Back to regularly scheduled programming.....

"I'll take an iced cappuccino please...."

We have a trailer full of bikes and yet so far on this trip we have ridden our bikes two times while we were in Indio, CA once, and then in Mesa, AZ. So, today we got out the tandem and took a ride out Farm to Market 344 toward Teaselville where our niece, Maryon, owns a coffee shop called Deep South Coffee House. We stopped off there to get a couple of Cappuccino's and then rode on to Elaine's brother's place of business called Accu-Log, Inc. The air temperature got up to 81 today with a little East Texas humidity mixed in for good measure. The first 6 miles we fought a mild headwind, but after Teaselville it calmed down. FM344 was recently repaved, and it was a pleasure to pound out 20 miles on that road. We got back home around 1:30pm, and had lunch on the patio. Just another nice day!

Tomorrow is delivery day for our new replacement Detroit Diesel water pump. Tomorrow morning we will drive over to Longview to Stewart and Stephenson, a distributor for Power Cool Coolant, to by 12 gallons of new coolant to mix with 12 gallons of distilled water to replace the old coolant. Power Cool is designed specifically for 2 stroke diesel engines which is what our Series 92 6V92 Detroit Diesel is. We'll spend the weekend here and then head for Austin, TX to visit more family and friends. After that we are off to Corpus Christi to start our tour of the Gulf Coast all the way over to the Florida Panhandle.

Also, tomorrow we are supposed to receive the correct decorative door panels for our Dometic Classic refrigerator. I hope I will be able to give CampingWorld a compliment this time tomorrow evening.

About 8 years ago when we belonged to a riding group I helped my sister-in-law get a bike, and got her set up to ride with us, which she did pretty regularly until she moved to East Texas. Since then her KHS bike has been sitting in her garage gathering dust. Well today she ask if I would tune it up for her so she could start riding again. Of course I agreed, because I love working on my bikes, or anyone's bikes. Surprisingly her bike was in pretty good shape....it just needed to be washed off, and cleaned up. Took about 45 minutes and it looked brand new again, and rode great. Always glad to bring a bike back to life.

That's another day in the books.....thanks for stopping by!

Troubleshooting

We had a brief rain shower last night, so it was still soggy this morning when we got up, but today we had a bright sun shine day with warmer temps. The forecast for the next few days is for temps in the mid 70's. We will definitely be taking a long bike ride tomorrow to enjoy the weather.

Even though we are currently "plugged in" I still take time a few times a day to check the Blue Sky monitor to see how many amps we're getting from the solar panels. When I checked first thing this morning there were no amps coming from the panels, and, of course, no amps going to the batteries.....hmmmmm! I spent the rest of the day in contact with the installer trouble shooting the problem while Elaine went all over town with her sister. After verifying that volts were indeed being generated and sent to the Blue Sky charge controller the technician had me take the front panel off the charge controller. I had no sooner removed the 4th screw than I saw what the problem was.....there are 4 wires fastened to the circuit board each with a screw.....the head of one screw had sheered off resulting in a disconnected wire. It was an easy fix and after reattaching the loose wire, and buttoning up everything I had disconnected during our troubleshooting foray I turned back on the system everything was working as it should again!

We had a great dinner with Elaine's sister and a fun evening watching some of our favorite shows.....Tuesday night is NCIS, and NCIS L.A. night, and as usual both were great!

That's it for today.....pretty uneventful, but uneventful is not a bad thing!

Thanks for stopping by!

The Detroit Diesel Water Pump

Monday, February 20, 2012, 2pm -

Courtesy parking at my sister-in-law's home

With the help of a fellow Newell owner I was able to locate and purchase (on Ebay) a replacement water pump, and if all goes according to plan UPS will deliver it to me on Thursday. My brother-in-law came over today and wired me into a 45amp service so we have a good power supply and can run our electric heaters tonight.....much quieter than the gas furnaces we have been using for the last 2 weeks, with the lone exception being Friday night in Benson, AZ where we had 50amp service.

The weather here is cold and blustery, and prior to today it had rained almost 3.5 inches over a couple of days. The ground is saturated, and I was a little concerned as we pulled into our parking spot yesterday afternoon that the ground might be too soft, however, where we are parked has a gravel base, and is solid! We are getting settled in for a week stay.....really depends on how difficult the removal and replacement of the water pump is. I'll start tackling the removal part tomorrow. If it is too difficult for me, my expertise, and tools I will call a mobile mechanic to come out and install it.

Today marks 3 weeks of being on the road.....we have traveled 1638 miles since we departed my mechanic's place of business on January 30th. I was struck by the vastness of our country as we traveled from Mesa, AZ through New Mexico and into West Texas before turning east on I-20. The vistas are staggering, and breath taking, and ever changing. It is in these areas where I my mind begins to feel uncluttered and free. I am beginning to feel free at last, free at last!

Thanks for stopping by!

Deep in the Heart of Texas

We woke up Saturday morning around 6am, and were on the road by 8:30am. We decided we needed to be in Bullard, TX by Sunday evening, which meant 2 long driving days.....something I don't do, and specifically don't like to do, but there is a first time for everything. We stopped at a Super Walmart in Deming, NM to do food shopping....our fridge was bare, and it was time to stock up!

Our goal for the day was rather optimistic....Midland, TX.....565 miles away from our starting point....the longest day I had done in the Newell was a little over 400 a couple of times, but this was new territory. I wish we had started earlier, because with the change into Central Time we lost another hour, which meant that even though we did not stop too much we didn't arrive in Midland until 10pm Texas time.....we headed for the local Cracker Barrel restaurant and caught a very late dinner there (they are open until 11pm on Saturday nights), and were in bed by 11:30pm......and awake again at 4:30am, and on the road by 5:30am.....we had 453 miles today, and I didn't want to finish in the dark AGAIN! The great thing about Cracker Barrel Restaurants that we like is you can park overnight in their parking lots, which we did this night, and were not disturbed.

Today, Sunday, we made good time and reached Bullard, TX around 3:30pm. The early start paid off, and we arrived with lots of daylight sill left in the sky! The drive from Mesa, AZ to Bullard, TX was completely without incident......UNTIL we parked the coach in my sister-in-law's driveway.....as I exited the coach after parking I smelled coolant....not a smell you want to greet you....I opened the driver side engine compartment door and saw coolant gushing out the back of the water pump for the engine! Apparently, just we we were parking an internal seal in the pump failed completely.....I quickly grabbed a 5 gallon bucket and opened the pet cock valve on the bottom of the radiator and drained the coolant below the level of the pump so it would no longer drain out there. I think I lost 5, or 6 gallons, but save another 4 by draining the radiator as fast as I could. Tomorrow I will locate a replacement pump. We are so thankful this happened here, and not somewhere in the vast West Texas landscape 100's of miles from anywhere. If you've got to break down it's good to do it in your own driveway, or in the driveway of a relative! If we had taken more than the 2 days to get here who knows where we would be stranded, and how much it would have cost to get back on the road. Here I can do this myself. I have located a pump, and will replace it in the next couple of days.

Sunrise just west of Abilene

Parked at the Cracker Barrel in Abilene for breakfast

What the trailer looks like packed with the T-Bird

It is a TIGHT fit!

Thanks for stopping by!!

Leaving Encanto.....

The street where we were parked for 11 days is called Encanto Street in Mesa, AZ. We were planning on leaving Wednesday after we received a shipment from CampingWorld, but as it turns out CampingWorld did not ship our item until Wednesday! It was ordered on the phone Monday morning, and we paid for 2 day shipping! It finally was supposed to be delivered this afternoon, but I called and got them to hold it off the truck so we could pick it up in Tempe on our way out of town on I-10. We left our friend's home around 10am, but got just two blocks when I noticed the air pressure was spiking over 150 psi....it's supposed to bleed off pressure when it hits 120 psi....so we limped back to Tom and Darlene's home while pumping the brakes to lower the air pressure. I called Tom at work and he suggested I call his Detroit Diesel mechanic, Leo. I did, and Leo immediately diagnosed the problem as a bad pressure regulator on the mechanical air compressor mounted on the "back" of the engine, which actually faces forward. I stopped by his shop after picking up our CampingWorld item, which, it turns out was the WRONG ITEM!!!! UGHHH!! At any rate Leo sold me the replacement valve, showed me where to find it on the 6V92 and we headed back to Encanto Street.....Tom arrived home from work just about the time we got there....2pm. Within an hour I was able to remove and replace the faulty pressure regulator while Tom supervised, and offered encouragement in his street clothes. We were finally able to depart Encanto Street at 3pm, and finally reached Benzon, AZ around 6:3opm. On top of that our drive here was totally uneventful....the way it should be, right?

A pleasant turn of events.....my cruise control does work again after replacing the on/off switch, and the "momentary" switch that is used to set the speed, and resume speed! I love cruise control and I am so happy our fix worked! I hadn't had time to road test it before we left, so when I turned it on and was able to set the speed and feel it take over I let out a little whoop, and gave Elaine a high 5!! Along with that fix the new Mak air valves work wonderfully, the new fridge continues to work flawlessly, and the brake/turn signals work great!!! I even had running lights all the way around tonite! And, and, and the LED lights are fantastic!

Tomorrow hope to get across New Mexico and deep into Texas, and by Sunday afternoon hope to be in Bullard, TX (south of Tyler) to visit with family, and then on to Austin by the 27th to see more family, and to visit with some more Newell friends.

That's it for now.....man am I tired! Time to hit the sack...tomorrow will be a long day! Thanks for stopping by!

Finishing up

When we arrived in Mesa, Az I had a list of 7 major things to fix before we left....I'm down to two, and they are minor issues that I could live with if I can't get them fixed, but I will give them another shot tomorrow.....the tachometer stopped working on our trip back from Santa Fe a year ago, and the latch on the front door that doesn't allow the door to close flush with the outside. It is flush when we throw the deadbolt, but when the deadbolt is open the door has a little play in it.

We are waiting for two items that should be delivered in the next couple of days. First, we ordered new front panels for the new Dometic. What you see in the pictures is the foil covering , which is were the panels would cover up. We ordered black Dometic panels from Campingworld. Secondly, I have ordered 2 addtional LED brake lights that were shipped today, and should be in Thursday. So, by Friday we should be on the road again.

Today I fixed three switches up front....one for the docking lights which melted down as we were parking the coach in front of our friend's home, and second were the two switches (on/off and momentary) that control the cruise control, which stopped working three days before we arrived. Looks like I have restored power to the cruise control, so all that remains is to road test it.

As I write it has started to rain.....never got above 56 degrees today.....brrrrr!

Tomorrow I will have to lower the rear hitch height which is now too high since we replaced the solenoids! It's a problem that I'm happy to have to solve. Nice to have the rear of the coach at the correct height now!

That's the update, and now I hear the dinner bell ringing. Thanks for stopping by!!

Dometic Classic Absorption Refer

When we arrived in Mesa, AZ last Monday to visit our good Newell friends, Tom and Darlene McCloud, and to "let" Tom help me with some nagging issues with the coach, I suggested that we wait until the following Saturday to remove and replace our old Dometic absorption refrigerator, so we we have an entire day of daylight to get it done. During the week, as I have posted, we accomplished a number of tasks on my list, but that involved a lot of night work as Tom has a real job that he must be present for M-F, but it worked out well. So, Saturday morning comes and it is time to really remove the old "refer" and install the new one. One of my life long mottos (although, from time to time I fail to follow it) is if it is not broke, don't try to fix it. Our old "refer" is 30 years old in 2 weeks, and, therefore, it could be considered by a reasonable person to be a ticking time bomb. Nothing worse than waking up on the road, far from home, and find that the refer has passed on during the night whilst you slept. Then comes the scramble to locate a replacement, and have it installed. Very inconvenient, and usually very expensive. Fortunately for us Tom had removed his Dometic Classic Automatic (a much, much newer version of our old Dometic) in order to install a regular household 110 volt refer in his 1990 Newell. I asked Tom what his plans were for the perfectly good refer he had just removed and he said he was going to dispose of it. I said I was interested, and he agreed to give it to me if I would come to Mesa, AZ. WOW! What a great offer.

Well, we installed that new refer yesterday, and it did take most of the daylight hours to get it done, but it works great. Now I don't have to remember to open the refer door and change it from electric (when we unplug) to gas, or visa versa....it does that automatically for me....one LESS thing to remember.....yeah!

After we got cleaned up, and presentable again Tom took us out to Texas Roadhouse for a steak dinner, and what a great dinner and conversation! Thanks Tom and Darlene!

We have a couple of other minor issues to troubleshoot in the next couple of days, but we expect that we will be pulling anchor by Wednesday at the latest. We will hate leaving our friends, as we have had a great time spending time with them.

Thanks for stopping by and reading!