Windshield leak repair

Today would normally be a travel post, but we’re almost real-time, and it’s my birthday week, so I thought I’d do a week of modification posts instead, as my gift to you. Enjoy!

Another repair item. Our windshield started to leak a little in one spot when it rained, dripping down inside:

Leak

Obviously not ideal. While in Red Bay, we had an appointment with 1st Class Glass to fix that:

1st Class Glass

They also have an adjacent full-hookup campground for customers, though we didn’t use it:

Campground

They hooked up the power, and encouraged us to put out our slides and relax in our coach, which was nice:

1st Class Glass

They have a nifty platform that can be raised or lowered to let them conveniently work on the windshield without needing ladders:

1st Class Glass

A glimpse in the background of a windshield being re-attached to a motorhome:

1st Class Glass

They replaced the seal all across the top of our windshield, which does seem to have fixed the leak (it was possible the leak was actually coming from the marker light, but they found moisture inside the windshield seal, so were fairly confident that the problem was the windshield seal):

Re-sealed windshield

Yay for not leaking!

Window awning repair

Back in December we were enjoying Ho-Hum RV Park in the panhandle of Florida. On a sunny day, we pulled out the awnings over our windows to provide some shade… but instead of extending normally, with a springy force trying to pull it back closed, the big one on the passenger side suddenly slammed open, and would no longer retract. That isn’t ideal.

Window awning

The retraction uses some coiled springs inside the tube on the outer edge (“FRTA” stands for Fabric Roller Tube Assembly):

Window awning

I was able to manually roll it up:

Window awning

To keep it from unfurling when driving down the road, I restrained it with zip ties, which of course meant we couldn’t use it:

Window awning

(Not a critical feature, since we could extend our big awning for much the same effect, but still annoying.)

I looked around for parts, since I thought I could repair it myself, but couldn’t find any supplier. But we planned to be in Red Bay, Alabama for some servicing in March, so I asked Happy Host RV Concierge to find someone who could do this repair. They found Vina RV Service Center, and made an appointment for us:

Vina RV Service Center

Their waiting room:

Vina RV Service Center

Apparently the torsion springs were fine, but they’d come disconnected from the tube, so they had to machine a part to fix that. Good thing I got professionals to do this for us, as I wouldn’t have been able to do that repair myself!

Vina RV Service Center

Back at our campsite in Red Bay Acres, the repaired awning:

Window awning

All better! We don’t use the window awnings often, as we are frequently in places too windy for them, but they are nice to have when it’s sunny and not windy.

(Update: after a few months this repair failed; the awning would kinda retract, but would have to be pushed all the way up, while making clunking noises. We ended up replacing the awning with a Girard one when back in Red Bay; look out for a post about that in a month or two.)

Sewer hose closure

As you may know, I post about RV modification topics every Monday (“Modification Mondays”). I have a long list of potential topics, some smaller than others, so I thought I’d post some of the shorter ones on Thursdays when we don’t have a lot of exploring topics — Thursday for “Tweak Thursdays” (I do enjoy alliteration!). Here’s the first one, about a nice little tweak.

In the wet bay of our motorhome, there is a large hole in the bottom through which one feeds the sewer hose, so the wet bay door can be closed with the hose connected. That is convenient, but it leaves a sizable gap around the hose, through which rodents and such could enter. I previously used some steel wool to close this gap, which worked well, though tended to rust when it got damp, and was a bit of a hassle.

I recently saw a suggestion on Facebook where someone posted about a custom 3D-printed panel that fitted around the sewer hose, and someone else commented that they used one of these flashings instead:

Pipe flashing

That seemed like a great idea, so I bought one (Amazon link) and installed it by cutting a hole and fitting it around the sewer hose:

Sewer hose enclosure

Wet bay

I had it around a 2-foot-long hose, so I could disconnect that and pull it up out of the hole for travel days, leaving the flashing around the hose. But that was a bit of a hassle, so I came up with another approach: I got a clear 10” extension pipe, and put the flashing around that:

Sewer pipes

Plus a 45° adapter:

Sewer pipes

That will let me leave the pipe and flashing in place, and just remove the 45° adapter for travel days. I just installed this yesterday, so we’ll see how well it works!

Replaced shower rain head

Our motorhome has a small shower in the main bathroom, with a somewhat low ceiling. It came with a rain showerhead, in addition to a handheld one. But unfortunately it was a bit short for me (I’m 6’ 1”), so I had to duck when having a shower, and was always banging my head on it. Here’s a picture from when we bought the coach; it was a concern then, but not a dealbreaker:

Shower

So I recently solved that. I got Dillon Massey of DC Plumbing in Red Bay to remove that horrible shower head:

Removed shower head

The hole:

Hole

And install a new shower head and arm that I bought from Amazon. The rain head comes with an 11” arm, plus I bought a second arm to enable it to be positioned higher:

New shower head and arm

As a bonus, I also got Dillon to add a valve under the half bath sink on the toilet hose, so we can shut it off without having to shut off all of the water (especially useful when sanitizing our water tank):

Toilet valve

Toilet valve:

Toilet valve

Anyway, back to the shower; here’s the new arm and shower head installed:

New shower head

So much nicer! Now I can stand under the rain head without hitting my head. I can’t believe I suffered with that old one for over two years.

MagSafe charger on bedroom wall

I used to plug my iPhone in to a USB cable on my side of our bed, to charge it overnight. But when Apple made the switch from Lightning to USB-C for their iPhones, I needed two cables there. Jenn got a MagSafe charger on her side of the bed, which inspired me to get one for my side.

For my one, I decided to just mount it on the wall (or a wall trim, to be precise), using Command strips (which enable easy removal). Here’s my charger:

MagSafe charger

The power cord for it runs down behind the trim, behind the little box (that holds cough drops), and under the window inside a conduit:

MagSafe charger

The power supply is tucked in a corner:

Power supply

Then an extension cord goes down the wall (along with the wire for the Spyder panel) and under the bed; this is normally hidden by the bed and pillows:

Wire

The MagSafe charger and Jenn’s chargers are connected to a multi-headed splitter:

Squid

This is it in place under the bed (hard to see amongst all the other wires):

Squid

Plugged into this socket, that used to power the subwoofer, which we don’t use:

Socket

On Jenn’s side, she has multiple MagSafe chargers, plus a cable for her iPad:

Chargers

Another look at my new MagSafe charger, next to the Spyder panel:

MagSafe charger

My iPhone on the charger; it attaches magnetically, so seems to levitate on the wall:

MagSafe charger

Why is it vertically offset? This is why; using Apple’s new StandBy mode, that shows widgets (I use different ones nowadays):

MagSafe charger

A nice enhancement.

Replacing the cabin air filter

A periodic maintenance item for any vehicle is to replace the cabin air filter, for the dash AC.

I must admit, I thought our coach didn’t have a replaceable filter, until pointed out on my Tiffin Allegro Bus 2016-2018 Owners Facebook group. Oops.

Here’s a picture of where it is located in the generator compartment, for context:

Cabin air filter

It’s rather difficult to get out (update: it’s actually easier than this; I had only unclipped the bottom, but when I changed it for the second time, I realized there’s a clip at the top too, that was buried under insulation):

Cabin air filter

Ours was definitely overdue for replacement:

Cabin air filter

A new one from Amazon:

Cabin air filter

(Update: the guys at Bay Diesel in Red Bay were interested in the filter I used; they said it was much better than the one they had sourced.)

Using a sewer tote tank and macerator pump to dump waste tanks from the back of our truck

What goes in, must go out. As mentioned last week, sometimes we stay at rustic campgrounds or rallies where there are no sewer hookups. No big deal for up to about a week. But if we’re staying longer, we have a tote tank that can be used to empty our black and gray tanks, enabling us to camp as long as we want.

We bought a Camco Rhino 36-Gallon Portable Camper/RV Tote Tank from Amazon:

Tote tank box

They (and RVers generally) recommend getting a tank big enough to fit the capacity of the RV’s waste tanks, but that advice is geared towards smaller RVs — our motorhome has a 70 gallon gray tank and 50 gallon black tank, so we need to take two trips to fully empty each.

The instructions that came with the tank:

Manual

I also got a Tote Tank Gauge for it, that indicates when the tank is getting full; important since the capacity is smaller than the tanks in our coach:

Fill gauge

I didn’t bother installing the ladder hook, since we don’t have a ladder on our coach. In the future I might add a bar to our towbar to mount a rack onto. But for now I store the tank in the bed of our truck, wrapped in a cover:

Covered tote tank in truck

Here’s the tote tank (when it was brand new):

Tote tank

It has wheels at the back and front; the front wheels can be steered; I normally don’t attach the handle, though:

Wheel

There is a valve on the side to dump the contents:

Dump valve

And a second valve on top for filling, though this can also be used for dumping by tilting the tank vertically:

Fill valve

I also purchased a macerator pump:

Macerator pump

Normally one would position the tote tank next to the wet bay, and use gravity to fill it from the RV’s tanks, then hook the tank to a tow bar or wheel it manually to the campground dump station.

But I wanted to keep it in the bed of our truck, so I could easily drive it to the dump station. So I use the macerator pump to chop up any solids and pump it all uphill into the truck:

Macerator pump

Another time, I attached the macerator directly to the port (with a clear tube); the downside was getting a little water in the wet bay when disconnecting (if the tank isn’t completely drained):

Maserator attached directly

The tank in the back of the truck:

Tank

The hose (only used for this purpose) goes from the macerator to the fill valve on top:

Hose

Both the water bladder and the sewer tote fit quite nicely together in the bed of the truck:

Water bladder and tote

Water flowing into the tank:

Water flowing into tank

Fill gauge:

Fill gauge

The fill gauge rising up as it nears capacity:

Gill gauge

Once the tote is full (or the RV’s tanks are empty), I drive the truck to the campground’s dump station, hook up a sewer hose to the side valve, and empty the tank:

Dumping from tank in truck

Much more convenient than dragging the tote behind the truck. And like the water bladder, lets us stay indefinitely even in a campground without a sewer hookup.

Refilling our fresh tank with a water bladder and pump

We usually stay at full-hookup campgrounds, as we enjoy our creature comforts. But occasionally we stay at more rustic campgrounds or rallies where there isn’t a water faucet in our site. If a week or less, we just avoid doing laundry, long showers, and using our rear toilet (as that is a macerating one that uses more water on each flush), and can cope without difficulties.

But if we’re staying longer, we have the ability to refill our fresh water tank via a water bladder and pump.

I bought an Aquatank II water bladder from Amazon, a drinking-water-safe flexible water container with a 60 gallon capacity. It folds up really small for when we don’t need it, and fits in the bed of our truck when in use.

Our fresh tank is 90 gallons, so it takes two loads if totally empty, though I usually do one load when it’s about halfway.

Here it is empty, spread out in the bed of our truck. It has an upper hose fitting for adding water, and a lower hose fitting underneath for draining:

Water bladder

I drive the truck to the potable water supply at the campground, and use a hose to connect it to the water bladder:

Hose from potable water supply

I use a water meter to track how much I’ve added:

Water meter

The water bladder mostly full:

Mostly full water bladder

50 gallons:

Water bladder

I then drive back to our campsite, and use an electric pump to get the water into our coach, via the usual filters and water softener as I use for campsite hookups:

Pump

(I also got a drill pump as an emergency backup.)

The electric pump is about 16 PSI:

Gauges

The water bladder during draining:

Water bladder

It takes about an hour to do the full fill and empty cycle, depending on the water pressure at the campground. Definitely not as convenient as a faucet at our site, but when we don’t have one, this solution lets us stay longer without having to worry as much about water usage.

Replacing solar fuse with breaker

As followers of this blog may recall, we had a fuse between our solar panels and the solar controller:

Fuse

I had an issue where that fuse blew a few times, possibly due to our extra solar panels putting out too much power. The most recent time I replaced it with a 30 amp fuse:

Fuse

That didn’t end so well — a few months later, that fuse melted. Perhaps cheap junk, I don’t know; it should just blow, not melt. It set off our smoke detector, so could have been much worse:

Melted fuse

I considered replacing the fuse holder, but figured I needed a better solution. I decided to replace it with a circuit breaker, so if it is over-current again it’ll just pop instead of blow or burn.

I needed a short length of wire to connect it, so went to the nearby Lowes for wire, using 8 gauge wire, the same as used elsewhere in the coach:

Shopping for wire

That was an adventure in itself; the guy who helped us wasn’t familiar with wire cutting, but he figured it out.

Wire

I connected a short length of that wire to the breaker:

Breaker with wire

I then drilled some holes for the wires above the solar controller:

Installing breaker

And reconnected the controller to that wire:

Reconnected controller

Here’s the breaker installed, and preparing to re-mount the controller:

Installing controller

The completed breaker and controller (with the solar pulling in 14.4 amps):

Completed breaker and controller

Here’s hoping this solution will prove satisfactory!

Photographic artwork

Our coach came with some generic artwork on a wall in the bedroom. But we wanted to personalize it a bit, so we replaced that with 12 photos of favorite places from our travels, printed on aluminum (so we don’t need to worry about breaking glass).

We laid the prints out on our bed to decide on the arrangement:

Artwork

How many of those places do you recognize? I bet there are a few stumpers. Let me know in the comments which ones you recognize, and which ones you’ve visited. See the end of this post for a full list.

The prints came with metal hangers, which wouldn’t really cut it in a rolling earthquake of a motorhome, so I attached Command Strips to stick them to the wall; these Command Strips come in two parts like velcro, so we’ll be able to swap out the pictures in the future if desired:

Artwork