RV Maintenance

Greetings Earthlings! Have you seen reports of the snow falling in Alaska? One poor town has received 18 feet. Ina in Alaska posted a video of her dog in the back yard, of particular interest to me was the height of the snow piles she has created while making paths for the doggoes.  Alaskans are tough. Here we are not so tough. Friday was a halcyon day, we rode with the Rincon bike club north, then south with a stop for coffee by the UofA. Just delightful in every dimension. 

When one buys a Class A, one resigns oneself to the fact that there will be maintenance on a scale hitherto unknown when one owned a 5th wheel. Class As have significant systems. Here is the battery system. On the left are the two chassis batteries (which are dead as door knobs). On the right are the house batteries, two out of four are dead. The wiring is shoddy, with insufficient gauges used, and done incorrectly. And then there was the corrosion. Current will not flow through corroded cables. Everything had to be removed to the waste bin.

Here is Ken of Cameron's Reliable. It took about 2.5 hours to fabricate and install new cables, which involved cutting them to length, attaching connectors, and then shrink wrapping the connectors to the cables. It was a lot of work. I had no idea what would be involved in redoing the batteries.

Here are the new lovely batteries. These will not leak or corrode like the old ones. They require no maintenance what so ever. Notice the difference in the cable runs. Ken's work is very, very good.

We also had maintenance done on the Hydro-Hot (the thing that burns diesel to make hot air and hot water), which was way overdue. This is one of the items that the dealer said he had done as part of the pre-delivery inspection (which we paid for), but didn't. Dealers! If their lips are moving, they're lying. Those batteries had been bad for awhile. Oh yes, battery inspection was another pre-delivery item. I think the person who owned the RV before us lacked situational awareness. We discovered that at some point he moved the RV forward, jamming the gravel guard into the ground with enough force to unbend an I-bolt, and a big one at that. Anyway, we now know why the bay doors hit the slide and won't open. The slide is retracting ever so slightly, which causes it to droop. Ken thinks the solenoids are fried. We're taking the RV to Premier RV to get the solenoids replaced. The hydraulic pump for the slides is under the RV and Ken would rather not spend time under it, and risk being crushed. I do not blame him. Premier has a pit and can do the work safely. Sunday morning was cold. Yes, I know, I am a weather wimp and should be banned from using the word cold. We set out on a hike at about 11:00 and I was cold! It was 50 degrees with a stiff breeze. A heavier shirt would have been good. We set a blazing pace uphill and eventually warmed up. It was a gorgeous day in the Old Pueblo.

We stopped for water this afternoon. I get the biggest kick out of this group on D street. They're out in the street chatting almost every day about 4.

In other news, I'm locked in mortal combat with Medco, who is our drug insurance company. I'm pretty sure I'm done with drugs by mail. Getting them locally may cost more, but at this point I have two hours of cell phone time dedicated to trying to get them to replace a lost order. There may be a follow on post about them with a timeline and quotes from the various and sundry people with whom I have spoken. May remains at Wyatt House and has not dialed 911 yet.