And Back To The Projects

Lazy Holidays are over and we move back to projects, brought up from our dear motorhome.

In my posting of Dec 22 I talked about our metal roof loosening from the sidewall. Thank god I was able to fix this after I got the necessary screws. I drilled about 40 holes and got 40 screws to hold the metal in place. My way of pressing the roof material to the sidewall was working out. Of course, those screws are visible but who's looking anyway? That roof will never get loose gain.

Having finished that project, we decided to empty out our waste water tanks. The procedure of getting the bus ready to move again always involves a couple of hours preparations.

One of the last things is moving in the slide-outs.

And that's where a new project started.

None of our 3 slides were moving. Pressing the buttons yielded - nothing. Not a sound, no beeps - just silence.

I was stumped. I had only experienced this when I had started the engine without first pulling in the slides. Our bus has a lock-out switch which makes slides inoperable when the key is in the ignition position or the engine running. Similarly the same is valid with the parking brake off. With the help of neighbours I checked all related fuses and relays which could have an impact on the slide operation. All seemed working fine. Yeah, I really was stumped!

We still needed to go to the dump station so somehow the slides had to come in. Looking into our baggage compartments I saw that the electric motors were visible and accessible. One of each side and the third one mounted under our bed inside a wooden box. They just had an electric connector with plus-minus wires.

Searching auto part stores in town for a fitting plugin proved useless, so I build my own with 2 nails, wiring and hot glue. Once that was done I used the battery of my electric screwdriver and inserted 2 copper wires.  Once I connected this make-shift contraption to the slide-out motor, the slide was moving. That meant that we finally could go to the dump station.

Reversing plus/minus moved the slides out again. It is a little awkward, but works fine in a pickle.

A call to two RV repair facilities didn't yield anything. The third company got us an appointment for Wednesday morning. 

So we are near Yuma tonight. Our appointment is for 9am and we still have to go for 40 minutes from where we are now.

Meanwhile, we have been enjoying a super beautiful sunset.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

 Was this the craziest New-Years Party in America?

I think so. Why? Because of campers from all walks of life and lots of different places decided to celebrate the end of year 2025 in a forlorn stretch of desert under adverse weather conditions. Two couples from Montana, 1 couple from Oregon, 1 couple from Saskatchewan, Canada, 1 lady from Arizona, 1 guy from Montana, 1 couple from Washington State, and ourselves from New Brunswick, Canada.

The weather: Rain and wind and low, low temperatures.

The theme: Dress up like the upper crust!

The Characters:

May I introduce: His highness, The Duke of Canterberry with his lovely wife Pamela Antoinette.

The Duke is a highly successful businessman in London, he routinely gets the best deals and while he is always charming the ladies, he can be quite brutal in his business dealings. Some say that Scotland Yard is onto him.

Mr. O'connor is a well known appearance of American decent, currently on business in London to strike a deal with the Duke of Canterberry. Rumours have it that Mr, O'Connor has connections to the US-Mafia. O'Connor has also been visiting his older aunt Betsy.

McRourke with his secretary.

In order to find the best story of the day there is Mr. Mc.Rourke, Chief Reporter at the London Daily at Fleet Street. He thinks that O'Connor and the Duke of Canterberry are up to some highly illegal deals involving the British crown jewels. His secretary Ms. Blackburn, is helping him to get to the facts.

Under one of McRourke's investigations he learns that another guy from the US, a certain Peter Mc.Cormack, an executive who represents a big US oil consortium from Texas is part of the ongoing deal.

McCormack seems nice enough but under his western-cowboy style his vest is not as clean as it appears. He wants to highjack the British Gasoline Market.

Naturally, McRourke has included John Colburn, detective at Scotland Yard in his research. Sergeant Colburn is ready to call in more of his staff, but waits for the final clue.

They all met at the New Years Party at Piccadilly Circus.

It is not known yet what happened right after the clock struck 12, but we will let you know as soon as possible.

Have a wonderful start into 2026!

MERRY CHRISTMAS !

                      ..........Hohoho

 

Next Project, Please....Oh Wait...

Though the next project is already waiting, the battery odyssey gets another volume to it, and most likely, you're not going to believe it.

With all new batteries in place, we enjoyed an evening in our cozy home on wheels when suddenly, around 9pm, all lights went out. I mean honestly, how can all our 12V lights die just like that?

I grabbed a pocket light and went out to check on the new Lithium battery which is supposed to provide us with tons of energy. My multimeter then showed 10.3V which meant that the BMS (battery Management System) had shut down to protect the battery from further discharge. The thing had shown 14V when installed and had, within 5-6hrs, lost all workable voltage. That sure wasn't right! 

In order to restore our lights, I quickly connected the start batteries with our house wiring, which provided enough power beyond the morning. The lithium was then recharged and reached 13.2V the next day. Next evening rolled around and nothing happened. Next morning, it was 5am, I woke up and couldn't see the red stand-by light from the TV. I got wide awake and walked to the front, trying a light switch, but nothing. Battery was dead again. For the second time, I had to connect to the start batteries. Now I am really upset - call me furious if you like.

I removed the Lithium and re-installed the 4 lead-acid batteries. They are still taking some charge.

Since the lithium was purchased via Amazon, I contacted customer service. They promised to take care of the thing.

I took a deep breath and started thinking of my next project. Our metal roof has loosened in two place from the drivers side sidewall. The roof material is standing out to the side and needs to get refastened. The main challenge is exerting enough power to the metal to press it back into place, then use screws into the wall. An examination turned out that the factory had secured the metal with rivets. Absolutely not a good idea, as the rivets had been sitting in fiberglass and had moved out from the holes.

My carpenter-style solution for getting the metal back to the sidewall is visible in the next pictures. 

Using the top edges of our slide-outs as a hold, I brought a 2x4x12 into place resting on our 2 slide-outs. That 2x4 will be the threshold for shorter pieces wedged between the 2x4 and the sidewall. Thus I was able to get enough strength for bending the roof metal back in place. 

An entirely different thing was to get the necessary stainless steel screws. ACE in Holtville did offer me 9 screws, (needing 60), a place in El Centro promised to order them for the next day. I will be happy if I have them after Christmas though.

This is a continuing saga, so check back later!