First up: recaulking the windows and awnings on our driver's side and installing gutters on the main awning.
Window awning recaulking
Aaron had actually built the gutters way back in the fall when we were first getting ready to start this adventure, but he didn't get them installed before we left. We figured we'd install them on the road, only to figure out that we didn't have a tall enough ladder with us to really do so safely. So they made a trip untouched in our cabinets until we got back on the farm! Some glue and a couple zip ties later and they're up on the awning and *hopefully* will help keep the running water off the side of the RV.
New gutters before and after painting
Installing the new gutters
We also reglued the facing to one of our basement doors. Aaron banged the doors pretty strongly getting the facing back in place and accidentally broke one of the door strut attachments (these things were falling like flies in the fall when he was doing repairs, so no big surprise there). Our next sunny day he fixed this with a new steel plate, epoxy, and a few rivets.
Adding rivets to the new metal plate
All done! The gray is JB Weld epoxy, Aaron's go-to for small gluing jobs
Our final and MAJOR project was lubricating the 40ish lubrication points underneath the RV. This took a LOT longer than we expected, mostly because it took forever to locate all the grease fittings. Fortunately we had a list of what we were looking for...as Aaron lubricated the various points, we discovered that the ones that were easy to find appeared to be well lubricated...but the ones that were harder to find seemed like they hadn't been lubricated in a LONG time...which suggested to us that the previous owners did NOT have this list and just lubricated what they could see. Everything should be in good shape now though! One of the lubrication points was a two person job - you had to hold a finger over a release hole while pumping grease into a fitting so it would go out the other end of the joint - so I even had to get up under the RV to help! Unfortunately we don't have a picture of that rare event.
Trying to locate grease fittings
Aaron and (mostly) my dad have a slowly ongoing project of trying to figure out how to straighten or support our front hydraulic jack. It's at a bit of an angle - we think the previous owners ran over something - and when the jack is extended a lot it just looks precarious. My dad has fabricated an impressive looking bracket out of steel, and we went to a Fastenal location to get some extra long threaded rods to support the process. So far we're still in the preparation phase for that so I'll have more details later, but in my ongoing reporting on the impacts of coronavirus on our lives, I thought I'd share this picture from shopping at Fastenal.
Social distancing
That's Aaron in the neon yellow shirt. They wouldn't let you in the shop except to pay - an employee met you at the door, noted what you were looking for, and went inside the shop to try to find it. Social distancing was going great with just us and this guy, but then another person walked up and stood right at the door and encroached on everyone's space. So it was halfway working?
Finally...it's our 20th anniversary today! Staying home/staying safe this rainy (and sleety??) day in Blacksburg is a far cry from our planned 2 month cruising trip in Europe, but we're doing our best to celebrate nonetheless. I made Disney's Chocolate, Peanut Butter, Banana French Toast this morning for breakfast, which was quite a hit.
We finally got 3 consecutive days of sun, warmth, and low winds on the family farm! We were able to get some work done on several RV projects.
We have a pretty great view from inside the RV on the farm.
With rain ever on the horizon, Aaron decided patching the skylight over our shower was top priority.
View from inside the shower
The skylight is a 2-layer deal with an inner clear flexible layer (you're looking through it in the image above) and an outer semi-opaque harder plastic layer. Both are shaped (a shallow hump along an irregular edge), so replacing the whole shebang wasn't an easy option. The outer layer had numerous cracks and leaks in the seal. Aaron managed to delicately extract the shell without damaging it further, scrape off all the gunk resulting from various individuals' various attempts to patch the cracks, fix the cracks, and reattach the skylight with fresh sealant. Whew!
Patching the cracked edge
Adding foam between the inner and outer layers
The inner layer surrounded by cleaned up foam and a new bead of sealant
All done!
While he was on the roof he also added fresh sealant to many of the seams - this is a regular maintenance activity for RV owners. Over time the sealant cracks and lets water in. Our favorite sealant for the roof is Self-Leveling Dicor.
Fun on the roof
We attempted to get our ice maker working - we'd never really tried to before so we weren't sure whether it worked or not, but we had to cut the feeder line while fixing the refrigerator, so at a minimum THAT needed to be fixed.
Installing the feeder line extension
Re-installed
After hooking everything up properly and waiting several hours for the freezer to cool back down, we still had no ice. It took some creative searching but I finally found the manual for our ice maker in our Norcold 1200LRIM refrigerator. We ran all the tests except the one that had to be run while everything was warm and dry, and so far everything has checked out. We managed to accidentally turn off the water pump after re-securing the wiring, so after we got everything put back together we didn't end up actually testing it out. Fingers crossed it will work soon!
Next up: fixing the damage to the engine compartment from when we accidentally backed over a post. At the time we thought we had only bent a bit of the back grille, but when Aaron pulled it off to repair it we discovered things were a bit worse...we had broken the sunken bolt holes in the plastic case around some kind of wiring box.
Those four screws were supposed to be holding the plastic box on...
Close up of the plastic box with the mounting holes sheared off
Neither of us was very surprised at the damage - it seemed miraculous at the time that we hadn't done any more damage than the grille - and we were lucky that even this damage wasn't very major. Aaron fixed this by running longer bolts through the apparatus and using washers on the outside of the plastic box.
So what was I doing during all of this you might ask? Well, a lot of the time I was monitoring the ladder, grabbing tools, etc. But my one main accomplishment for this time was to staple up insulation inside many of the cabinets at the ceiling of the RV.
Insulation installed
As you can kind of see, many of these cabinets act as a pantry for us, and got unhappily hot when we got any kind of sun. We've seen from other RV channels that adding insulation like this can help, hope they're right!
One thing I don't have a picture of but did want to mention because it took us FOREVER to find this video...we have a Winegard Togo Roadlink to provide internet via AT&T. It has been a fairly constant headache for us, though when it's working it's great. Our latest error was a "no SIM installed" error, and no amount of restarting was working for us. Aaron found this video on YouTube.
This actually worked! I'm linking it here just in case it can help someone else... Now, unfortunately, about 12 hours later the same error popped up, but we did it again and again it worked immediately and lasted until we left the farm the second time. If nothing else this gives us something that seems to be reliable that we can do when we get these errors on the device.
And FINALLY...since it is Star Wars Day … once we finished working on the RV I went back to the kitchen and baked up some fun sugar cookies!
It's been a while since the weather was cooperative enough for us to get anything done on the RV, but this week we decided we just needed to bite the bullet and start working on things. However, we stuck to the inside for now!
The latches on several of our drawers are broken; mostly they were broken before we purchased the RV, but some have gone out since then and some are in worse shape now after opening violently when we went over bumps or around curves while driving. Aaron fixed the worst offender this week: the latch on one of the cabinet drawers in the kitchen. We discovered we don't have as many replacement latches as we thought, so we'll have to get more before we can finish the rest of the drawers.
First Aaron had to repair the broken cabinet bottom - a result
of me overloading it with baking stones 😳
Replacement latches
Aaron had to get creative because the replacement
metal latches didn't fit in the same spot as the old
thick plastic latches...he ended up mounting
the latch to the top of the drawer instead of the
bottom and it worked perfectly.
We also discovered the glue holding the brush-like weatherstripping (maybe? not sure what to call it) on our screen window in the living room had decayed, so we re-glued that on.
What's that called??
While checking to see how this item was mounted on the other screens we discovered that our dining room screen was missing this piece! That explains SO MUCH about why bugs kept on getting inside our RV! I felt like they were coming through the window crack that I could see, but didn't understand why the window was designed like that...and now I know that it WASN'T designed that way, it's just missing the brushy weatherstripping thingy that's supposed to keep them out!! I'm SO excited and can't wait to get a replacement glued in so we can keep our windows open without fear of bugs!!
While it's been too icky to work on the RV in West Virginia, we've been getting into other projects at my parents' house in Blacksburg. In contrast to the family farm in West Virginia, the house in Blacksburg is on a wooded mountain with lots of leaves...so many leaves... We spent some time one afternoon clearing some very compacted (and almost soil) leaves out of the culverts crossing my parents' driveways.
There were so many leaves and they were so
heavy I had to switch from a rake to a snow
shovel to move them across the driveway.
Aaron gave up on tools entirely and just started hauling the
leaves out with his hands.
All clear!
Aaron replaced a non-working drain in my parents' bathtub, inadvertently aggravating a slow leak they've always had into a very fast leak in the process. He and my dad replaced the drain pipe entirely and now the bathtub is in top notch shape!
As the stay at home order continues, the days are starting to flow together a bit. Unfortunately spring hasn't completely taken hold in Virginia and West Virginia, with cold temperatures and SNOW!
I miss Florida!
We did work on the RV a bit during one nice day and got our fan cover installed.
View from the inside
Installing the new cover
Recaulking another fan cover
Our new tow hitch also arrived in the mail - the old one was heavily used and 'free' when we purchased the RV, but doesn't move when it should and moves when it shouldn't, a bit of a safety hazard, so we opted to replace it while we're parked.
Due to the cold temperatures and multiple sub-freezing nights we plugged our heat tape back in and turned on the heater in the RV to stop the pipes from freezing.
Aside from the one day of work, most days have been either too cold, too wet, or too windy (or a combination thereof) to get anything done on the RV, so we've been hanging out inside and taking walks around the neighborhood when we can. Even though it's been cold, the trees think spring has sprung!
Apple trees on the farm
After the new recommendation from the CDC regarding masks, my mother and I made a few out of old pillows using a hybrid of patterns available online. Fortunately my mother is a much better seamstress than I am and was able to help me through!
Completed masks for Aaron and me
For anyone who's reading that we used to hang out with WAYYY back in the day, we've been playing a bit of Starcraft II in our free time! We hadn't played any computer games to speak of in 5 or 6 years, it's been fun to relive our 'youth' a bit.
Sadly that's all I have to report for now! We're hoping the weather will turn soon so we can get some more productive work done on the RV...since the stay at home order looks like it'll be around for a while, we've decided there's not a particular reason to go out in the cold at the moment!
Unfortunately the family farm received a lot of rain in the days leading up to our arrival in the RV. We had to leave the RV parked un-level at the top of the driveway while waiting for the field to dry out so we could reposition it at the one flat place on the farm.
We had a narrow window on Saturday where it had been dry for a few days right before rain was due again, so we raced to move the RV. Unfortunately the field was not quite so firm as it appeared when we did the test drive over it in the cars, and the RV got stuck.
Take a good look at that front tire...
Thanks to some quick thinking and quick work by Aaron and my dad, we were able to jack the RV up, put boards underneath the tires, and get moving again...only to get stuck in another 10 feet. So we repeated the process.
Positioning the boards
Yay! Traction!
Over the board and on to the next place to get stuck
We left some nasty ruts in the field 😞
Finally we got the RV in place! We did a lot of jacking up and down and Aaron drove very carefully to get the RV up on the different-height blocks that keep it level and stop it from sinking into the earth.
So many blocks! Plus plywood for traction to drive up
on the blocks.
All set!
The next day the wind managed to rip one of the fan/vent covers off of the RV. (It's REALLY windy at the farm.) This particular cover's restraining arm broke while we were on the road, so Aaron already had a replacement on order (though it hadn't arrived yet), but we still had to race over between rain showers and tape plastic over the gaping hole in the roof. It seems that the crazy wind managed to get under the cover and blow the whole thing off without the restraining arm.
Unfortunately Aaron's phone absolutely died and we lost a few pictures so all I have to share are the few that I took. We took lots of walks around the adjacent lake and saw lots of turtles and a few alligators. This was the first time I've seen alligators in South Carolina!
When we left this campsite we made the LONG haul the rest of the way (we were on the road 7.5 hours) to my family's farm to park the RV and follow the rest of the world in staying at home and not traveling. This was the longest and farthest we had driven the RV in one day - longer than each leg of our 3-day mad rush from Greenville, SC to Clearwater, FL when we first bought the RV, the previous record holders. We were smarter about it this time than that mad rush, stopping for a break at every rest stop (with thorough handwashing of course!) and napping as needed (this is why it took 7.5 hours).
Now that we're settled for the duration of the pandemic, this blog will shift from our traveling adventures to our repair adventures...we have a long list of things Aaron wants to work on while we're parked, and I'll post updates on what he's doing.
We spent a couple nights at South Newport Campground in Georgia on our way north. This was a small private campground with a very polite and friendly hostess. It felt like the most narrow site we've been on due to a tree that forced us right up on our neighbor...it might have been about the same as our site at Orlando Thousand Trails. We had full hookups and the price and location were right, definitely a good choice if you need an overnight stop on I-95.
Hello Georgia!
Our campsite between two trees
Coronavirus effects followed us here...out of an abundance of caution, our hostess did not come out to greet us, but did call after she saw us park to check in and make sure everything was okay. She had watched us come in from her window and I had the distinct impression she would have walked on over to greet us in person had the situation been different. We dropped our payment in a secured drop box so that we didn't have to physically interact with anyone.
We took a short drive to the nearby Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge. It has a nice drive-through trail, which was excellent because the bugs were unreal in this area. We attempted one hiking trail and quickly decided we wouldn't attempt any more because of the bugs...we did see a rookery, which was cool, but that was quickly followed by an alligator IN OUR PATH...even though we were about 3/4 complete with the overall trail, we just couldn't stomach walking past his nose (we would have had to pass within about 5 feet of him), and he didn't want to budge even with our presence, so we turned around and headed back the way we came.
Rookery
That grass is the hiking trail...I was too nervous to spend
any more time getting a clear photo!
