Monday, August 15, 2011

Ready to Roll!

So she's ready to go Camping! We have our trip planned this next weekend and I finally got the finishing touches in place, including the new Black tank valve.

It took a bit of "help" as I didn't exactly get the right one... the rear was supposed to be flush fitting, and I got one with a stepped lip. Crap. A quick trip to Lowes and I got a makeshift gasket and glued it on. Let that set then added more glue when I installed it... presto! no more leaks... wait what is that dripping?

Yup after 2 days of fighting with the valve, sure enough there was a 3" crack in the holding tank... son of a.... ran down to the local car parts store and picked up a roll of that steel infused epoxy putty. Mashed up a whole roll and shoved a bunch inside the hole and mashed a bunch on the outside. let that sit for a bit then sealed it even more on the edges with the silicon based glue I happened to have right there from the valve fix. Sweet... no more leaks!

Thought I would check the freshwater holding tank and the water pump... good thing as after I filled 40 gallons in the tank and tried the pump, all the seals were pretty much toast and it leaked all over from the pump. Out came the old pump, and in went a new Shurflow 2088. (2.8GPM, 45PSI, On-demand) got that plumbed in, re-filled the tank and presto I have fantastic water pressure when I need it on the road. :)

One other thing I did this weekend was installed a new bathroom light... then thought there is no way my 4 year old could reach that in the middle of the night... so I ran a set of wires down to a switch I installed on the wall to the left of the sink, just below the cabinet/mirror. I used a switch that wasn't quite working anymore by the back door, and used that in the bathroom. Presto, we now have a factory-looking switch!

I put all of the camping "stuff" back in... dishes, martini shaker.. you know all the important things. And I am amazed at how much room I still have! didn't even touch the overhead bins, the cabinet over the fridge, or even 1/2 of the space in the pantry cupboards. Fantastic.

We leave Friday, I can't wait!

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Doin' Work!

Alright, I'm sure I may be repeating some of this stuff... but here goes.

I fixed the Kitchen Sink Faucet, still leaks a bit, I need to replace another seal, but for now it's fine as it only leaks when it's on, and it leaks out the front and ends up in the sink... I can deal with that for now.

I replaced the Bathroom faucet, and of course installed the new Water Heater. I also replaced the Ball valve on the toilet, that one was spraying the wall pretty good. To say it was a pain in the butt is an understatement. So that's re-installed and working. Yay!

I got the Car stereo installed in the Dash a few weeks ago and finally got it all installed. So I installed a new 110v outlet and the 300w inverter in the cabinet above the fridge. Just tapped into the main 12v lines that come up and over the roof and got that mounted. The 110v is simply a extension cord wired into a box and outlet.

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I also ran an audio/video cable to the rear, and power wires to the front. So the car deck instead of running off the Coach battery (Engine Starting) it will run off the House batteries in the rear. The rear batteries get several benefits, they are isolated from the front batteries, so if we accidently run them down, I can still start the Coach and charge them back up... and The converter is hooked up and charges the rear batteries when we are plugged in to shore power at a camp site.

I ran all of the wires I could in the walls, behind the monitor I removed the speaker, so there was and easy path to run the Power cable, the Video Cable and the two Speaker Cables. They were all run down the wall to the opening just in front of the wheel well. This opening is covered by the mini wall, then the bench is bolted to that.

The Sub Woofer will be mounted to the floor and everything is neat and tidy. :)

Here is it all working:

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I also ripped all the smelly old carpet out. I decided to go with a dark red Indoor outdoor carpet. It's thin, rubber backed and water proof. So spills will clean up easy. It's a very short pile so I can either vacuum or sweep. Here is some pics with it all torn out, haven't gotten it all installed yet, so I'll wait to take those when it's done.

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