MOTORHOME MODIFICATIONS - *M* is for Muffler and Museum

I am going to start off the new year with posting some of our motorhome modifications, a few 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, we are up to the letter M now!

MOTORHOME MODIFICATIONS 

STARTING WITH THE LETTER M

Muffler:
A while back (2009) our motorhome was getting a little louder and we realized that the salt on our Wisconsin roads is tough on vehicles.  Just look at where the muffler is all rusted out.  It was rusting around the holding straps where the salt gets trapped, even after we rinse things off from a snowy winter road drive.  Bummer, eh?    

We called around to a few Cat truck and parts places for a new one, and they ran in the $350 range!   So then we called our local CarQuest auto parts in our tiny town.  He was able to order the exact same muffler for us for only $170!~

Next he had to special order another part leading up to the muffler. It was the big snaky 4 inch diameter pipe and flange made up at a local exhaust muffler company.  That was more expensive than the muffler!

 MUFFLER  for our 3126 Cat

ORDERED FROM CARQUEST HEX M120598

DONALDSON M120598   5373160   $170

NEW EXHAUST PIPE

 CUSTOM FABRICATED

 AT EAST SIDE EXHAUST, GREEN BAY $228

A fellow Safari owner just supplied me with this information:
 Donaldson p/n H000349
for the 2 muffler hangers/straps/bands

Once all of the parts were in, it was time to head out and do some work. Steve does the hard stuff, and I am the tool gopher and picture taker.  Some of the work was able to be done from up above through the bedroom, where we can access the engine compartment.

Lucky that our king-sized bed lifts up for easy access to our engine compartment.

The old parts came out surprisingly well and in no time Steve had the big snake part bolted up into place.  We both crawled underneath so I could hold up the muffler while he bolted the straps tight to hold it.  It lined up really well, so Steve's measurements were correct on having East Side Exhaust make up the part from his drawing.

Here he is finishing up the job by hanging on the tailpipe. We were able to reuse the original tailpipe as it was still in good shape.

This is what it looks like from up above looking down from the bed compartment. See why he had to make a special piece that needed someone flexibility to reach down to the muffler area?

Whew… good job all done!    And now our Cat is purring along nice and quiet!

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yesterday was a pretty busy day for us. We volunteer our time at the Calumet County Historical Museum. Steve is also a member of the board and helps with a lot of their mechanical repair and construction situations.

A local high school teacher was bringing over about 15 history students to help with our spring cleaning to get the museum ready for opening day on Memorial Day weekend. We were so very appreciative of their assistance.

I took charge of a crew of four young gals.... they became my bottle stackers, bug-suckers, and glass display case washers.  We had a lot of giggles and fun while they buzzed along and worked hard.

Steve and I brought along a case of water and dozens of cookies to keep them fueled. Since many of them had never been to our museum before, they were discovering fun stuff and finding out about a lot of interesting historical items from our area. 

We got a LOT more accomplished than we ever expected to get done 

with all of their great help and energy.

Steve had a crew of boys over in the agricultural area in the north building, and they were so busy moving things, unloading the junk stashed in the rafters and helping to organize a lot of the displays. Steve and Mike just built this huge storage rack in the back room last week.  It can hold 100 categorized boxes of artifacts in order with a main index cataloguing them all for easy access.

This is a body retrieval basket (nope no bodies in it) made of wicker for air circulation. Years ago, it may have taken a day or two to get a body into town from the outlying farming community until the mortician could attend to it.  Pretty gruesome, but the kids enjoyed the story behind it.

Our girl crews were pretty much finished over in the commercial, educational and domestic areas... so we sent them over to give the boys a hand in the agricultural and mechanical building. Someone had stored years of cardboard boxes up in the rafters....  The girls helped flatten and stack all the cardboard for recycling.

One of the students present was fortunate to have her grandfather come out to the museum. He is a local resident with a lot of interesting stories. He gave a talk about life on the farm, what he did as a teenager, and how he was enticed to complete high school and graduate (an aunt promised him a new shiney Schwinn bike)  when so many of his pals quit to work on the family farms.  He was an engaging speaker who kept their interest.

At one point during the talk, I noticed his loving granddaughter come over and adjust the fleece throw over his shoulders.  Awwwww  It was kinda cold in the museum buildings and it was a nice thoughtful thing for her to do.

Once all of the kiddos were gone, it was time to gather all of our cleaning supplies and tools and load back up to go home. I tell ya, even through we are smiling in this pic, we are TIRED!  We were in need of a long hot shower and sound nap!!!!

We hauled home all of that flattened cardboard to be recycled --- we will put some of it in our recycling dumpster one week at a time. It's a good thing Steve had just picked up this cute little utility trailer that morning. It sure came in handy.

Yes, Steve found this adorable little utility trailer on Craigslist the other night. He was able to take a little break from the Museum to run over to the next town and buy it. The first people that were going to look at it passed, so we were next in line. The seller called and said he had two more people lined up after us, so it was "buy it now or lose the deal". Steve handed over his crew to another board member, grabbed some cash at the bank, and went to pick it up. Not too bad for $300!

He will take his grinder wheel to it and get off some of the rusty spots and flakes of loose paint. Then we will brush on a little primer and Rust-Oleum paint and it will be good as new. It seems to be pretty well-built, for a lightweight trailer. Our little Tracker can only safely tow about a thousand pounds according to the manual. So this trailer will really come in handy for little loads. Tires are good and he is going to grease the bearings and hubs. Electrical all works fine, as well as the hitch latch and built-in ramps.

I could have really used a trailer like this on Thursday when we picked up that Union Custom Loom! We wouldn't have had to dismantle it to fit it into the back of the Tracker. It could have come home all in one piece. Oh well, we are going to dismantle it anyhow to work on it, but it would have saved time.

We are looking at a nice warm Sunday today, temperatures might reach the seventies. Might do a few things around the yard, and hang up some laundry on the line. Steve is working on adding a 50 amp power outlet to the side of the garage for the motorhome, and running heavier service wire out to the garage breaker box. 

Yesterday we did some work on the flower beds and straightened up all of the white edging around the sidewalk from the front of the house to the back. It was all tilted from the ground heaving during the winter frost. Today I might get the front and north side done as long as it is warm out. 

But as turned on the tv... that danged weatherman says it might rain today!!!

Now we are thinking that after our coffee this morning

 it might be a good idea to take some dogs

 for a nice long walk.

Family Stuff and LOOM Stuff

Gonna put a hold for another blog post on Motorhome Modifications.  I got lots of family fun stuff to post about and a NEW TO ME LOOM!

Saturday was a very fun day for our families.  Our two younger grandsons both turned 5 just eight days apart.  Our son and daughter have started celebrating their birthdays together, so all the family can gather at one place.  This year they decided to rent rooms at the Green Bay Ramada Inn with indoor water park!  What a fun place!

Here is granddaughter Whitney 

and the littlest granddaughter Claire

They arranged for a pizza meal in the almost empty diningroom/bar area.  We kinda took it over with the 19-20 adults and 9-10 kids.

The five older grandkids were on their best behavior.. eating their pizza and giggling and laughing.  It was so good to have ALL my kids and grandkids together at one place for such wonderful birthday fun...  Plus they all wanted to go back to the pool area after the meal for more water fun.

Daughterinlaw Heather brought the cake for the boys to enjoy

and everyone helped to sing their song! 

Presents were opened and both boys got handmade quilts from Steve and I.  (along with a DVD about trucks/cars/diggers/trains/etc and some popcorn for a movie night)

The quilts were made with a Builder Bob theme, but as they get older, they can flip them over. Grandpa Steve found these great panels of fabric with the world printed on them.  So they can learn about geography as they grow up. I added borders and bindings and did all the free motion quilting stitches with variegated thread.

I was so pleased to see them both sitting on their quilts at the party, posing for a pic for this silly old "Grandma With A Camera"!

CLAYTON

MASON

Here was how I worked on the quilts....  Once I added the colorful borders all around, I decided they needed to be taller for a twin bed. So I added a hunter green panel across the top and did a fancy star stitch for the letters of their name that I free hand drew on the fabric. I used a really nice Clover Marking Pen that my friend Connie gave me. Once you are done sewing, you iron over the area and all of the marks disappear!

I added these little tags on the back of each quilt, that I ran off my printer with some iron on label fabric by June Tailor to make the labels. It says once you iron over it, the ink should be permanent. I hope so! I stitched around the edges to be sure it doesn't peel off in the laundry. I hope.

My next quilt I am working on is this pretty one I saw on the cover of Fons and Porter magazine a while back. I just loved the idea and changed the colors a bit.... I didn't use any greens.

I pre-washed all my batik fabrics and I am really glad I did --- because they bled dye all over each wash batch (separate loads in mesh lingerie bags). I washed them all twice to be sure. That would have been terrible to have bled dyes onto the white fabric portions, so I am glad I chose to pre-wash and starch them.

I adapted the pattern a bit by using foundation piecing and leaving my foundation material in the quilt block (as opposed to using paper and ripping it free)  I tried that other way in the instructions and it made it all wrinkly and stretched out the triangles cut on bias.... It was hard to match up all 10 smaller pieces, which were then into four bigger pieces, then four pieces for each section and then those all into a big block. (40 pieces total) so I tried using some water soluble clear sheets of interfacing but those were hard to work with and were really slippery and tore easily while sewing.

I had to come up with another idea......   I found that by using my own foundations of lightweight non-fusible interfacing that I traced the patterns onto, now I could sew good crisp lines and get good even shapes... much nicer!

Leaving the foundation IN the block will solve my problem. I think I am going to really like this quilt!

I did a big king sized quilt using foundation pieces and leaving in the interfacing for my daughter Heather and soninlaw Jesse and it worked out very well too.

It's so nice to sit back and sew on a drizzly rainy morning, 

matching up pretty bright spring colors.  

It's a great way to bring the springtime feeling into the house,

even if the flowers are not yet blooming outside.

This morning I saw a facebook post about a whole slew of rummage sales going on just north of our little town.  It was well planned out with furnished maps and detailed listings handed out at all of the 15 sales.... so once you stopped at one sale, you would get the information of all the rest of the sales in the area!   

I found a few great bargains!  These four chaise lounge chairs were the first to go in the car!  I managed two in the trunk and tried for the other two in the back seat. Didn't work too well, so I put them crossways, with the help of a kind gentleman attending the sale.  I carry a can of bungee cords in my trunk for just such a find!

With our new plans for the backyard this summer, these chairs will work great!  They are made by an American company called Grosfillex, who makes them for cruise ships and hotel swimming pools etc.  I like how they stack up and fold down into one neat pile for storage in the garage.

I looked them up online and found out new they ran in the $90-120 range, depending on how many you ordered... that is EACH!   I got the whole stack of four of them for a mere $15.  SCORE! We tried out two of them... once we get onto our next backyard plan, these will be really nice for sitting in out there.

The sad part of the day is that there were two accidents, both on the same highway about 10 miles apart....  so traffic was being rerouted.  I have since later heard a mother died, but her three children are all okay.  So sad.

I almost didn't go to the last sale on the map, but sure glad I did.  I walked in and saw this loom!!!
 (and another one that was missing a bunch of parts, only about half there)   I examined it and I said SOLD!  

 It is a Union Special, made in Boonville NY about 70-80 years ago....

I asked if I could pay now and come back later with Steve to tear it apart.  Remember, my car was full to the brim!  The people said yes.....

So after 3 pm today when Steve was done driving his Old Fart Party Bus, we headed on back with a sack of  tools ...  We are very familiar with this brand of loom, having owned three of them in the past.  In no time flat we had it apart and loaded up in the back of the Tracker.

It will need new heddles, new reed and lots of loving care to the wood. Steve will grind the rust off the metal parts and give them a new coat of Rustoleum paint.  It will be sparkling shiny and ready to weave again soon. I love it that he helps me restore these looms when I find them.  Some come, some go.  But no matter what, they are taken care of, put back in working order and loved again.

I am anxious to cut free that partially woven rug on the front beam. I will finish off the edges with binding and make it into a complete rug.  Honoring the person long ago who never got to finish up that last rug.  I asked the lady selling it if she knew anything about it. Just that she bought it at a farm auction on Lax Chapel Road, about 10 miles south of us.  So it is a local loom, but that is all she knows about it. Included were two old worn shuttles with some vintage rag on one and some rotting cotton warp thread on the other... for weaving the hems. I will wind  up the rag into a ball to stay with the loom and the rug. 

I am not sure if I will keep the loom after restoration, or pass it on to a new weaver down the road.   For now, it is a project in the making for the Pfundtner Loom Restoration Crew!