Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Not a Project - SKP

Sunday - Finally, not a project. Just a walk around the park. It was around 1.5 miles but completed the “circuit” before it started to rain. I’ve been running the propane appliances for the last couple of days and they all seem to be running fine. The water heater used to shut off prematurely but that seems to have stopped after cleaning. The rear furnace has been used all winter without any issues. 

Monday - Another walk after a Ural trip to H-E-B. The steering damper mod is working fine. The little bit of extra travel can’t hurt. I swung by the Hondo Medical Clinic to find out where the reception area is. I have an appointment this week. 

Today was a “meeting day”. A disaster preparedness meeting, two lot improvement committee inspections, and social hour at the clubhouse. Plus I went for another long-ish walk this morning. 

I ordered some supplies for another project. Generator maintenance. I need to pick up an oil drain pan. Too bad I didn’t pack one of the three in the garage. 

Tuesday - A couple of Ural trips to town this morning and led a couple of test sessions. Between it all, I changed the engine oil and filter on the Ural. No discoloration and no metal on the drain plug magnet. I also greased the U-joints for the sidecar drive. I’d call this a somewhat productive day…

Saturday, March 23, 2024

Even More Projects - SKP

Friday - It is a sunny, warm morning. Around 75°F at noon so about the ideal temperature to add more Dicor to the roof. It looks like there may be a small leak around the screws holding the rear-most solar panel. This one did not line up with a roof truss so I had tried to hit the top of the wall with a long screw. I was counting on the Sikaflex to make a good seal around the screw hole and hadn't added any Dicor. I now have Dicor self-leveling sealant around the perimeter of all of the plastic mounts and on the screw heads. The problem didn't occur until I had installed the tilt mounts and the plastic mount came loose. This is my best guess of the problem. No pictures of Dicor drying. I have other projects.

There were multiple updates for the laptop and the phone so I'm using the WiFi in the clubhouse. It's almost as fast as AT&T but more importantly, it doesn't use any of my limited quota. AT&T hotspot is limited to 100GB/month. And I usually get pretty close by the end of the month. The Mac OS update was almost 4GB.

During the afternoon test session, the wind picked up so I brought the awning in. After looking on WeatherUnderground, it looks like it will be windy for the next week or so. The high for today was 85°F! I had both A/C units running since around 1pm.

Saturday - The front furnace ran several times and not only did it light immediately but it was putting out more heat. All the bug carcasses limited the flow of propane. I think I need to make sure the vent hoses aren't clogged as the airflow through some of the vents seems really low. Since the burner on the furnace was clogged with insect carcasses, I checked the water heater burner. It had a few. Nothing like the furnace. 

One of the minor tasks was re-attaching the LVP flooring to the stair tread. Originally, it had two small finishing nails on one edge and the trim was glued with construction adhesive. The adhesive didn't stick really well and the LVP moved on the underlying plywood. I screwed the LVP and the trim in place with #6 wood screws with flat washers in addition to Gorilla glue.

There was even an opportunity for a Ural project. This the aluminum scrap I had found and used to replace the thinner aluminum piece I was using. I had just used the existing holes in the piece but it limited the travel of the hydraulic damper. By moving the mounting point a bit, it significantly increased the travel of the damper. I need to take a test ride now…

Thursday, March 21, 2024

More Projects - SKP

Wednesday - UPS delivered this yesterday. It is a drive-over cable protector for the propane hose. Neither the Ural nor the Jeep is that heavy but it’s rated for 11,000 lbs. The yellow part is hinged to position the hose or cords easily into the channels.

All the bits and pieces came in for me to allow the solar panels to lay down again. One of the panels has an additional piece of steel angle to reinforce the plastic mounts to the roof. And that steel angle prevents me from putting nuts on the bolt holding the panel in the lowered position. My solution is to install rivnuts on the mount to take the place of the nuts. And instead of just doing the one problem panel, I was going to do all of them. Including the panel supports. This means no wingnuts or other hardware to get lost. The picture was my test of the tool.  

I got a couple of the panels done before the afternoon test session. The rivnuts and the tool work. And the metric unibit was a good purchase as it made the perfect size hole for the M8 rivnuts.

I now have the solar panels flat on the roof again. This project is almost done.

Thursday -
The new burner head arrived today and I had it installed in about 15 minutes. The propane is back on and the thermostat switched to the furnace instead of the heat pump. We’ll see how well it works once it’s cooled back down. It’s 71°F right now.

The next project was installing rivnuts on the aluminum pieces used to hold the solar panels when tilted. These rivnuts are SS but weren’t much more difficult to install. I don’t plan to install them again while we are parked here. 

Still have more projects...

Tuesday, March 19, 2024

A Few More Repairs - SKP

Monday - Most diesel pusher motorhomes have a front door. Kind of like a bus. The area where the inside steps are would be a "hole" right in front of the passenger seat. To make it more comfortable for the passenger, there is usually some sort of cover to fill in the opening level with the rest of the floor. The cover for ours is fastened to the backside of one of the inside steps which can rotate to fill the opening. The six wood screws fastening the plywood cover to the step had pulled out and the cover no longer worked. I had to remove the vinyl plank flooring from the step and the underlying plywood had only two screws. I reattached the floor cover to the back of the step using the original six screws then added several more. 

I led two tests today while sitting outside our shed. It's not very warm today and it even rained B a bit. Between the test sessions, we drove south to Devine, TX. Bridget picked up a new pair of glasses at a small shop and we also did some grocery shopping at the Devine Walmart. I think it may have been even smaller than the one in Hondo.

The rivnut assortment arrived today. The hole for the rivnut needs to be pretty close to the outside diameter which is 11mm. A 7/16” drill is 11.1125mm which is too large. The drill bit arrives Wednesday so installation is put off for a couple more days. 

Tuesday - I knew that there was probably a mud dauber nest somewhere inside the furnace as the burner didn’t light every time. I found one next to the air intake for the burner. That sounds like a good candidate . I broke up the nest but the furnace still doesn’t start every time. I hear the igniter and smell propane in the exhaust but it’s not lighting every time.

Later - I pulled out the burner assembly from the furnace and found two problems. The first was a rusted out burner head. A replacement was ordered on Amazon. 

The second problem was a partially clogged jet. It was clogged with insect carcasses. How they got in there isn’t known but there were quite a few. I emptied out the tube after removing the jet. 

Not sure what they are but they had the jet pretty clogged.