To do......

7:49 am - Thursday - February 25th - Wittmann, AZ - 54°, 21% humidity, wind 8 mph out of the north.....clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 70° F.  On this date in 2013 we were having lunch with good friends Ernie and Carol in West Palm Beach, FL.......↴ 

It has been over 6 months since our gear driven Leece-Neville alternator ceased sending electrons into our batteries.  Fortunately, diesels do not require a spark to create that explosion in the cylinder which moves the piston, and turns the crank shaft, or we would have had to deal with getting it rebuilt long before now.  We drove close to 2,000 miles without it, but all that has been rectified thanks to Turbo & Electric of Phoenix.

Wednesday was the designated day to reinstall the Leece-Neville, and to say I had feelings of fear and trepidation after the ordeal we went through last May reinstalling Glenn and Laureen's Leece-Neville into their 1984 Newell would be an understatement.  As you will recall, it took Glenn and I some 5.5 hours of continuous effort to get the three bolts into their alternator due to the extremely cramped conditions of their engine bay (you can read about that here).  While I was sure this installation would bear no resemblance to that one, there is always that nagging doubt in the back of my mind.  All that being said, it was not difficult.  It took less than 40 minutes beginning to end to reinstall the alternator, and I only required TLE's assistance for about 2 minutes.  It was so easy it was kind of scary.......

The Leece-Neville reinstalled, and producing electrons!

.....once the alternator was in, and tested it was time to turn my attention to hooking up my new Speedhut digital tachometer.  The tach comes with a 20' cable, but that it not nearly long enough to reach the engine bay, so I ordered a 50' cable to run back to the alternator.  As I wrote the other day, I had already run the cable down through the floor, and into the inverter bay, so I just needed to pull out the Kohler genset once again, raise and block the coach, and then crawl under and feed the cable through one of three PVC conduits Newell installed for just this purpose.  These conduits begin just behind the front wheels, and run all the way to the engine bay.  Tom has 8 of these very thin 3' fiberglass rods which screw together for just this purpose.....I needed 6 of them.  I first pushed the rod through the length of the conduit, then attached the cable to the end remaining at the front using electrical tape, then went to the engine bay and pulled it through.  Within 30 minutes I had the cable attached to the alternator, and plugged into the tachometer.  It was then just a matter of connecting the power wire to a source activated by the ignition switch, and then attach the ground to a good ground. Once that was done I plugged the calibration cable into the back of the tachometer......

.....turned on the engine, and then moved the red needle to the correct idle RPM setting for our Detroit Diesel 6v92......500 RPM's.....

Ignition off.....

....ignition on, engine running at 500 RPM's

.....the former tachometer had quit working about 10 years ago on a trip we took to Santa Fe, NM, and has not worked since.  It is so nice to have a working tachometer again after all these years!

While I was thus occupied TLE was re-dying her Ekhornes recliner.  I had removed the armrests, and the footstool cushion for her to work on Wednesday, and she got all three items done.....the color is a tad darker, but we like it.......

The exposed leather is now nicely covered with the SEM dye

......by the time we had both finished with our projects it was after 1:30 pm, and I was one tired puppy.  I put away my tools, releveled the Newell, and then took a long, hot shower.

Only two projects remain on my 'TO DO' list.....install the new Flexsteel driver seat, and get the new Michelins installed.  The seat will be installed Thursday, and on Friday we'll drive to Purcell Tire in Phoenix to have the two new steer tires installed.  We'll return to Wittmann for two more nights before departing for Los Algodones, and our yearly dental checkups.  I had allotted up to 20 days here in Wittmann to get everything done, but it appears we will have everything done in 12.

Thanks for stopping by!

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