Sioux Falls Sojourn done for now....

(Today's blog entry about Wednesday's goings on was delayed due to a very busy Thursday morning)

Wednesday started early, and went into the early evening as my friend, Tom McCloud, and I worked on numerous projects on the 1984 Newell owned by Todd Flickema.   When I went out side around 7 am Tom was already hard at work polishing Todd's right front  ALCOA wheel.  Tom had an appointment at 9:30, so I started working on the right rear wheel while he was gone.  By the time Tom returned I had finished the right rear wheel, so Tom took over once again and started working on the left front.  

While he did that I hooked up Todd's sewer line, and fresh water line so we could flush the antifreeze out the system that had been put there to prevent freezing during South Dakota's harsh winter just passed.  We discovered that he had a bad pressure regulator and we could not get any water into the system, so off to the store we went in search of a new regulator.  We went to Lowe's first.....no pressure regulators, then Home Depot.....no pressure regulators.....then to Menard's where we found a rudimentary RV regulator that we decided we could use as a temporary fix.

While I worked on getting the new regulator installed Tom began work on removing the electrical bay door which had a damaged hinge, and would not close properly.  Todd had an extra hinge that came with the coach so we knew we could fix that with enough time and patience.   That project basically kept Tom busy the rest of the day until we quit at 6:30.  My water project kept morphing as once we got water pressure into the coach various fittings, new and old, began to leak.  I spent the rest of the chasing down leaks, flushing the antifreeze out of the system, filling the fresh water tank, then dumping it, and the same with the waste tank.  Finally around 6:30 I was out of gas along with Tom, and we called it a day.  We still had about an hour of work, or more on the electrical bay door to get it reinstalled, so we figured we would do that first thing Thursday before we both departed for Spearfish, SD.

We BBQ'd hamburgers, and finally sat down to eat around 8:30, because Todd came over around 7:45 to say that the A/C condenser above the dashhboard was leaking water all over the dashboard.....he and Tom were able to locate the clogged drain hoses, and clear the gunk out of them that was preventing the condensation from draining out of the coach.....that took a good 45 minutes.

Wednesday was a very physically demanding day for both Tom and I as we labored in hot, humid conditions, but we finished the day knowing we had helped our friend take care of several issues that might have spoiled part, or all of their trip to Spearfish.  The leaks alone would have been a major issue as many of them were inside the coach on new fixtures Todd had installed without the benefit of pressure testing them since the water system had been winterized during the winter when he installed them.  We completed virtually every project we had volunteered to help Todd complete.

Once Todd and Tom were able to fix the condenser leaking problem Todd set to work installing the stair treads in the entry, and some trim..... I think he finally finished that around midnight.....I'm sure, because I was asleep by then.

Thursday we will depart for Spearfish, and the Newell mini rally......we'll be there around 8 days before we head into Canada.

Thanks for stopping by!