Thursday, September 11, 2014

The End of RV Repair and Maintenance

Yesterday we went up to Corvalis to walk around.  The day was almost identical to the one we had in May.  I will link to that post here, rather than repeat it.  I will say that we still really like the restaurant, Baugette.
Today has been a day.  When we got up the wind was blowing so hard that the slide topper on the driver's side bedroom slide was looking like a sail.  We could not bring the slide in because the fabric could not roll up and we didn't want it folded up against the bus.  Since we've spent so much time at Elite RV Repair we now know you can drive an RV slowly with slides out.  So, we had to pull out and get the slide out of the wind so we could bring it in.  The spring was being overpowered by the howling wind.
Tuesday was fiberglass repair on the nose.  Wednesday was paint and clear coat on the nose.  Today was the rest of the list.  Here are Eric and Mark pouring 5 gallons of vinegar into the bucket.


For HOURS, the vinegar was pumped through the copper coil in the Hydro Hot.  I can not tell you how bad concentrating hot vinegar smells.  The RV was inside their building, and we were all just dying from the fumes.   A fair amount of scale came out of the coil.  Erik has suggested that we improve our external water filtration system.


See the white blob in the middle of the photo?  The white part of the tube used to go into that black cup in the background.  That's where the refrigerator condensate used to go.  


Now the condensate is run into the air conditioning drain tube, and will go over board to the ground.  This is better.   The doors on the refrigerator have been adjusted, but we don't yet know if they're sealing properly.  If they're not, then we may be done with this refrigerator.  We had a lot of time to look at the Samsung French door residential refrigerators they've been installing lately.  Nice, very nice.


Here is Erik blowing out the lines into the Hydro Hot after it was all done.


Another thing done today was to discover the cause of the steering wheel shake.  There were four loose bolts in the steering column.  Elite is the third place we've been with this problem.  He's the first person to drive the bus AND wiggle the steering wheel.  This is what we like about this shop, they don't stop and fix a symptom, they go for root cause of the problem.  We also have a new vacuum pump for the dash air conditioner. 
Tomorrow we are heading out.  For the first time since we've been RVing, we don't have a plan.  Our first RV park reservation is not until October 11.  This is a new thing for us, may the force be with us.

3 comments:

  1. Glad to hear you had another good experience with Elite; they have a good reputation and it sounds like they deserve it.

    I like the idea of no plan. It will be fun to see where you choose to go. I think the Oregon Coast would be calling me and maybe a stopover near Ashland to see a play and have breakfast at Morning Glory. We heard Winchester Bay has a great campground that is a favorite among some of our friends. Enjoy the adventure!

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  2. We too travel with reservations about 99.9% of the time (I think we are unusual in the RVing community), and it is strange when we don't have them. Hans gets really worried about finding a spot!

    I am glad we do not have slide toppers, they sound like more of a pain than not!

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  3. Sounds like a very successful repair trip!! It always feel good to have everything checked out and repaired. Allison, do you know if Elite does windows? Almost all of our windows are doing the fog thing. Since we are heading that way and we've heard good things about Elite, this may be the place to have them all repaired.

    Enjoy your new found freedom!! We rarely have reservations more than a week or two unless we know there will be a problem when we have to be there. We leave Banff Sept. 25th and have not a clue even which way we will go...haha!! But it will be warmer for sure!!!

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