Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Hot!

Tuesday started off unusually warm, and I decided it was time to re-level the coach as I was never really happy with the job I did when we returned from our 5 weeks in the desert.  Instead of starting up the Newell to let it 'air up' I decided to use my pancake compressor to accomplish that end.  The compressed air quick connect for my system is in the passenger side engine bay, and I usually just plug the compressor into the outlet to which the block heater is plugged.  When I unplugged the block heater I noticed the outlet had some discoloration on one of the legs, and that it was also cracked.  As this outlet is a normal 15 amp duplex plug available in any hardware store, I plugged the compressor into the top outlet and ran the compressor for about 5 minutes.  Once the coach was re-leveled, I went to work removing the bad outlet (after turning the power off.....of course).....  


.....in the picture above you can see the crack and discoloration that concerned me.....it's obvious the outlet is going bad.  I did check the male end of the block heater pug to be sure it was not the culprit, and it was not, however, it was close to being damaged by the arching outlet.  Since we were going to drive up to Rancho Cucamonga to see our new grandson, Brayden James, I decided to stop off at the Lowe's near my daughter's apartment to pick up a new outlet to install later in the day.



Brayden James at 2 weeks 

We spent about an hour visiting with Sharon and Brayden before beginning our drive back home a little after 1400 hours.....of course being after 1400 the afternoon rush hour traffic had begun......ugggh!

Okay, we finally caved in.....we turned on the A/C!  Tuesday is/was, allegedly, the last day of the current heatwave, and the temperatures soared into the mid 90's by mid afternoon.....by the time we arrived home it was even too hot to sit outside, so we immediately turned on the rear A/C to cool the coach down.

About 1600 I went out to install the new 20 amp outlet I purchased at Lowe's......why 20 amp?  Just figured it would be better to over engineer it and install a heavier duty outlet for only a couple bucks more.  I had also  decided to wire brush the metal outlet cover and spray it with 'Plasti Dip' to dress it up a little.....while we were gone I left it drying in the sun.  I think it turned out pretty good.....

The new outlet installed with painted cover plate---I keep tape over the unused outlet to keep dust out of it.

.....and that was our Tuesday.......Wednesday morning (in just a few minutes) we are off for Los Algodones and our next dental appointments.....it will be a long day of driving!

Thanks for stopping by!

1 comment:

  1. Good job on the plug.
    Enjoy Los Algodones we are close and hope to get there soon.

    ReplyDelete

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