MOTORHOME MODIFICATIONS *A* and Homemade Chicken Soup

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 

Awning Lights and Clips:

Just about every RV in a campground has awning lights attached to the valance of their awning. Sometimes called Party Lights. Our motorhome has a fabric awning... without a thick hemmed edge on the valance. It is not the thicker plastic coated type of awnings you see on many RVs.  Thus it makes it more difficult to use regular clips or clothespins to hold on a string of awning lights.  They just slide off the edge with the slightest movement.

Over the years we have had various party light sets.... and we finally stumbled on a set of clips that worked with our awning. 

They are tiny double metal clasping types that are reminiscent of the kind our moms used to keep our mittens attached to our jacket cuffs so we didn't lose them! Made by Camco and sold in most RV stores, along with Walmart and Amazon too.  Called Camco Lantern Snaps. 

We also have some of the fabric with rubber glide tabs that slide into the groove of the awning roller, but using little S hooks was not practical either.  We do use a few if we are hanging a spinning doo dad or a little sign. 

I leave these Lantern Snaps attached permanently to the light sets (being careful to not snap through a wire) and just clamp them onto the awning when we put them up. Easy to take down in a rush for an oncoming storm, and you don't lose them on the ground because they are still snapped to the light wires yet. 

We gave away that light set shown in those previous pics, and just this past summer we found this pretty set at World Market on sale. It looks so cool and patriotic! They are glass, but we put them carefully in a tote when not in use. 

Alternator Woes:

Our motorhome with a 3126 Cat diesel engine has burned through FIVE alternators in the last 10 years since we have owned it. 

• Some motorhome folks believe it is the added strain on the alternator of leaving in the morning and having to charge up the camping (coach) batteries after being drained overnight. 
• Other motorhome owners say it is from not being used every day like a car alternator.  
• Some motorhome folks say we need a larger one than what originally came in our rig, and to stop replacing it with the same size. 

Whatever the reason, we have replaced alternators five times. It is NOT fun to be stranded. We have had to drive with holding down the ''boost'' button on the dash that connects our engine (chassis) batteries to the camping (coach) batteries and running the generator to keep up the charge level to get home. If too low of a battery charge, the transmission will not shift, its electronic.   Nope not fun.

After the third one went out while down in Florida last winter, Steve even tried to rebuild it, but that didn't solve the intermittent charging problem either.  It would fluctuate and not charge steady. Then he ordered a fourth alternator while in Florida to bolt up just so we could get home.  That burned out in just 100 miles on the road.

Obviously, that still didn't solve the problem so we ran jumpers from coach batteries to chassis batteries to get home. We ran the generator the whole way for 1,300 miles. Whew.... And I might want to mention also that the inverter which changes our coach battery power from 12 volt DC to 120volt AC was acting goofy too.... Hmmmm?

This leads us to a sub subject also starting with the letter A is
Access to Our Engine Compartment:
When Steve does this kind of work, we are fortunate that our whole king sized bed lifts up for access to the engine compartment.  Motorhomes with bedroom slides usually only have trap doors and acceess holes to reach things from above the engine. That is why many semi truck places do not want to work on motorhomes, or charge a higher labor rate per hour.  We do not have a bedroom slide out unit, so our entire king bed lifts up insead.

The compression struts have long ago given out, so he lifts up the bed and also supports it with an extra prop pole that is really a cargo retaining rod for delivery trucks (found at Harbor Freight around $15)

Okay.. back to the alternator and what we found out was REALLY the problem....

Once we got home, we chatted with a local guy who rebuilds alternators.  He said we should replace the alternator again with a brushless larger one, they run in the $300 range but he had one on the shelf for $160. He said all the semi trucks with Cat engines were going to this one. It cost more but we decided to try it.

Since the fourth alternator was a fairly newly rebuilt,  we were perplexed as to why it was not putting out enough amps. It was intermittent, sometimes 12 or 12.5... and other times 13 or higher. He said he would bench test that one for us.... and hooked it up.  I got to watch and learn.  It was not putting out a charge of course.  He took off the rotor section to test and the regulator was shot as well as some other parts inside.  All the diodes were burnt right off, like over fried from something back feeding! 


He said to go home and test our isolator.  That is an electrical unit that splits the power from the alternator and sends it either to the chassis batteries or the house batteries, but doesn't let them bleed over into each other. Well, Steve bypassed the isolator on the chassis battery post by putting all three wires onto one post just to hold them together.  

BINGO!   that was it!   The isolator must have been malfunctioning and back feeding into our alternators and burning them out. The rebuild guy said that is how the others got fried. It made sense.

Nobody locally carries isolators, so we had to place an order on Amazon to get one delivered in a few days. 

Here is the old isolator... it is mounted on the wall in the engine compartment which is open to the dusty road and dirty diesel engine.  That is probably 20 years of accumulated dirt on it. LOL...

NOCO IDG200HP   $55.27 from Amazon

 Steve hooked up the wires and double checked and triple checked each one....

•  2 wires on the left are to the chassis batteries and solenoid boost switch on the dash...
•  (next post is skipped)
•  the center post is the alternator and the engine clock. 
• The far right post is for the chassis (house) batteries.

Everything is working properly... even the inverter!  

Whatever was back-feeding with the old isolator is now corrected.

Whew....  and since then everything has been fine as frogs hair.

Here is my third A hint:
Awning Arm Trick for Cleaning: 

Cleaning an RV awning is not a fun job, but it needs to be done a couple times a year.  We found out this little trick for making it easier. Of course you can lower your awning like this to scrub the underside. 

But here is the trick to reach the topside.  Unhook your awning arms where they attach to the side of the rig.  Now carefully lower them down so they can slide underneath the body of your RV!

Now you can easily reach the topside surface, scrub it with a long handled broom or 

brush on an extension pole, and easy to spray off with a hose! 

P.S. We clean our fabric awning with mild car wash soap.
Some folks with the plastic coated awnings find that
Bleche-White automotive tire cleaner works well for them. 

~~~~~~~~~

Now that those three Motorhome Modification posts are done, I will put in more of my regular blog stuff now below.  Did you know my first post of three A mods garnered 2424 views! 

and the one from last night is almost to 1,000!
Thank you for reading my blog!!!!!


~~~~~~~~~

Today is kinda like a normal Monday but different because Steve is home now. We had a leisurely morning and then went out to remove our Christmas Decorations from the outside of the house. It was warm in the mid 30s to get them all down without cracking wires or busting lights from the cold. Tomorrow the temps will drop and we are going into subzero stuff later on in the week. 

Steve is feeling better from his cold, but it is starting to take me down. I was up most of the night feeling yucky.  I crawled into a warm bed this afternoon for a well-needed nap, and I woke up to the most heavenly smell.  Steve had simmered up a pot of homemade chicken soup with veggies and bow tie noodles! YUMMMMMM  

Maybe we will start to take apart the tree tonight. 

Maybe not. 

I am thinking I might sneak upstairs and do 

some more sewing on my next quilt. 

And because I have not posted any cute pics of the dogs recently,

here is one of where they are right now, at my feet. 

(this is Binney, Finney is laying behind her)

Journey Home

Well folks.. it's been one strange vacation for sure.  So much more than I can share...  Mom would like to keep the details private of her dealing with returning back home to Florida. Some people can be pretty horrible.  And some people are very kind.  But honestly, I should write a book!~  It would be a tv movie for sure.  hahahaha

We sadly said our good-byes and headed out on Sunday morning.  It was very very hard to leave Mom.  She will be fine. We know.  But I feel deep inside that I need to be there with her and help her yet. Torn .. oh so torn.  We even tried to convince her to come north with us and relocate in Chilton, near us.  We could sell her house now if she wants to, because it's all spruced up and ready.  All she has to do is say the word.  We will see.  In the meantime, she has her sister nearby, her church, her friends, her crafts and most of all, the internet now that we can Skype...  and my sister and  I keep in contact with her via the internet multiple times a day.

Auntie Lois came over the nigh before and stocked us up with her wonderful peanut butter cookies!  She baked all day in a hot steamy humid kitchen to make these for us!  One container to eat right away, one to eat on our route home, and one to take to our family Easter gathering in Waupaca next week!   What a lady!

We woke up early and did our undoing of the motorhome hookups and prepared our road-worthiness to travel inside the rig.

Then it was time for one last cup of coffee with Mom around her table. It was soooo hard, but we drove away.

Mom just learned to use a new fangled WIFI camera that she can snap a pic and automatically send it to her facebook right from the camera.  Here is what she took of us as we left.

I am so proud of her! 

I took one of her standing on her side deck....

"Bye, Da Momma, see you soon" 

Our trip home has been somewhat stressful.....

Turns out that the alternator Steve replaced isn't the problem, it must be in the wiring somewhere else. So he has made a set of jumper lines between the four deep cycle camper batteries and the two big driving batteries for the diesel electronic engine (does the shifting and fuel systems while driving).  Our solar keeps them charged up pretty well.   We have had some pretty hot stretches so we also ran the generator to operate our roof AC unit.  That sends a charge through too.  All in all, that is okay.

Now... the other problem is that there seems to be a leak in the seal of our water pump where it meets the engine housing.  OH MY!   Steve tightened up one of the two bolts.  The other he can not reach without first tearing off the air conditioning pump.   It leaked about a gallon the first day. We picked up extra jugs of distilled water.  We considered adding some stop leak but hesitate to have that gunk in our very expensive-to-replace and difficult-to-replace radiator.  Instead, we opted to watch the engine temp on the computer readout... and keep adding water.  About every 100 miles we are stopping to add water.

Through Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois and now Wisconsin, we have been stopping and adding water.  It's up to about 3 gallons now per stop.  The total capacity is about 11 gallons, so we are keeping on it. Yup... for 1,300+ miles we are the Watering Wanderers!  LOL

We have been overnighting stops at Walmarts along the way, putting on 300-400 miles a day.  It is now Tuesday,  and we have just crossed into Wisconsin!  We have about 75 more miles to limp home....

Sadly, tomorrow we have a funeral to go to.  Steve's favorite Uncle Gordy passed away and we are going to make it in time for the funeral down near Milwaukee

Also on another sad note, today is the birthday of our son, who passed away in 2006.  The most horrible day in our lives.  Happy Birthday in Heaven, our dear Mike. We love you and miss you.

Good thing we are making it home today. This is our weather forecast for tomorrow:

... Wind Advisory in effect from 10 am to 10 PM CDT Wednesday... 

The National Weather Service in Green Bay has issued a Wind
Advisory... which is in effect from 10 am to 10 PM CDT Wednesday. 

* Timing... very strong west winds will develop Wednesday morning
  and continue into Wednesday evening.

* Winds... sustained winds of 25 to 35 mph... with gusts to 45 mph
  are possible.

* Impacts... high-profile vehicles may experience difficult driving
  conditions. Any unsecured outdoor objects may get blown around
  by these gusty winds.

 plus of course cold rain changing over to ***S*N*O*W***

As I write this, we are in the last leg of our journey, less than an hour from home. We just drove through a huge rainstorm.  Look how Wisconsin has welcomed us back!

Now.. I ask you this...

What are the chances of  TWO full rainbows within an hour? 

30 miles down the road from that last rainbow,

It has been raining again, just pouring. 

It suddenly lightened up and now, 

one more 

FULL RAINBOW! 

We are 

DOUBLY BLESSED! 

3,113 miles

Lots of smiles

Lots of tears

We are

 HOME 

Alternator Woes on our Motorhome

By the time I finish writing this blog post, I hope it's all fixed!!!

It seems our Safari coaches have alternator loads that wear them out pretty fast. Other Safari owners of our vintage years in the mid 90's seem to say the same thing.  I believe it's strained not only the maintaining of two batteries needed to start the big diesel 3126 CAT engine, but also charging up the four 6volt batteries we have on the coach.   We do not run the inverter while in transit, so that helps lessen the draw on it.

We do have 500 watts of solar panels to recharge the coach batteries during the day, but when taking off early for travel days, the coach batteries are low too. Some suggest starting the generator for an hour or so before take-off to charge up the coach batteries and lessen the draw on the engine's alternator.  Hmmmmm sounds like a good idea too, but sometimes not feasible if it's an early driving day.  Many campgrounds have set hours for noise or generator operation. Or many campgrounds prohibit the running of generators altogether.

Anyhooooo   We have already replaced our alternator in 2006, 2008, 2013 and 2015.  Steve said it is strange because it seems to always be failing for different reasons, and different parts that go out in the alternator itself.  Perhaps it's just bad workmanship and manufacturing on the alternator components?  He usually replaces it with the cheapest alternator you can get.  It's a Delco 21 si 160 amp, J 180 mounting.  If he changes to a larger alternator, then he also has to change the isolator.  Arggghhhhh   It's like he is always throwing parts at this motorhome, but after all, being 20 years old, we need to do this no matter what.

Last week on our way back from Sun Coast Designers in Hudson, FL, Steve noticed that our alternator was not putting out enough charge.  It was only about 11-12 volts.  It should be reading between 13.5 to 14 on the gauge and the Silverleaf vmspec computer in our dash.

We had enough battery power to get back to mom's yard... and he pulled the alternator out to examine it. Inside there was grease from the bearing that appeared to get all over inside on the windings and the brushes.  ewwwwww  

So Steve ordered a rebuild kit and a new set of brushes to rebuild the unit himself.  In between all the other projects he has been doing, he installed the repaired alternator and hoped for the best. He also cleaned all the connections and wires. Fired up the engine, and sadly, nope.... no go.

Okay, now it was time to get serious here, because we have to leave in a week to head back to Wisconsin!    He ordered another alternator and it was to arrive by UPS yesterday.  Say what you will about bad UPS service, but we tracked that package and it said it was going to arrive yesterday.  We watched for the truck all day long.  Last night about 8 pm, there was a knock on the door. Sure enough, out in the darkness was mom's friendly UPS guy. He had a flashlight and made his way from the truck out on the road into her yard and set the package on the front porch.  He wanted to be sure we knew it was there, so he knocked and wished us a great evening.  What a nice guy!

Well, the coffee is done here, so I might be able to gulp down a cup before I have to help Steve install this new alternator first thing this morning.  Perhaps I will even get some pics .... it's not a hard install, just two bolts and three wires. He is getting so good at this, I think he can do it in his sleep!

ON EDIT

yup.. we got the old alternator out, swapped the pulley over onto the new one, and installed...  

yippeeeee  13.6 volts and not even driving it, 

just idling in the yard! 

This is our fourth week in Florida.  We are working on many projects for mom.  The details around her getting settled back into her home are too many to mention.  We are handling what we can to help her out.  Paperwork, accounts, billings, name changes and legal issues are daunting at times.  We are so glad we can be here to help.

In between all the other stuff, we have managed a few more shopping trips to Gainesville with Auntie Lois.  These two gals are a hoot to take to Walmart because they get going with those carts and there is NO stopping them!

They wear us out for sure... after an hour of Walmart shopping, 

Steve and I found a good spot out in the Garden Center to relax 

while those two were still zooming the aisles! 

While sitting there, Steve found a great deal on a clearance price of the Weber Q1000... with a stand!~  It was marked down from $199 to only $99!  He has been wanting one of these for quite a while, so I think it's his vacation souvenir! 

We also hit Trader Joes again... our friends Conny and Jack sent us a gift card, and we really put it to good use.  Yummmmmm   I sure wish there was a Trader Joes closer to our house.

On leap year day, Mom decided to surprise us with a full blown Thanksgiving Meal... turkey and all the trimmings!   She said it was because we didn't get to have Thanksgiving together in November, so on leap year day, we can make up for it and have the holiday we missed with our loved ones!  Like a make-up day! 

The dogs are enjoying the warm weather and we take evening walks as often as we can around the rural location of mom's place in Florida.  It's all sandy roads, and they come back pretty grubby.  Added to the humid conditions and damp fur, the sand and dirt just clings to them.  If you pet them, you get a puff of dust in the air!   I can see why most folks in Florida have short haired dogs....  LOL.  it was bath time, even if they didn't totally appreciate it.

Last night, Auntie Lois invited us out to Fish Fry at her church!  

She is part of the kitchen crew, 

and took a moment to come out to speak with us at our table... 

Ahhh the Master Chef!  How I love that smile! 

In between tasks and errands and things, I am also working on some quilt blocks.  I carry an extra sewing machine in our motorhome, and of course there are quilting shops all over to get more and more fabric.  I am working on a blue quilt to go on our front porch back home.

With so many details to work out here in Florida, we are also keeping an eye on things back home with our housesitter, snow plow man and neighbors.  The snow coming down right now in Chilton makes me kinda homesick, but the nice sunny 75 degree day here in Florida is enjoyable too.  Hmmm

We know about the big landslide in Jelico at the Tenn/Kentucky border on I-75.  We have heard the auto detour is bad enough with the twists and turns and grades, and we should avoid it with our motorhome and toad.  Also, the big truck detour route is about 140 miles around out of the way.  So we are making plans for a different route further to the west on our way home next week. That means missing a visit with our friends Linda and Mark in Tennessee.  Sigh.

Well, coffee is done and Steveio is raring to get to the alternator replacement.  I better get off this computer and get to work.  I am his "gopher assistant" and photographer/reporter to take photos and write the articles!