Friends and a job finished, May 14, 2012

This morning I met a couple of ole friends for a walk in the park.  Loved seeing some wild turkeys just walking around.  It was wonderful getting caught up on Chris and Linda’s lives during the last six years.

Remember back in December our Norcold Control Board would stop working and would blow the 5 amp fuse if the outside temps got below 28-29 degrees.  Well we then ordered a new Dinosaur Control Board.  Since then thought, we have managed to be in temperatures above the drop dead 28-29 degrees, so the frig has worked perfectly.  Today, however, was the day, to replace the control board with our new one.

Above Bob (check out his pony tail, he is so proud) is checking out the new control board and verifying where to attach all the wires.  I am so pleased to announce, that after the new board was installed, it works great!  We were so relieved.  The Norcold works perfect!!  Truly amazing!

The weather is cold, wish our Norcold was also, Dec 22-24, 2011

We have enjoyed two days of waking up to this.  And…

also figuring out how to keep our Norcold cold.  Seems it really doesn’t like to work at colder temps, like below 28-29 degrees.  With the aid of our shop work light and my hairdryer to keep the control board warm, it runs well.  Well as long as it has a new 5 amp fuse.  You see every time it shuts down because of the cold outside temps, it blows the fuse.  It really is sick.

We are waiting for a package to be delivered at the PO on Tuesday, with all the road closures a few days ago, the mail was delayed.  So on Tuesday our plans are to head to Phoenix and try to explain to a service tech that our frig really does not work in cold weather when it is in the 60-70’s with lows in the 40’s.

May we all continue our walk with our Savior.

Another Norcold surprise, Dec 21, 2011

The first words I heard this morning were, “the frig isn’t working again!” Deep breath, now what. The first recall module had just been replaced two days ago back in Hondo, Tx. Soon Bob ventured outside in the 30 degree temps to remove the frig cover to see if the module displayed the red light of death…to his surprise it did not. So that meant there was hope in getting it to work again. His first method of evaluation is shown below.

Then came out the continuity tester (it is yellow). From what he could tell, the frig was getting power, so now what.

A few days ago when we had the safety recall module replaced, the owner, Murphy, of Matthews RV Repair, told Bob if you have any problems, just call, so that is what Bob is doing. Murphy had him check a few more continuity issues, all checked out good, so the next step would be remove the control board cover and check the two fuses in there.

Much easier said than done. The control board cover is about 7” x 5”, It has a white label, under the yellow paper tap and to the right of the top electrical outlet. It is also held in place with three hex screws. At first Bob tried to maneuver his tools past all the parts in front, no direct angle, so he was about to call it quits, when he got his second (tornado like) wind. He started to loosen up the screws holding the front parts in place that were in the way, they moved sideways enough for him to slowly remove the three hex screws securing the control board cover.

Soon the black cover came off revealing the brains of the frig.

He spied the 5 amp fuse, the large type of fuse, used by the Class C we had owned previously. The best part is, we had transferred the box of spare fuses to the coach six years ago, and we had the correct fuse and the fuse worked!!! The refrigerator works!!! (The coach takes a similar but smaller fuse-like the one we replaced a few days ago for our front shade.)

One more call back to Murphy telling him the great news. With his help over the phone, Bob had fixed the frig for the price of a 5 amp fuse.

We left all the parts as they were, will reassemble them after a few days of letting the frig run, making sure it doesn’t blow that fuse again.

In this special moment in life…trust others

P.S. For those who want the full unabridged version, check out Bob's blog at www.because-we-can.net, today's journal.

Hondo and Fort Stockton, TX, Dec 18-19, 2011

Sunday, we arrived at the SKP park, Lone Star Corral, about 8 miles west of Hondo.  The reason for coming here, to get our Norcold frig recall module replaced, it went bad when we were in Virginia and the repair shop bypassed it had told us to get it replaced when we got home.  Well, our home is where we park it, so that answer was a major cop out.  Murphy at Matthews RV Repair lives at the Hondo SKP park, we had used him to do our original recall last March, so it seemed he was our best bet.  An email a few weeks ago to him had let him order the recall module, so when we arrived here, he was ready.

He arrived about 9 am, and done by 9:20.

So by 10 am we were not our way to Fort Stockton.  The forecast rain followed us out of Hondo for a hour or so, then cleared up.   The scenery is definitely changing, looking more and more like the west we love.

These mesas have windmills on them.

Today I got to do something I had not done in over a year…

…drive the coach, drove only about 60 miles on I-10.   With us driving six hours today, I needed to help Bob out.

In the special moment in time…take a chance

Some shopping and some repairs, Fort Payne, AL, Nov 12, 2011

We drove around town some today, then stopped at a Hammer’s to do some shopping. Found some nice bargains for Christmas presents, marked down Land’s End tops.

Then back to the coach and Bob went to work, he had two jobs on his “TO DO” list. Replace the battery in our outside sensor for our inside clock. Turned out the base unit batteries were the weakest, so now new batteries all around.

Next was to replace a bracket that held one of our coach’s side panels in place. About 6 weeks ago, we ran over a piece of wood, it was soon after that we noticed this panel to be loose.

Here are the broken brackets.

Here Bob is starting to fabricate a new bracket from an aluminum strip.

Bob is using the picnic table to put the proper bends to match the removed broken bracket. Who needs a workbench with a vice.

Then he drilled a hole in each end. Then attached it with screws to the coach frame and panel.

The finished bracket.

My job was then to get some Goo Gone and remove the gorilla tape residue that was originally holding the panel in place.

I also organized the storage compartments over our bed, ended up purging some items we hadn’t used in a long time.

There are just a few leaves left on the trees here.

In this special moment in Life…Discard Worry.

What a day!! Centreville, VA, Nov 7, 2011

This morning before breakfast, I noticed our Norcold frig light was not on, hummm, oh no, not that problem again.  Bob went out and checked the back of the frig, and saw no red light of death. 

So now what?  He tried to bypass the recall module,  it tested okay, but the frig did not come on.  I checked online for Norcold authorized service centers, found one in Manassas just about 10 miles away.  Called them and they said it might be a fuse, and to come in anytime. But first, we needed to get fuel, we were on fumes.  On Saturday night Paul and Marti had shown us a very handy fuel station, Fannon Petroleum Services, just a few miles away.  Both of us were praying we could make the station, and we did!!  It did take 87 gallons (holds 100), nice price too at $3.74 per gallon, other stations were $4.05/gallon.

Here we are at Restless Wheels RV.  Even though we arrived at noon, it only took them about 20 minutes to diagnose and temporarily fix our problem.  The problem was a failed recall module, they bypassed it, so now we have a working frig.  Somewhere down the road we will need to get the failed module replaced.  They indicated that Norcold is now on the sixth revision of this module, as they all keep failing.

Now, back to the Bull Run Regional Park, where we had already paid for tonight’s lodging, as we are headed south tomorrow.

When Bob plugged in our power, the 50 amp plug would not work, it had just a few hours ago?  So we switched to the 30 amp and that one worked fine.

Then, I have to laugh, Bob was hooking up the water so I could do some laundry and he got an early shower.  The spigot was a little different and he had to get our pipe wrench out and loosen up the part you needed to pull down so water flowed through our hose and not where it is flowing in the photo.

We do think Murphy (Murphy’s Law) was messing with us today and do hope he has had enough!!  We sure have!!

Getting repairs done in Elkhart, Sept 12-13, 2011

Well, our time in Copper Harbor, MI was cut short by a not cold Norcold.  Our frig died, red light on the recall sensor and the yellow stray of ammonia smelling stuff at the back of the unit.  So we took off, after icing down what we could, on Sat and Sun (10th and 11th) driving 643 miles to Elkhart IN, the RV mecca of America. 

If you want more detail of our wonderful time in Copper Harbor, check our Bob’s blog.  He also talks more about our very timely Norcold frig replaced cooling unit.  We sure lucked out with this one.

We are currently parked at Duncan RV in Elkhart getting some items taken care of:  slide weather stripping replaced, slide topper repaired, front door glitch with opening fixed, slide adjusted, MCD blind adjustment, and generator cover adjusted.

After running  some errands this morning and early afternoon, we headed back to the lounge at Duncan RV to wait until our RV was ready.  Soon a lady came in and spoke to me, called me Linda, hummm, who does that.  Well it was a fellow blog reader Marie.  She and her husband were in the area getting some work done also and she tracked us down.

We had a great visit, left with plans to meet for breakfast on Thursday morning.  Gotta love the world of blogging.