Enhancements and repairs to our coach.
I noticed that a mudguard panel above the driver-side rear wheels was loose, falling down onto the tire. Not ideal. It looked like it was only held up by one bolt, buried in foam insulation, which had come loose. So I reattached it. I also got some more bolts to better attach it, though I haven’t bothered to do that yet, since that one bolt seems sufficient. But I’ll keep an eye on it.
Last year I posted about replacing the controller in our Tecma macerating toilet. I concluded the post saying that it failed again even after replacing the controller, and I suspected the pump might be the fault.
To test this, I rearranged the wires, so the power wire to the toilet and the pump wire could be reached at the back of the toilet without having to dismount it again. Conveniently, they both have the same style plug, so it is possible to connect the pump directly to the power supply, bypassing the controller, so it runs continuously — obviously only briefly, before disconnecting again. That was enough to get the pump moving again. It has been working flawlessly since then. But if it were to ever stop again, I can easily repeat that process.
As previously mentioned, I had my wet bay modified to integrate the water filters and water softener, plus add valves and connections so I could regenerate and backflush the softener without having to remove it. Very handy. But it wasn’t hooked up quite right, so I pulled apart the wet bay to investigate. I determined that the pipes were reversed from how I wanted them, but the good news is that I was able to flip the water softener around (so the input and output were reversed), and change the labels on the valves and connectors, and now the system works properly. Yay!
Anyway, I thought I’d share some pictures of the complex hoses back there:
Fascinating stuff.
A very minor modification this time: we added a battery-powered clock on the wall in our bathroom. It is an atomic clock, that can set the time automatically, and has convenient time zone support, useful for us as we travel around the country. Plus it shows the temperature and humidity, useful for the bathroom, and reminds us which day it is, handy when we’re still waking up:
It is attached with Command picture hanging strips, that has two velcro-like pieces that can be pulled apart easily, so I can change the batteries. Nice and convenient.
I need to get better at checking the fluids of our coach.
We heard some weird noises coming from around the front wheels while driving, and couldn’t figure out what was causing it for a while. Since we were heading towards Red Bay at the time, I contacted Bay Diesel and made an appointment for them to investigate.
We eventually guessed that it was related to power steering. When I looked in the power steering reservoir in the engine compartment, it was completely dry:
Oops.
I refilled it with Dexron III (as required) and kept an eye on it; sure enough, the level dropped during drives:
When we arrived at Bay Diesel, they wasted no time lifting up the coach:
They found and repaired the power steering leak, from a hose under the rig:
They also inspected the entire underside of the coach, with special attention on the engine, and found cracked clutch and tensioner brackets; common issues with this vintage of coach:
So they replaced them with better, stronger brackets. Here’s a comparison of old and new brackets:
Rebuilding the clutch assembly:
They also lubed the various lube points:
A nice thing about Bay Diesel is that they were happy for owners to hang out in the shop. I wandered around under our coach and took lots of photos. Here are a bunch of pictures, starting at the front and working my way backwards:
Front with the generator partially out:
Entry step:
From in front of the front wheels:
Independent front suspension:
Safe-T-Plus steering stabilizer:
Back of the generator:
A small void behind a front mudguard, with a junction box for the ground effect light strip:
Behind the front wheels, with air horns and generator exhaust:
Under the basement storage bays:
Under the wet bay, with hot and cold low point drains, Aqua-Hot coolant overflow, and Aqua-Hot exhaust:
Under the wet bay, with my sewer outlet and the fresh water drain:
Rear wheels and engine area:
A couple of techs inspecting the engine:
Oil pan, with a non-concerning minor leak:
The engine:
Allison transmission:
Drive shaft; this piece was removed when our coach was towed back in 2023:
Other side of the transmission:
More engine bits:
Side radiator gearbox and fan:
Rear of the engine:
Finally, the rear of the coach:
Fascinating!
While in Red Bay wet got Steve Brooks, aka School Bus Steve to do a few repairs for us. He’s so-named as he uses an old school bus for his mobile RV service:
One minor fix was to polish the exhaust tips of our generator and Aqua-Hot system.
He was able to polish the generator exhaust nicely:
But the Aqua-Hot one was beyond hope (see it on the ground), so he replaced it:
Much nicer!
While in Red Bay we got Cody Poores of Cody’s Custom Cabinets to do a few tweaks to the custom desk he previously built for us.
As a reminder, here’s the pull-out desktop he originally built. It was fine, but had a few things that bothered me:
Firstly, the front edge was flush with the cabinet below, making it harder to open, which also meant that when it was extended the desk chair would have to be on the edge of the carpet. Secondly, the ends of the sliders were exposed, which was untidy. Thirdly, the piece of Corian next to the desktop didn’t match the height of the others:
And lastly, the desktop was sloped towards the back:
He removed the old desktop and side piece, and had new ones made:
The new desktop addresses all of those issues — it extends four inches in front of the cabinet, so is easier to pull out and the chair doesn’t have to go onto the slide carpet; it has a wider front to hide the slides, it isn’t angled, and it has a lip on the back to prevent things falling into the monitor lift area:
Plus the piece to the right of the desktop now also matches better:
The desk in use, with the monitor raised:
Much nicer.
While in Red Bay we had Cody Poores of Cody’s Custom Cabinets do a few tweaks for us. One was a minor tweak to a shelf in a bedroom cupboard, to reduce the size of the lip on it. Another was to add an extra shelf in the upper pull-out pantry next to our fridge.
Here’s the pantry drawer as it came from the factory:
Since we use it mostly for cans, there was enough room for another shelf. So Cody made one that matches the existing ones:
The extra storage capacity is very useful!
Tweak Thursday: we added body wash / shampoo / conditioner dispensers on the wall of our shower:
In December 2023 the big window awning on the passenger side of our coach broke; it slammed open when extending it, and wouldn’t retract anymore. We got it repaired when in Red Bay, Alabama (home of Tiffin) in March 2024; see this previous post about that issue and repair.
Unfortunately, that repair didn’t last; after a few months it started making clunking noises when extending, and wouldn’t automatically retract. We could still use it, as I could push it back up and it’d stay retracted, but it wasn’t ideal.
So we made an appointment for when we were back in Red Bay in December with the Girard Awning Service Center next to Red Bay Acres (where we were staying), and got them to install a replacement.
Since the old awning was from a different manufacturer, they needed to do a few adjustments. They filled the holes from the old awning mounting with rivets, and painted them, after the old awning was removed (look closely just below the black slide topper rail):
Here’s the new window awning installed:
Painted rivets from the old awning arm mount; not an entirely tidy paint job, but only visible in certain light:
The left side is a bit tidier:
They added an extra cord bracket (used to hold the awning open); they asked if we wanted to remove the old one, but we said it’s fine to leave it; we could use it to have a shallower angle. The lower one is the new one:
The new awning open:
Definitely a nicer product. We did consider replacing the two on the driver side too, so they’d match. But they are still functional, and it wouldn’t be cheap, so we decided to leave them as-is.