Category: Motorhome

Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, NM – Wednesday October 2, 2019

We are here for the fourth year.

Today’s drive was 68 miles.

We are parked in a different area and much worst then last year. We started out of level from side to side by 6 inches. With blocks we get from the parking volunteers we got to level. One of the parking volunteers gave me a ride back to the front registration area where they had the blocks. They said one block was $1.00 if I took 15 ( half of what they had) they were free. Sooner they were gone the less they had to deal with.

Here is where we are this year.

The red dot is about where we were last year.

Last week on the local news the mayor was talking about what a great thing he had done by adding more parking at the launch field.

This is the additional launch field parking. The city took this level area and made it car parking.

Oh well.

On to the generator problem. The Cummins guy got here at 12:30 and explained what he believed happened. Bottom line he thinks the generator is just fine.

Here is what he said happened. The error code is #14, OVERFREQUENCY FAULT. When the generator was running and I shut off both A/C units at the same time while operating at 60Hz the generator can spike to over 90Hz. Any time the generator goes over the 60Hz (said what the exact tolerance is but I forgot) for 6 seconds the generator will shuts down. He said to shut down one A/C at a time to help the generator stay stable at 60Hz. He also said it is best to let the generator run for for 20-30 minutes after running it under a load to let it cool down. We had a group of 8 guys setting around waiting for the technician to arrive and hung around and answered every bodies questions. Cummins is here for the fiesta to do service and answer questions.

Sky City, NM – October 1, 2019

We are on our way to Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta. A long way today 310 miles of wind

We are at this RV Park so we can dump and fill with water. In site 25.

It was a struggle to find propane today. First place was an RV Park where nobody would come to the office, next place the kid could not figure out how to hook up the propane hose to our tank. A lot of places had locations we could not get into. The next place Amerigas in Grants, NM did not exist. Made some wrong turns drove out of town looking for a place to turn around ended up back in town and drove by a propane place. Why filled us up and now we are ready for Fiesta. Leave early in the morning, get gas at Flying J on west side of Albuquerque. Then on to the South RV lot at Balloon Fiesta and our 12:00 appointment for Cummins to scan the generator and hopefully find what is wrong with an easy fix.

Cottonwood CG Navajo Dam, NM – Monday September 16, 2019

We went into Farmington early this morning and we are now proud owns of a brand new generator carburetor. It has not been running very well when it first starts since we were in Montana this spring. A couple of times I was not sure it was going to start and stay running. After couple of minutes when it warmed up it would run fine. I changed the spark plugs while we were at the big house and it started right up and ran fine. Our first stop after leaving the big house was at Salmon Cove just off a Chinook Pass. It had trouble starting and ran rich and stumbled for several minutes just like in Montana. The problem has continued so we are going to the Cummins/Onan Service facility in Farmington. The service manager said they called Onan and Onan said to check the electric chock. The chock is supposed recover after 2 ½ minutes and ours was over 5 minutes also the altitude adjustment is not working.  The chock Spring is not available by itself thus we have a new carburetor. 

It was a challenge to get to Farmington.  Last night’s thunderstorm left the two miles of dirt road from the state park to the main highway a bit iffy. We got up at 6:00 and I drive two blocks to just outside of the campground area to check out a flash flood area. It was still dark and all I could see was water and mud.  I had decided I couldn’t tell how deep the water was and we would miss our appointment to check out the generator. Then a pickup came into the park and showed the water was not very deep. I drove the pickup the two miles out to the main road and the hills were not too slippery. 

Cottonwood CG Navajo Dam, NM – Wednesday September 11, 2019

On the road at 6:30

We had a stiff side wind for an hour then turned left and it turned into tail wind. The road surface was not level tipping the coach side to side most of the day, made for a long day of travel. 338 miles.

Stopped at Cummins in Farmington and got an appointment for 8:00 on Monday September 16 for their generator guy to look at the coach. The service manager said he would actually look at the generator at 8:00 to figure out what is wrong. It ran great at home after I changed the spark plugs but when we get up in the mountains it started acting up again. Runs on one cylinder and rich for 1 to 2 minutes before smoothing out and then runs good the rest of the time. 

Stopped at Walmart for grocery shopping and in Aztec for laundry. 

Got to Cottonwood Campground at 6:30, by the time I got the car unhooked, dumped and settled into site 5 it was 7:30. This is the same site we had last year.

Getting ready for 2 weeks of fishing.

Dillion, MT Barrett’s – Saturday May 18, 2019

As I was checking things out before leaving 5he big house the hot water tank was not shutting off. The water got up to 150 when I finally turned it off.

While we were in Richland I got a new E.C.O & thermostat. I have an adjustable thermostat so I did not replace the thermostat.

Water heater is working now in cold Montana.

Death Valley, CA – Saturday April 6, 2019

 

Last year I replace the water pump because it was beginning to leak and I didn’t have time to get the parts and rebuild the pump and test it before we hit the road. I also wanted a pump to use to add water to the holding tank when we are boonedocking. This is what I came up with. I do need to add a switch to the power cable and will do that while at the big house this April/May.

Goodyear, AZ – Wednesday February 20, 2019

Home set up for five weeks.

This winter I changed out the sun shade which hangs off the awning for afternoon shade. The first shade had to be installed into the awning tube each time we used it. The new one has a small section which installs on the tube (about 2 inches) than the rest of the shade attaches to this small piece with a zipper. This way I attach the shade by myself.

I washed the pickup here at the park and took the tow bar off the pickup. I spent quite a bit of time getting the really small rocks out of the side window tracks, we drove through a lot of road sand getting here and need to get the sand out so the windows don’t get scratched. I also need to get some WD-40 to wash out the padlocks I use on tow bars. There is some sand inside two of the locks.

Big House – Saturday February 9, 2019

We will be moving south to Mariners Spring Training a few days. It looks like we will be leaving a few day later than originally planned.

These pictures were taken last Tuesday and yesterday we got an additional 6-8 inches. This is the biglyest snow storm we have had in 20 years and may continue for the next week. Oh well.

Here are some of the coach projects I have would on:

  • new slide toppers for bedroom and front room, Brian helped me install, the short bedroom slide should have been the easy one, it took 4 hours. had a challenge getting the existing broken off screws out. The long slide which should have been more of a challenge took 45 minutes.
  • replace the cable from the roof top Satilite down to the point where it enters the coach, sun had eaten up the cable
  • towing clearance light on the pickup had quit working, replace the the wiring, the cheap wire I used several years ago had just come apart
  • check all the batteries I put in last year, they looked great, not cororsion at all
  • changed engine oil and filter
  • greased chassis
  • new burner in BBQ
  • on the pick-up I lubed the side window tracks, got a Haynes repair manual on ebay and these were perhaps easiest door panels I have ever taken off, without the repair manual I’d still be trying to figure out how to get them off.

New 110 volt heating element for the refrigerator. I noticed the freeze had a layer of ice on the bottom. Started checking things and found the element was not getting hot. The circuit board looked fine so guessed that the element had burned out. The layer of ice was from me working on the coach with the 110 power off so the refrigerator was sometimes operating on gas and refreezing. I could order an element for $45.00 on-line or get it locally for $75.00. With the weather changing and us wanting to leave to go south I went with the local option. With the bad weather extending even longer than originally projected I think I went with the correct option.

Our original plan was to leave Sunday 2/10/2019 or Monday 2/11, it now may be the 22nd or 23rd after spring training starts. Oh, well – this storm extends from here all the way south to just north Redding California, not the best time to out on the road. As of today it is even snowing on the coast in Oregon and on the coast west of the Siskiyou’s.

We had tickets for the 5th Avenue production of “Rock of Ages” on today Saturday, however Christine emailed us on Monday saying the weather looked bad for the end of the week. We changed the tickets to Thursday night and we had a great time, it is fun music.

This is it for today, may go downstairs and tie some more flies.

Organ Pipe Cactus National, AZ – Sunday October 21, 2018

Worked on leaking heater hose this morning.

I taped a line to my $29.17 NAPA 5/16th wrench in case I dropped it while tightening the hose clamp. Without this line the wrench would have fallen into the engine several times.

Tightened the clamp nut about 30 degrees of a full turn. Run the engine up to full temperature and no leak. After the engine cools down I will see if I can get a little more of turn on the nut, after I get the wrench on the nut i have just my finger tips as turning leverage.