Tag: repairs

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More Air Conditioning….

In my last post, I talked about swapping out a broken air conditioner. The new one is still working and working fine. Since it came with a new white cover, I managed to sell my old cover on FV Marketplace – probably for not enough money ($50) because on the first day of the listing I had 5 or 6 people wanting to buy it. Still, it’s not in the garage taking up space anymore.

While I was dragging the old rear AC out, I noticed just how dirty the evaporator coils were (condenser too). I change the vent filters regularly – and apparently, a lot of dirt gets by them because the evaporator coils were about 25% covered with dirt. I researched and bought some better filters so in a few weeks, I’ll see if they are doing a better job of catching Illinois field dirt. (Update – they do work well)

But back to the story – since the rear AC was that dirty, I figured I better clean the front unit as well. I gathered up my air compressor, the extra water hoses, my electric screwdriver, etc., etc. etc. plus the extension ladder. Whenever I might have to go up and down several times, I would rather use a real ladder instead of dragging things up the ladder on the back of the RV. When I have lots of stuff to take up, I’ll toss it all in a bag, tie a light rope to it, climb up with the rope looped around my arm, and then from the top, pull the bag up. Lots safer than trying to carry stuff up while climbing.

So, I disconnected my forward-looking camera and removed the AC cover. I used the hose the spray out the condenser coil from both sides. The water from there drains out on the roof so it’s not a big deal and I can see how dirty it is (not a lot). Deb tends to run the rear AC more than the front, perhaps that is why. Then I pull the Reflectix off the cold box, remove the screws and open it up. The “cold box” is where air is pulled up from the RV ceiling, pulled through the cold evaporator, and pushed back down into other ceiling ducts and back into the RV. Years ago when we changed from black covers to white, I also put a layer of Reflectix on that box. I figured why put a black cover over the AC which is trying to get rid of heat and why not put an extra layer of insulation over the part of the AC that is handling inside, cooled air?  Every  RV  air conditioner  I  have opened up also has this problem.  The wiring is a large rat’s nest right in the airflow.  So I stop and tie-wrap it neatly tuck in\t out of the way.  The next thing I found is the foam separator that is supposed to keep the warm room air on one side of a divider and the cooled air from the evaporator on the other side, which has two gaps about 4 inches wide that are missing.  So more foam and some aluminum tape to seal those off.  

Then I closed up the cold box, retaped the Reflectix, and installed the cover – wait – they put two foam pieces in the back of the cover so hot air exiting the condenser coils can’t recirculate back around the coil.  And, the foam they use isn’t UV resistant, so it’s pretty much dust after 5 years, so I cut and installed new foam, then the cover, reconnected my forward-looking camera – and all done.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we have been selling and giving away stuff by the truckload.  We hope to sell next spring – so much stuff collected in 50 years!!!

mike

 

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Updates in the sun, mostly….

We are parking in Tucson till the end of the month – then another nearly two weeks at another park in Tucson before we begin the trip home.  We’ve enjoyed this park (Rincon RV East).  We have spent time in the lapidary and the wood shop here working on a project (future reveal).  We’ve visited both Saguaro parks, zoo, aircraft museum and many more.  We’ve even done a bit of prospecting and metal detecting.  Just before we left Rincon East park, I also replaced the vinyl on the 32SA entrance door.  This is a common problem.  Partly poor glue, partly vinyl that shinks in the sun.  It is about a two hour job but was successful.

Having made several trips to the Rock shows in Tucson, Debbie got the idea to create new sconce lights for the living room area (we never liked the lights that the RV came with, nor the ones we replaced those with.

working on backlights  

Rover sconce lights shade valance couch

The pictures here are those lights in progress.  The stones are red and green agates and me building an LED backlight.  This last picture is the final installation along with our new shade picture.

I’ve also done a bit of refrigerator repair.  We have a residential refrig.  Last week we discovered a skating pond in the bottom of the freezer.  It was coming from the ice maker which was, strangely, making hollow ice cubes.  None of this made any sense.  I defrosted it and discovered the tube that dumps water into the ice cube tray was frozen solid.  Only the tube was just an extension and the part it connected to had a gap on top, so water ran down behind the plastic back of the freezer.  I cleaned it all up, put it back together – and made sure it was making the first batch of cubes fine.

Two days later – another ice-skating pond with everything in the bottom of the freezer frozen in place.  I turned it off – took a long look at the freezer and thought about it for a day.

So, I grabbed the step ladder and cleaned the freezer out, putting it all into a freezer bag and turned the refrigerator all the way down so I could work on it.  I removed the ice maker and found the fill tube frozen again.  There were also vents down below the ice maker that had ice coming out of the bottom of them.  That meant I had to pull the entire back panel out of the freezer.  8 screws behind little plastic covers held it in.  It was clear from minor damage to these plastic clips someone had previously taken this apart – and it wasn’t me.

Behind this panel was a fan and the evaporator coil that cooled the freezer (and probably the fridge too).  On the left side, under the ice maker fill tube was a waterfall of ice.  The fill tube turned out to be a plastic tube with the top cut open, then another flexible tube pushed over it. Thus, if the attached tube froze, water would spill out of the top of the first tube and run down onto the evaporator.partially melted ice dam

But why?  I could defrost all the ice, but I couldn’t put it all together unless I could figure out why.  Here is my thinking:  A few times in the past, the freezer door got left slightly open, the last time was just a couple of days before we noticed the first frozen puddle.  Also – the vents below the ice maker were a bit misshapen. They had been a bit melted; more open at the top than the other three sides.  Between that and the ice covering the bottom of those vents caused a higher velocity air flow up right were the fill tube was, freezing it.  It also directed air away from bottom of the ice maker – meaning it didn’t freeze the cubes all the way before it dumped.

At least that was all I could figure.  I used my heat gun to soften up the vents and straightened them out and went to put it all together.

bracket that holds ice maker fill tube with popped screwI had removed the extension tube from the fill tube and I pushed it back on – and pop!  The fill tube pushed backward out of the refrigerator.  Now if this was at home – I’d just slide the refrigerator out and fix it.  This is an RV and the refrigerator is mounted 20 inches off the floor.  I went outside to look up in the small gap between he outside wall and refrigerator.  There is no way to get my head in there, so I shine a bright flashlight up there and take my phone at high zoom and found this.

Sigh…..  A discussion ensued.  Deb suggested hemostats, which worked.  I reached through the extension and grabbed a hold of the fill tube to hold it while I pushed the extension on.  Then I added silicon around the tube to hold it in place.

It is a couple of days later I write this and so far, all is well.

Of course, it never ends.  I saw a quote the other day on Facebook:  “The only thing that always works on an RV is the owner.”  For sure.  When we raised the jacks, water poured out of the bottom of the right water bay.  Looking around – I figured out the puddle was on top of the grey tank… what?  I got my inspection camera out and examined the top of the tank and determined the leak was coming in from above, right where the two sink drains came down.  I went upstairs and opened the inspection board in front of the toilet and searched and felt around – as far as I could see the drains were dry.  A lot of feeling around and I realized there was a bit of water sitting on top of some foam, which came from a fresh water line that was hardly even wet but hard water stains on it – which went up to the back of the toilet where I found a clamp that wasn’t quite clamping.  At the time, only a tiny weep of water was coming out so I presume some other factor caused it to leak more at other times.  I tightened the clamps and have rechecked it over 24 hours and it’s still dry.

Yesterday we awoke to over three inches of snow.  Yes, in Tucson.  We drove through Saguaro East and took a zillion pictures.  The snow was all gone by noon.