Category: Updates

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Snowbirding

It’s been a while.  We’ve been busy – I know, sounds odd to hear from someone retired…or maybe we just get so stuck in our routines that it seems like we are busy.

Last post, we were about to leave Henry’s Lake State Park, headed south toward southwestern Utah.  We spent a couple of weeks in Hurricane (or as the locals pronounced it: Hurrican) near Zion.  Then moved on to an RV park in St George, just a few miles away.

Puppies…. Yes, we have two new puppies from the Humane Society in Wisconsin.  Deb and a friend made a mad dash across the country while we were still at Henry’s to pick them up.  We were told they were siblings and the DNA test we’ve had done confirmed they indeed are.  They are an exceptional pair, well-behaved, smart, cuddly, and beyond cute.  Here is a small sampling of the zillions we have on our phones.  Click the small image to see a full size.

 

 

 

 

As you can see, they are never very far apart.  Whenever we are gone, they lay on a doggie bed and watch for us in the “doggie window”.

I never quite finished the fender repair and now I think it will have to wait till we get back to Illinois (or more).  The sites here in Tucson are pretty close to be spray painting without upsetting the neighbors.  I have an area where the color is a bit mismatched and another area where the paint seems to be cracked (perhaps it was too cold when I painted) and the entire area needs a better clear coat once all the base coat work is done.  One has to look closely to see the defects, but it is WAY better than it was. 

While we were in St George (to be near our daughter’s family for the holidays), they moved from their motorhome to a fifth wheel.  We spent a lot of time helping them move in and customize their new RV; including building a three-high bunk bed for three of the four grand-girls. 

 

We are now in a 55+ park in Tucson till the end of March.  There is lots to do here – already have had the bikes out several times, including some trips with the dogs.  They didn’t like riding in separate baskets, so now they ride together in one basket.  We are still considering ways to keep them a bit more out of the wind as we ride.  

The list of RV repairs and mods seems to stay about as long no matter how many we take care of and check off.  The electric fireplace, which we use a lot, quit one day.  I managed to get it running again but since we are dependent on it to stay warm, we now have a new one.  The outside porch light has been replaced.  The old one had water incursion and half the LEDs had died.  The silicone caulking Tiffin used was impossible to get off – so I just purchased a physically larger light to install over the mess.  I’ve bought a new set of horns that are supposed to be louder than the facotry ones.  I need to install them.  And so on and so forth……

Oh, we finally purchased a Power Watchdog (hardwired) and installed it.  I tried twice to order from Amazon and twice they sent the wrong Watchdog model (corded instead of hardwired).  I then ordered from E-trailer and got the correct item at the same price.  I still need to install a new battery monitor shunt – the old one has lost its mind and says the same number of amps no matter what is going on.  

An RV detailer stopped by a few days ago.  He claimed he had someone cancel an appointment at the last minute and since our rig was the dirtiest one in the row, he made us an offer we couldn’t refuse.  The motorhome is now clean and shiny, saving me a 3-to-4-day job and lots of sore muscles.

I’ve also been working on a project.  At Henry’s someonepower box for telescope wanted to throw away an old E-bike.  We took it and I looked it over – it was quite trashed; almost nothing worth saving.  But it still had the battery.  With a zillion different randomly named e-bikes out there, the used battery probably wasn’t worth trying to find another bike owner to sell it to.  Besides I had another idea.  I have a telescope that needs several USB ports and two 12V lines to run the scope, cameras, focuser, and a laptop.  In the past, I  used a set of individual battery packs to run it all.  I realized I could repurpose the batteries from the bike.  (when near the RV I just used AC power, but I want to be able to take it away from civilization and city lights). Update: I’ve taken the scope et al to the edge of the park where I have a clear view of the sky and worked off the tailgate of the truck several times, on battery power.  It works great, though the seeing at the park isn’t very good.

Mike working on powerpack for telescope
Welding bus strips to batteries

I disassembled the battery and separated all the individual cells.  For a 48-volt plus battery, they put 12 cells in series, then place the series stacks in parallel.  Since I needed 12 volts, I needed to create groups of three or four, and then placed those groups in parallel.  I didn’t bother to measure the cells at first, and assumed four in series when three probably would have worked fine (these particular li-ions batteries charged up to 4.2 volts instead of 3.7).  I purchased interlocking plastic bits to hold the cells together, some nickel-plated strips, and a small battery spot welder and assembled the battery pack.  Then I ordered a fuse box, some panel connectors, meters, and a switch and found a small toolbox it would all just fit into. Finally, a charger spec’d to the voltage of my battery pack and a pair of voltage regulators to provide 12 volts to the scope and focus motor.  Everything else runs off USB ports, of which I have four.  There is room to add more, should I come up with morepower bank for telescope switch on. things to connect.  Testing is to commence shortly.  Sure, I probably could have bought something similar, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as educational or fun.  I am, after all, an old electrical engineer.  UPDATE: well I did add some more connections.  I tried running the iPad and Macbook off the USB ports and they just don’t have enough power, so I added 2 cigarette lighter-style ports and bought a 12V adapter for each of them.    I ran everything for 3 sessions each 2+ hours long and still had power left over so I imagine I could run an all-night session and be good to go.  I also discovered the toolbox cover isn’t rainproof……

On the to-do list: install balance beads in the front tires to see if it corrects what appears to be a balance issue at 55-60.  Replace the awning lifts which sometimes don’t operate correctly.  We bought a new tow bar – all the options for fixing/upgrading it just were too much hassle.   Install a new Battery Monitor Shunt on the house batteries  (we now have a new Brooklyn Bedding Mattress and I have to upgrade the lift cylinders on the bed to accommodate the heavier mattress). UPDATES Balance beads installed – boy was that a pain coaxing the beads in through a valve stem. They do seem to have helped. The new tow bar seems to be working – now the RVIBrake is having fits for unrelated reasons. The Battery Monitor is still waiting. The awning strut was replaced (pain in the but), but it works better now and it turns out the old one was the source of the horrible noise when we closed the awning. New lift cylinders were installed on the bed. Oh, horns. Two problems with the factory horns: 1 – the horn buttons on the steering wheel were difficult to find the right spot and took lots of pressure. 2 – the horns were not very loud and were mounted high in the engine compartment on the driver’s side. So, I ordered a pair of louder horns, a high-current 12V relay, and a couple of push-button switches to try. I pulled the center steering wheel cover off to see if I could make the buttons easier to push – but it is all molded together and thus inaccessible. I pulled the horn wire connector off, drilled a hole top center of the cover, and installed a 3/4″ RED push button. Out under the hood, I used the Ford horn wire to operate a relay with power right off the battery (yes I always use a fuse) and mounted ALL FOUR HORNS just below the radiator pointing out the front. They do make a lot of noise and Deb did need to use them once on the way home.

Till next time.

Mike

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Some semblance of Normal

When I last wrote, there was a long list of things that weren’t working/going well. The broken tow bar, roof leak, mashed fender, etc.

Well, the tow bar seems to be working fine. The roof isn’t leaking despite unusually heavy and frequent rain where we are staying (more on where later). Oh, the third RVlock was also having issues. I diagnosed it that the bar that operates the latch was bent. Once I straightened it, the lock has worked fine.

I had spent some time looking for body shops for thefront left fender damage RV – but there simply wasn’t anything out here. Not that we wanted to be out of the RV for the week it probably would take to fix it. The last fender we had repaired (much less damage from some lady in a gas station) took two days, and then we had to go back for the Diamond Shield. Thus we chose to do the repairs myself. Click -> to see the detailed damage.

I had done a lot of bodywork in my life – but mostly the kind where Bondo is being used to smooth out damaged metal. This repair job was fiberglass that had 10 breaks. One of the things I discovered when I took a better look at the fender was there was a large crack in the lower middle – where nothing hit it. Looking behind I could see there was a fiberglass patch, poorly installed in that area either at the factory or where the front cap was made. Lots of Bondo had been put on the outside of the front cap as well.  The twisting stress from the accident caused the damaged area to open up.

I reviewed my “fiberglass repair skills” on YouTube. It really CAN be a good resource so long as one is discerning. Time to order supplies: TotalBoat epoxy, mixing cups and sticks, small cheap brushes for application, a good mouse electric sander, a supply of sandpaper for the mouse as well as for hand sanding. I ordered two different thicknesses of fiberglass (single layer and mat), and a large duffle bag to put all that and some additional tools I would need. I had no place to store all this when it was raining, so I put a tarp under the front of the RV and I’d push the bag underneath when I wasn’t working.

Oh, and I tried several goo removers – the RV has Diamond Sheild on the lower front; a dense plastic film that is supposed to limit rock chip damage.  It can be peeled off with a little heat but leaves a nasty glue behind that almost nothing dissolves (I even tried gasoline, which did work).  Several hours went into a tedious cycle of application, waiting for the goo remover to work, then scraping.  In some cases the goo was simply sanded away, sacrificing sandpaper in the process.

When fiberglass breaks, the edges shred. It is like when cardboard is torn – it won’t go all the way back together, so each of the breaks needed to be cleaned up so the pieces could be put back in the correct place.   I first sanded down the inside and outside edges to give the epoxy clean access to the underlying fiberglass.  Then I ran a hacksaw blade between the damaged edges to cut off some of the frayed fiberglass so the sides would fit back into their proper alignment.  

Also, there is a metal U-channel support behind the fender that was “glued” across the joint between the front cap and the fender. It took me about 6 sessions of several hours each to straighten the support, clean up the torn edges, and epoxy the damaged sections together.  inside view of fiberglass repairsOn the back, I used mostly the thick fiberglass mat and epoxy to reinforce the damaged areas. On the front side, I added multiple narrow strips of single-layer fiberglass across the cracks.  Once everything had been reconstructed, work then moved on to Bondo and spot putty to smooth the outer surface.  I used a combination of a metal ruler and my hand to identify low spots; marking them with a pencil and then adding filler.  I used a foot-long 1×2 with sandpaper wrapped to even out everything.  Once I could see that this process was going to lead to a satisfactory repair, I ordered paint from PaintScratch.com. Their database was incomplete – I had to choose several different years of Tiffin motorhomes to find the three different paint codes I needed. I also ordered some primer and clear coat paint. With this automotive-style paint, the colors are sprayed on in multiple light coats.  Then when finished a clear coat is applied (in a similar manner) which is then polished to a shiny finish. PaintScratch supplied 12-ounce spray cans whose sprayers worked surprisingly well.

I think the one thing I failed to get was a better quality masking tape as I had some issues with the stripes – paint leaking under the tape.  I had to respray a number of edges to get clean lines. The most time was spent trying to get the surface as smooth and clean as possible. Some of the smaller defects didn’t show up until the first layer of finish paint was applied.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The headlight is now reinstalled and several layers of clear coat have been applied, but the surface is still “too orange peel” and needs further work (at the next long-term RV park, hopefully).

To recap – our insurance probably would have covered this repair, minus a $500 deductible.  Our rates surely would have gone up.  I spent less than that buying paint, tools, and supplies.  And most importantly, we didn’t have to leave our RV for a week to get it repaired. 

In other news – we have been working at Henry’s Lake State Park in Idaho.  It is only about 20 miles from West Yellowstone and thus Yellowstone National Park.  For three days (each) of light and sometimes interesting work a week, we get a full hookup site – and coincidentally a place to work on a broken fender.  

We’ve made a number of trips to Yellowstone as well as other local parks.  That is another advantage of this arrangement, 4 days off a week and lots of time to explore.  We even climbed Mt Washburn in Yellowstone.  

Oh, and two small doggies will be joining us soon.  Pictures and names coming in the next blog.