MOTORHOME MODIFICATIONS *A* and New Bookcase

Well, I am thinking that I need to get more motorhome stuff and RVing stuff in my blog.  Since we do not plan to go anywhere yet this winter (I think) I am pretty sure things will get boring for my blog readers.  Since so many folks are visiting my blog posts (past and present posts) I thought I would change things up around here. I get a lot of requests for modification and repair blog topics.

I am going to start off the new year with posting three of our motorhome modifications at a time. I will post repairs, modifications, or neato things we have found for RVing.  I have lots of pics in my files so I will do them in alphabetical order.

Underneath that stuff, I will post my regular daily stuff..... kinda sorta fun, eh?

So here it goes:

MOTORHOME MODIFICATIONS 

STARTING WITH THE LETTER A 

Adapting the Air Conditioner Air Flow- 

One hot summer day, while minding my own business, and sitting in the totally hot motorhome in the basking sunshine....  The air conditioning was helping some, but the air conditioners blow out straight to the front and rear along the ceiling of the coach. We noticed that on such humid hot days, we were not feeling much comforting cool air sitting down below it. 

My darling husband stood up and went outside to his handy dandy tool compartment.  He walks back in with a drill and a big hole saw bit.  He reached inside the little fin openings of our roof air conditioner and wiggled his fingers around a bit. He grinned.  He turned off the air conditioner.  Then he stuck that hole saw up against the outside housing and started to DRILL A FREAKING HOLE in our air conditioner surround!   

Yup.. he sure did!  I grabbed the camera to document his temporary insanity!  

Look at that!  A big huge gaping hole in our air conditioner surround!  He smiled and turned the air back on and voila.... a big blast of cool air came down into the motorhome's livingroom! It was instantly cooler feeling on us to have the air blowing down.

Next, stealing the idea from our Safari-owning friend Mel, Steve took the inside housing off and rivited on a slider vent grid. Mel gave him that too. Now he can control the flow of air if we do not want it blowing full blast, or partial flow, or shut it off. Of course it still has the original side grid openings to use as intended.

Screwing it back on, and feeling pretty proud of himself, I should think. 

 Hahhahaaaa

What a great improvement!  I think Steve should be a consultant to the Duo Therm company on how to improve the air flow with their rooftop air conditioners!

We did notice (in the past before we did this improvement) that if we closed off one end of the air conditioner vents and try to blast it all out the other side, then a condensation effect on the inside metal housing shoots darkened particles across the ceiling carpeting, causing greyish streaks on the carpeted ceiling.  The only thing that cleaned them off was Fantastic Oxy Power cleaner. Since doing this alteration we do not get that grey streak build up anymore. P.S. Whomever thought creamy white carpeted ceilings in a motorhome was a good idea should be shot! 

Twist Lock Adaptor from 50 amp plug to a 15 amp service- 

We bought this device from an RV camping store not long after we first bought the diesel pusher with those big huge 50 amp twist lock power cords.  It runs around $40.00 or so. Many times we want to just plug in our rig in our yard before leaving to run the fridge, load up, or vacuum after a trip.  Hauling out that huge 50 amp service cord 25 foot long, it is a huge heavy SNAKE!  Weighs about 20 pounds and is pretty unwieldy and stiff. Since the garage only has 15 amp service, we had to use a small adapter at the receptacle end anyhow.  Why not use this instead with a good heavy 12 gauge cord? Also, our big thick 50 amp cord is not laying out enticing copper thieves... They are quite pricey to replace... in the $150-175 range. Yes, that year we bought this, some thieves at a nearby RV dealer uncoiled all of the cords on travel trailers and some motorhomes and cut them off to sell for the copper!  ACK!  

We are not sure how many thieves this deterred, but it makes life easier when just needing to plug into regular household 15 amp service. 

Air Filter for a 3126 Cat diesel engine- 

This isn't really a modification so to speak.  But I thought I would post what an air filter looks like for a big ole diesel engine!  How many folks realize that our big old motorhomes need such huge air filters?  They run in the $125 range.   We used to change them fairly often, about every 10,000 miles.

There is a handy dandy little air filter minder gauge that tells you how dusty your filter is and how low the air flow is getting, indicating that it needs to be changed with a new one. We do drive on some gravel roads that kick up dust, and since the air intake is at the back of a diesel motorhome, it can mean changing air filters even more often. 

HINT---- DO NOT BANG YOUR AIR FILTER ON THE GROUND THINKING YOU CAN KNOCK OUT THE DUST AND USE IT AGAIN.... OR BANG A NEW ONE BEFORE INSTALLING.  Doing so can knock loose the paper folded inside fins and allow dirt INTO your delicate engine, and ruin it. 

 (that is called a ''dusted'' engine, thus needing to be rebuilt!) 

In my next blog, I will post about a modification that Steve (and Mel) did 

to our Safari Motorhomes to help the prevent the amount of dirt coming into air intake

 and how to change the air filter less often! 

That is my cliffhanger to my modification posts.....

~~~~~~~~

Now on to my normal blog yammering.  I know you are probably sick and tired of hearing about Steve's retirement. But.... actually today is very first OFFICIAL day of being retired. His last scheduled day to be a State of Wisconsin employee was Dec. 30. He was just burning up unused vacation days from the 22nd until now. He could have taken them as cash payout, but that is subject to taxes. Might as well burn them up in time off, right?  

This is how he is experiencing his first day of retirement:

-Sleeping in till 7:45 a.m. when he is usually at work by that time.

-Yacking with my brother on Facebook Video Chat (a first time for both of them!)  

-Then I made him breakfast and served him on his ''throne''... hahahaha

-Moccasin slippers on his feet

-Internet on his laptop to search for bargains on Craigslist and Facebook

He spent the day doing computer stuff, house hold stuff, and suffering yet from a cold.

 He is now watching PBS This Old House while I am typing this.

On my end, I am happily sorting out and stacking some of my current quilting projects on a new shelf that he found for me on the local Buy Sell Trade Facebook pages. Always looking for a good deal, he found me this set of shelves that fit perfectly on the narrow wall in my sewing room. 

I finished the free motion quilting stitching on my newest motorhome quilt. I will post pics of that huge one when I get the binding done in the next few days.

I also sewed up 4 or 5 more blocks for my newest quilt in progress, a log cabin quilt in all of my favorite colors! Peaceful afternoons are spent in my sewing room on my treadle sewing machine, making up fun creations.

Well, supper is done, (lasagna!)

Gotta go! 

Motorhome Modifications - THINGS TO DO WHILE TRAPPED INDOORS

Wisconsin weather has been just crazy lately.  Over the weekend it had been in the 90's, very hot and horribly humid!   (as I type this on tuesday morning, it's windy and cool at 52 degrees)

We spent Sunday afternoon out in the motorhome where it's parked in the driveway.  The motorhome is sitting out in the full sunshine, sweltering in the heat just like us.  We are only connected with a power cord to the garage's 20 amp service, which means we can only run one air conditioner at a time.

That was fine while we were laying the bedroom area with the door closed, only cooling with the bedroom air conditioner.  We took nice long naps, recovering from the weekend of babysitting the wee ones.  That sure was a well deserved nap!  

But then we wanted to move forward to the livingroom area to sit in our recliners, browse on our laptops and let Steve watch a stupid man's movie, Die Hard 2.  

We turned off the back air conditioning unit over the bedroom and fired up the front one in the livingroom to cool that area off.   It was the hottest part of the day and unit works well, but only blows the air out the end vents, one  vent to the front windshield area and one vent to to the kitchen.   Not much air movement goes directly below in the livingroom by our chairs.

Sooooo after a while, Steve pipes up:  "I'M GONNA DO WHAT MEL DID!"   and off he goes to get his power drill and a 2 1/4" hole saw!!!!!!   With some careful measuring and checking... he drilled a hole right through the underbelly of the air conditioner!

 (it's just a layer of plastic and soft insulation -  no metal)

Amazing! The nice cool air blasted right down on us in the middle of the livingroom!   Now we can sit in our recliners and feel more comfortable than before.  

Yes, our brainy modification friend, Mel, with the same type of motorhome as us, had done this quick fix to his AC unit too.   We will get a little vent plug to put in the hole to cover it up when not in use, but I think while using it, we will just pull the vent plug out to not impede any of the air flow.   Thanks Mel for giving Steve this wonderful idea!


While we were "trapped" inside the motorhome for the day, it was a good time to go over what we had in each cabinet, and what we planned to bring into the rig.  I also took out a bunch of stuff we were not going to want along when we move into the rig full time next month.  Steve is hauling a batch to St. Vinnies next week.  We planned and thought and figured and thunk!   Got most of our things settled in our minds of what is going where in our rig.


When Safari built our motorhome, they included a Delco Electronics 10 disc CD changer unit along with a surround sound.  We used it and it works well.   But in the age of new technology, I have put all of our CD's onto a little MP3 player, we really don't ever use the 10 disc CD player unit at all.  The mp3 player hooks right up to the surround sound speakers and sounds just as good.    Plus, I can now random among 200 CD's instead of just 10 for a variety of music.

I offered the 10 disc changer for free plus the price of shipping to anyone in our Safari group on yahoo http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/SafariCoaches 
One member asked for it, as his was sticking and not operating properly.  It was easy to remove the deck unit, just unplug the cords leading to it.  But then we thought about the wired in remote unit and the cords that went to the radio.... what if he needs those too?  What if this one is not compatible with his cords?  We should give him the cords, right?   His rig is a little newer than ours, what if Safari changed styles of units from year to year?   We figured it was best for us to remove any and all cords to include with the unit when we shipped it out.

Ahhhhh but one of those cords went down through the side post between the front windshield and side window.   We THOUGHT it would be a quick removal, take off the padded cover and slide the cord out.   But noooooooooo!   That cord was wire-tied to bundles of other wires in about 10 places.  Mind you, wire ties are usually easy to snip, but not these!  Safari used some very very good plastic wire ties!~   Even a scissors was not able to snip them, so Steve had to carefully use a very sharp knife and be sure to not cut any other wires.  Two of the bundled areas were up above the driver's area and hidden way up behind the tv cabinet.  Not accessible from the compartment panel behind the tv either.  Steve found the best position to reach them to work on undoing the wireties.......

(can you imagine if anyone was walking past our house to see this?) 

Finally we got the cord snipped free from the top cabinet to where it went down behind the dash.  Next part: follow the cord between all the wires, vent hoses, and assorted junk under the dash.  It was a like following a single piece of noodle in a plate of spaghetti!   We followed it along through about 2 or 3 more bundled areas, only to discover it now goes OUT through the firewall to the front of the motorhome behind an access door!   Steve braved the sweltering heat to go out and see what was up.  He came back in and said "WE GIVE UP!"    There was no way he could unscrew the whole dash to get that cord through and back into the rig again.    Soooo we cut it off where it exited the dash through the firewall and cut the other end off where it entered back in again on the other end.   Done!   If the new owner wants, he can have both ends of the multi-stranded cord soldered together to make it work again.  Whew!

See the fun stuff we can think of doing when trapped indoors???  

Life is never boring when you own a motorhome.....

I forgot to post one more pic in my pac brake repair post from last Tuesday's blog motorhome-repair-rebuilding-pac-brake  of the last step.  Steve lubed up the five points on the pac brake pump unit with Pac Brake Lube, specifically made for Pac Brake units.

After he lubed it up, we took it for a test drive and it worked flawlessly.   He even had me drive the rig for a bit, while he stood in the back and lifted the bed to watch it function correctly.  What a reward for a job well done.  He saved us $1,000 or more of having it replaced.  


Now for a little bit of grandtot stuff:
I wrote this next section in an email to my friends... but thought I would copy and paste it into a blog for your "reading enjoyment".   Now you will know why we needed such a nice long nap on Sunday after the grandkids left:

Saturday night, we babysat for Clayton and Chelsea while their parents, Erin and Mark, went to a wedding.

Do NOT read this next part if you are eating!!!!

Toooo funny, but when Erin brought diapers, she tried moving Clayton up from size Newborn to size 1... the diapers kinda *gapped* at the leg openings.  I woke up for the 1am feeding and all went well.  Changed him and he went back to sleep.  

I was feeling horrible and nauseous from a sinus thing draining and a sore throat and could not get back to sleep myself.  I was up all night. My stomach was rolling.  By the 4 am feeding, the baby woke up very crabby, so I woke up Steve to help me out a bit...

Steve stumbled outta bed and was holding a very very very fussy Clayton while i was preparing a bottle... RUT ROH!   Now i know why the baby was fussy!  Seems he had a huge amount of ummmm ohhhhhhh  you know what coming into his diaper, (remember those gaps around the legs???   It OOZED all over Steve!!!!   it came out the gaps of the diaper and down on Steve's lap, on his boxers, on his legs, it was just EVERYWHERE!!!!  He could not even stand up!!!!  

I can not believe one little butt can produce so much ummmm you know what!   i think he saved it up, because all evening he had only wet diapers... not this .....  he waited till 4 am to let it all go! 

By now, the baby is screaming, Steve is grossing out and gagging, i am trying to pick up the baby from his arms and not *dribble* anything on the way to the bathroom,  He is sitting on the ottoman in the darkened livingroom, and he can't even stand up and he don't know what to do!  He can't see in the dark, and doesn't have on his glasses either. The last I saw of him was as he sat with both hands catching the mess dribbling down his thighs and he cant think of what to do next! 

I got the baby into the bathroom and grabbed a stack of towels to toss on the floor and lay him down. In the middle of all this hubbub Chelsea wakes up and adds to the confusion saying she HAS to go potty!  Someone has to lift her up on the toilet and help her NOW, but I have a gooey icky baby on a towel on the bathroom floor and trying to get off a poopy onesie outfit up and over his head!   

Remember, I am nauseous to begin with, and not feeling well.  But I manage to get Chelsea propped up on the toilet.  I get all the bad stuff washed off the baby, and have him on a third towel on the floor, while trying to wipe him down with a warm washcloth. Steve managed to "crab walk" into the bathroom without dribbling on the new carpeting in the livingroom.  We have 2 stairs up and 2 stairs back down to get into our bathroom, and he maneuvered those too. 

Chelsea is sitting on the floor watching me, and Steve is trying to step over us to put his oozing boxers into the washing machine next to me by lifting them up over my head!!!   I can just about see it coming out of the corner of my eye and i move JUST IN TIME to not get dribbles on my hair!!!!!   It went down my back instead, so now i have to get changed too, but not until i can dress the baby back up into a new diaper and clothes which Steve has to go get for me because now I can not move.... but he is already in the shower!    

Good thing 2 year old Chelsea was awake, because my little helper girl went out to the livingroom and brought me back the diaper bag to the bathroom.  We got the baby dressed and done, got myself changed, and finally Steve emerged from the shower... .still gagging to himself over it all

The washing machine took care of the rest of the work, but now nobody could go back to sleep.... 

Did I mention it was 4 am when this started?

Now it was 5 am and I said it was Steve's turn to take over, I needed to sleep!   After my operations, I have on hand some very strong nausea stomach pills to knock me out when things get bad. They knock me out for 4-5 hours straight.  

I went up to bed and he took over from 5 till 9 and I got sleep!   He read them stories and got both kids back to sleep for a bit, later he fed them breakfast and he even had Chelsea help him fold clothes from the dryer. He had it all under control ....   MY HERO!!!    

But we were never so HAPPY to see Mommy and Daddy at the door by 10 am~!!!!!