Enhancements and repairs to our coach.
With our visit to Voyageurs National Park in Minnesota, we have now visited all 52 of the National Parks in the contiguous US and the US Virgin Islands! Quite an achievement.
The only remaining parks are in Hawaii, Alaska, and American Samoa. Those ones are harder, but we’ll get to them in due course.
Here are the stickers on the side of our coach:
We use Starlink as our primary internet service nowadays, but for places where there are too many trees to see the sky, or for one or two night stays, and on travel days, we use an unlimited RoamLink Wireless plan from MobileMustHave.
RoamLink is a single SIM cellular service that works with all three major carriers, and is compatible with our Pepwave modem (MMH can also sell bundles with a modem). It automatically checks each of the carriers, and picks the one with the best signal.
So anywhere we go that has cell coverage from any of the carriers, we have network connectivity. Speeds vary, of course; usually not as fast as Starlink, but often fast enough to stream etc.
We used to use separate SIMs for each network, which was rather expensive. Paying for one cell service (plus our phones, plus Starlink), while not exactly cheap, is much more affordable.
A good internet connection is important for our work and leisure, so between Starlink and RoamLink, we’re almost always covered.
Check out RoamLink (this link will give you 5% off, and a little kickback for me, but I’d recommend it even without that).
With our road trip to Connecticut and Rhode Island, we have now visited all 48 contiguous states of the US.
Here’s Jenn adding last state pin:
These states are so tiny, the pins in the state capitals overlap:
All 48 states:
Here’s the full pin board. Alaska and Hawaii are the only two remaining, which will require special efforts:
Here I’m adding the last state sticker of the 48 to the outside of our coach:
The completed contiguious states map:
An exciting milestone.
Back in 2023 I replaced the rear bathroom vent lid motor after the cover broke.
A little while ago it broke again — the lift mechanism seems to put a lot of strain on the plastic cover. But this time, instead of replacing the whole motor, I just ordered a replacement cover from Amazon (I actually ordered two of them, in case it breaks again).
Here’s the broken cover:
After removing the cover from the motor:
The replacement cover:
The cover on the motor; I needed to unscrew the useless handle to get it on:
Finished:
Let’s see how long this one lasts!
While preparing to leave the Four Mile Creek State Park campground recently, the big front driver-side slide-out started to come in crooked — the front side didn’t move, but the back side came in. This is very bad — apart from a potentially difficult and expensive repair, we could not move our coach with the slide unable to retract.
Here you can see that the front side of the slide was almost fully extended:
But the rear side was mostly in:
Looking underneath, the arm was twisted:
That was the end result of our efforts: we stopped after a moment when we realized that it was coming in crooked, and tried re-extending and re-retracting a few times, to no avail; we stopped when it got that skewed, and we couldn’t re-extend it again.
Time to call for professional help! I looked on the RV Help site, and found Brian Villa (Villa Mobile RV Tech). He was enjoying some Sunday time with his family, but was willing to come help us, arriving within an hour or two. We spent some time investigating, trying to narrow down the cause, and eventually discovered that the hydraulic reservoir was empty, and when we added more fluid, it immediately leaked out over the top of the fuel tank:
Unfortunately it isn’t easy to see the front hydraulic piston, as it’s above the big 150 gallon fuel tank, but we’re pretty confident that the piston seals have failed.
The next day, the tech got some caps for the hydraulic hoses, and capped off the two hydraulic hoses for that slide (here’s the first one capped):
He also disconnected the slide from both the front and back pistons (this is the back one):
Little bolts that hold the slide to the piston:
We were unable to push the slide in manually with just the two of us, so he used two jacks to raise the slide a little (as it has to go up before it goes in):
We also recruited some extra “muscle” from the campground maintenance staff and other campers, and between six of us we were able to manually push the slide in — once we got it over the first inch or so, it slid in the rest of the way very easily (with a little gravity assist by tilting the coach using air leveling):
With that in, Brian built some bracing out of 2×4 boards to hold it in, since the hydraulics were disconnected. On the front side of the slide, there was a very sturdy structure on top of the slide:
Even screwed into the slide itself:
A simpler but still sturdy bracing above the slide on the rear side:
Plus a board bracing the bottom on the front side:
Thanks again to Brian for getting us back on the road!
To make it even more secure, I later added a heavy-duty ratchet strap on the rear side of the slide in the basement:
Plus a board under the couch feet, so they’re not hanging in the air (they sit on the floor when the slide is out):
And finally a couple of cabinet jack support poles adding extra bracing on the rear side:
Perhaps overkill, but we were continuing to travel while awaiting an appointment to fix it.
I initially made an appointment at NIRVC in Tennessee, which is coming up next week, but I discovered that the manufacturer of the slide cylinders, HWH, is not far off our planned route in Iowa, and they said they would be able to repair the cylinder and restore the slide (plus check the other slide and jacks), much cheaper than NIRVC would be able to (even if NIRVC had ordered a replacement part in time). So we’ll be heading to HWH in a couple of weeks. Hopefully they’ll be able to fix it as easily as they indicate!
Update: it turned out that HWH wasn’t willing to fix the issue, as they thought we’d have to drop the fuel tank to reach the piston. But it wasn’t a wasted trip, as they were able to sell us the required part. We later took our coach to the Oregon Motorcoach Center in Eugene, Oregon, and they were able to successfully fix it, accessing it through the back of the battery compartment.
The wheel rims on our coach were looking rather untidy, so based on some recommendations on Facebook, I purchased the Purple Metal Polish and Aluminum Deoxidizer:
Super easy to apply; just wipe on some deoxidizer, followed by the polish, and wipe off.
Here’s a rear wheel before polishing:
And after:
A front wheel before:
And after:
I also treated the tires with 303 Protectant for UV protection:
The polish worked on the headlights too; before:
And after:
Much better!
We recently replaced the front and mid AC units on the roof of our coach, but the rear one was working fine. That is, until one day it exploded. Or to be more precise, the blower fan, aka squirrel cage, self-destructed.
A rather disconcerting loud bang. I’ve heard that this is a common failure, but this was the first one we’d experienced.
I looked on RV Help for a nearby tech to fix this for me; I was in Hershey, Pennsylvania at the time. The first tech I contacted never replied, but the second one did, and was able to get the part for me. I didn’t know that the squirrel cage was the issue, but I was pretty confident that it was, so he brought the part with him. Spoiler: I was right.
Mike’s Mobile RV came to the rescue:
Three people, in fact: Mike himself, his wife, and an apprentice:
(I would have preferred some padding on the ladder, though.)
Here’s the broken squirrel cage:
A quick fix.
Our coach has a black tank flush, where it can rinse out the toilet tank, but doesn’t have a similar mechanism for the gray tank. It generally gets cleaned out by filling it up with soapy water from showers, laundry, and sink usage, but occasionally an extra rinse is beneficial.
To do that, one could just close the gray dump valve and let it fill up with regular usage, or one could fill it via the dump valve.
To do the latter, I have a Camco Dual Flush Pro Holding Tank Rinser, which connects in the sewer pipe and includes a gate valve and hose connection, and a knob to direct the water towards the tank or towards the outlet:
By closing the gate valve, opening the gray valve in the wet bay, and turning on the water, it backs up into the gray tank.
To avoid over-filling the tank, I watch the level indicator in the wet bay, and also a water flow meter connected to the hose:
Here’s the whole setup, including the wet bay:
For best results, this can be combined with Liquified Tank & Sensor Cleaner, to give a deep clean of the tank.
I previously replaced the cover on the light under the sink, but it got knocked off again, so I decided to replace the whole light fixture this time, figuring that the clips that hold the cover on may be weak.
The light is available from Tiffin’s online parts store, part number 5032143 “Light Wardrobe Brown LED”:
Rather than using the wires that came with the light, I simply unplugged the existing wires from the old light, and plugged in to the new one. But the light didn’t work; it turned out that I needed to reverse the wires; so I guess the original was hooked up differently:
But all good now:
An easy fix.
I’m sure most people are super-excited by minor modifications to our motorhome like this… and what’s more thrilling than toilet paper?!
But fellow owners of our coach (e.g. in the Tiffin Allegro Bus 2016-2018 Owners group on Facebook) might find it useful. For them, we have a 2017 Tiffin Allegro Bus 40SP.
The toilet paper holder used to be next to the door, but was kinda in the way there. I tried raising it up, but that didn’t help much:
So we decided to move it to under the corner cabinet. Here’s the mount, screwed into the cabinet:
The toilet paper holder attached to the mount:
The final result, along with a rechargeable motion light and replaced soap dispenser and faucet:
Much better; still easily reachable, without getting in the way.