemed harder and harder to get the fuel to switch from tank to tank as time has gone on.
Redundancy is a very important part of rving as mentioned above we also have multiple ways of heating the rv and for good reason as you will find out by reading this next section.
Late in the day before Thanksgiving one of my propane tanks ran out and when I went to manual switch the supply over to the other tank fuel at the regulator propane refused to flow form the known full spare tank. After some trial and error I swapped it out with another tank (I keep a total of 100 lb. of propane when all the tanks are full) and at first it seemed to work. Then later that night disaster hit and the fuel delivery system shut down completely again. We do have a heating backup system and as it was late and Thanksgiving was the next day I had to piece meal my time working on the problem. And to add just a little more adventure to my dilemma the system worked periodically and then would not. I pulled up a plethora of knowledge on the internet and began learning about the components of the system.
On a side note, I learned that even the caps that screw to the valve on the propane tank have safety valves in them. And that the regulator brings down the liquid propane pressure from a high of between 100 to 250 psi (depending on application) down to 10 psi, has a valve specific mounting orientation and a moister release system built into its body.
Ok well after chasing this all down and finding at best it was only working some of the time I proceeded to remove all the hoses and valves and start over from scratch. What was found after doing this was that condensation had caused the cross over pipe leading from the spare tank to the regulator to plug with a calcium build up. This had contaminated not only the hoses but also the regulator and safety valves thru out the system.
First thing needed was to find a way to blow the calcium contamination out the supply pipe. Now I have a small compressor for tires but it does not have a revisor tank to build up air pressure in. So by rigging a temp hose from my truck spare tire to one side of the line and using my finger to block off the other side it build up pressure and then releasing my fingers caused a flow of high pressure to escape which eventually cleared the line.
Then the propane regulator was replaced with an auto switching unit (yea! no more getting up in the middle of the night to change supply tanks), as well as all the hoses and safety valves in the system. We now have a higher efficiency burning stove as well as furnace. And did I mention I no longer need to get up in the middle of the night to switch over the tanks as the auto switch takes care of that task now as well.
As the manual electric transfer switch has gotten here today I took the time to set up and test out my three systems before installing the new switch. All of which, shore power, generator and solar worked well. So now with a little revamping the auto switch will be replaced with the manual one and the electrical systems should be working as expected.
One more quick note before I sign off. The things I write about may sound overwhelming to some but are really nothing more than expected maintenance with an rv being used for full time living and travel. We have met multiple neighbors while camping with new rigs that have had major problems and they have just left the rv lot so I consider my self blessed that I have 1. and older rig and 2. as few and simple to solve problems that we have had.
Ok so back to retirement. It a good thing I am so I can keep up. Mark Benton
who says retirement has to be boring
ReplyDelete