Coach Journal (Week 1)
Day 1 - 7/29/04
We arrived at the coach this evening to mainly address the
12v system issues and to visit with Mom and Dad briefly before their departure
on Saturday. Batteries After cracking open the Battery Compartment we found
a serious amount of corrosion from battery acid leakage not only on the batteries
but on the new converter/charger - indication that more battery acid had leaked
after the replacement of the converter. Batteries hardly twitched when we
tested them with a volt meter, but the converter was humming along nicely.
After testing the batteries further we ruled out the possibility that they
had short-circuited, leaving us with the most likely possibility that they
had simply been left to go dead. But the converter was working fine which
sort of ruled that out - until we found the fried contacts that had been corroded
and with a slight tug were released from the batteries. After an hour or so
or re-wiring we had the batteries hooked back up to the converter taking a
charge nicely. We'll know in a day if they can actually hold a charge (not
likely as they've been dead so long - but one can hope!).
Assessment - Old converter died which probably caused the mess with the batteries
and the wiring got corroded, new one was swapped out but the contacts were
not rewired which meant no contact was being made to the now dead batteries.
Batteries were declared dead and left to sit until replacement was an option.
Engine - Well, there are tubes dangling, holes were their should be fittings, detached hoozy-ma-callits, etc. Trevor, with furrowed brow, poked around for a while and decided that he couldn't quite figure out the way the fuel lines should be connected. The guy Mom and Dad had working on the engine left a few things hanging and never finished his work -apparently disconnecting a line, leaving it hanging, and possibly reconnecting other lines incorrectly. I have a few words I could use to describe this sort of service. We will need to pick up a 671 Detroit Diesel manual to get the appropriate schematics to figure this one out. Not a concern or a challenge, just a matter of waiting because this is a book that can only be found online and will have to be shipped. With one month to get this bad boy fired up and Trevor gone for one week in the middle - this could get interesting.
Day 2 - 7/31/04
Move day for Mom and Dad. Not a whole lot got done with the Coach today, but I did determine that the batteries held their charge enough to keep the cabin lights on for a good 10 minutes. I would have tested the longer but the generator (I think) started to make a rhythmic ticking noise after about 10 minutes so I decided to kill the experiment and wait for Trevor to take a look. Mom said it sounded like it did when it was trying to start.
Day 3 - 8/2/04
Tonight was intended to be a good night to roll up our sleeves and really start to dig in. A lot of assessment was made tonight as to what needs to be done to get the rig on the road and what will inevitably need to be done to resurrect Sweet Baby to the standards a vehicle of her caliber should be in. Trevor focused mainly on the engine while I stayed inside and focused on making some sense of the dust, grime, and mildew. Interior It's amazing how overwhelming such a small space can be when it comes to cleaning. The Coach has been used as a permanent home for about 8 or so years and with that comes 8 years of filth, wear and tear. So I donned my gloves, grabbed my simple green, and decided to take it one section at a time.
Tonight was kitchen night - which was probably the
most arduous. There appears to be a big fruit fly issue which I hope can be
attributed to an apple I found under the sink, but only time will tell. About
2 hours of scrubbing, rinsing and swatting flies later and I had what looked
to be like the Coach kitchen. Issues - Kitchen Big mildew problem around the
kitchen window - a mild bleach solution may fix this but the inevitable solution
is most likely taking the interior framework out and re-gasket the windows
while tackling the mildew from the inside of the frame as well. Upside to
this is we can then grind down the window frame and give it a new polish as
it's gotten a little rust from the moisture most likely caused by the failing
gaskets. Wall behind sink looks to be growing mildew behind the paneling (pink
splotches are showing through). Probably will tear that down and replace with
either stainless panels or tiling? Won't be able to match the rest of the
walls onboard so we'll have to do something complimentary. Faucet probably
needs the gasket replaced - leaks down the back onto the backsplash when turned
on full blast. Oven fan makes an undulating grinding noise when on - probably
should crack that open and clean it out.
Interior To-Do List - immediate
- check the couch; apparently a few springs are loose and now it won't stay
in the upright position without tape. As fashionable that is, I'd like to
get that fixed.
- Take down and store refrigerator and microwave; neither is RV safe and will
most likely fall during transit.
Interior To-Do - long-term
Bathroom - Bathroom door needs TLC; door knob needs fixing (won't latch)
and the door is swollen and will no longer close entirely. - Vent fan in bathroom
will need replacing - Replace toilet - May need to take up teak flooring in
bathroom (replace with linoleum ) depending on the shape of the floor under
the toilet
Kitchen - New refrigerator - New microwave - Sink fluorescent light is missing cover -
Dinette - cushions will need to be reupholstered - Vent fan needs replacing
Living area - Take down all interior window frames, grind and polish - All furniture will need reupholstering (new foam, springs, and fabric). May need to replace the couch altogether. - New blinds (honeycomb?) - New carpet (replace with berber) - New speakers - New sound system - New tv - A few floor runway lights are out (bulb? Or rewiring?) - Headliner throughout the entire rig is splitting randomly at the seams - glue has been used in some spots to hold together; will need to take the whole thing down, strip the glue off and reinforce the seams. - Pull knob on the window over the couch was broken off. May be able to solder it back on or it will have to be replaced. Hallway - Main closet doors need fixing (swollen door and loose hinge make it hard to close
Stateroom - new carpeting (berber) - new blinds over beds and new back-window curtain - back rests will need to be reupholstered
Batteries We unplugged the rig from the electricity to see how the batteries are doing. They held a charge as I determined on Saturday but the ticking was keeping quiet. Trevor was able to get it started by flipping a switch in the battery compartment however. The ticking is most likely the fuel pump for the generator and the switch in the battery compartment is an on/off switch for the pump's starter. So now we know how to stop the ticking! Much to our dismay one of the batteries started to hiss (water/acid is oozing from one of the water chambers). Trevor determined with his trusty volt meter that while the batteries are in fact taking a charge they're only taking about 10 or so volts - not exactly the purpose of a 12v battery. Looks like we'll have to replace those - but at least they have enough juice to kick the engine on. So to save ourselves the initial expense (these batteries run about $150 a pop) we'll go with what we've got to move the rig up to Sacramento and deal with swapping them out for newer, lighter, and fancier deep-cell batteries.
Engine Hurrah! Trevor has determined that he has now figured
out how the fuel lines are working and that the dangling tube was actually
intentional (plunk that into a can full of fresh diesel and you now have a
clean source of fuel to run the engine off of for routine maintenance). Not
a bad work-around so the main fuel tanks, and the algae that lurks within,
can be ignored for the time being. This also means we now have an alternate
means of providing fuel to the engine while Trevor tunes is up - something
we were actually going to try and rig up on our own and now we don't have
to. Ok, I humbly eat my words about the mechanic - at least for now. On to
more tune-up adventures! Now that we know the engine is essentially intact
and can technically be turned on Trevor went about some regular maintenance.
The fluids will have to be changed, the valves checked, and the lines primed.
I was meticulously scratching grease from the kitchen ceiling when he came
in to show me a drain plug that had fused inside of another fitting that had
broken off from the radiator manifold
After much research and quizzing of West
Marine employees and Diesel mechanics we purchased a diesel fuel additive
by the name of Racor
Diesel Biocide to toss in the tank and see if it can't eat up some
of that algae. We don't exactly know what we're dealing with in there. With
most diesel tanks you're typically dealing with a layer of water/sludge, and
the diesel floats on top - the algae grows in between feeding off of the diesel
while residing in the water. After we determine that the fuel hasn't gone
rancid (fuel will smell of varnish) we throw this Biocide stuff in there and
it eats the algae saving us the hassle of buying fuel filters in bulk and
changing them every 2 seconds. We'll probably come back after treating the
tanks with a pump and suck out the water from the bottom of the tank. We have
also determined that there is a handy-dandy fuel pump that connects the main
tank and the auxiliary tank together, and it runs both ways - so we may be
able to pump the bad fuel from the main tank into the auxiliary tank, cap
it off and deal with it later. We can then fill the main tank with clean fuel,
treat it regularly with algae eaters and just drive around and run that tank
dry a few times. Apparently the best thing you can do is just treat the fuel
and run it through your systems - water and algae will always be a problem,
it's just the nature of diesel. Fortunately we've got this 671 bulldog engine
that is impossible to kill. But we forgot to throw the Biocide
in the tank so we'll have to do that tomorrow.
Day 4 - 8/5/04
Today was the day we had set to do a oil and filter change on
the engine and see if we can't coax the engine into turning over for us. Acquiring
oil and fuel filters for this sort of vehicle isn't necessarily hard, but
after a trip to Kragen earlier in the week we realized it wasn't going to
be easy either. Trevor contacted his sales rep over at Ryder
(they provide the trucks and service for his company) and quizzed the guy
on good places to get diesel big truck parts. Tom was excited to hear about
the project, thought it was a fun story, and told us that if we run in to
any problems we should give him a call - he learned how to work on diesel
engines with a 6-71. Small world! Tom referred Trevor to Specialty
Truck Parts over on Industrial road in San Jose. Thank you Specialty
Truck! Not only did they have the filters we needed, their prices were better
than we were finding online and they were able to provide Trevor with the
part to screw into the radiator manifold for free. 
Apparently
it's a simple plumbing fitting you can get at most places and they had a few
bouncing around in their shop. The part he gave us was actually one piece
big enough to fit the hole. The original piece was in fact two pieces; a fitting
and a bolt that fit inside the fitting. Back when these rigs were meant for
passenger transportation they had their fluids drained on a weekly basis,
risking the possibility of stripping the hole out. The manifolds originally
came with a fitting to act as a sort of disposable hole - when the threads
got stripped out you tossed the fitting and threw on a fresh one. Since the
engine is used for less arduous purposes now, the water will only be drained
once a year or so - making it unnecessary to put a fitting in there first.
Drilling out the hole and plugging it with the new plug will be added to the
to-do list for later in the week after we get the engine started. For right
now the plug is holding water just fine and we can worry about that detail
once we've checked the engine off the list.
We arrive at the Coach to find things they way we've left them. The residents in the park have left things remarkably untouched. Filters, buckets, and a 5 gallon tank of Diesel in hand Trevor marches in the back to start on the oil change while I go inside to work on more cleaning.
Interior - Not much to report here. I cleaned the dinette and vacuumed the carpets. The fruit flies continue to be unauthorized little tenants. We've determined at this point that the source seems to be the bathroom. Our summation here is that because the gate in the toilet bowl no longer completely seals it allows not only fumes but insects to travel on board. Most likely there is a significant amount of waste that has adhered itself to the walls of the tank and the flies are laying their eggs there. Lovely thought really. The trick with RVs when you park and live on them for a long period of time is that you have to clean the tanks out occasionally. They make enzymes for this sort of thing - a little splash of that and a hose usually does the trick. Add the enzyme to our CampingWorld shopping list! So, for the time being we'll have to make nice with the flies. Or at least continue to kill them as they get in my way.
The couch has been officially taken off the "to take to the dump" list. After very carefully removing the tape I was relieved to see that it didn't jump out at me like a Jack-in-the-box. In fact, it was so anti-climatic I was somewhat disappointed. I pulled it down into the bed position and found that it still didn't leap out into the room. How very drab and boring. It was a bit tipsy - not something I'd want to sit on in a drunken stupor. After tipping it into the room and looking behind we found the ailment was not in fact loose springs as mom and dad had thought, but the bolts that held the frame to the floor had stripped out of the wood. The wood was fine so we won't need to replace that. The bolts can easily be replaced with longer ones - the short ones probably would have done fine under normal conditions, but since it was used as a bed for 8 years they just didn't cut it. With a few new springs, foam, and fabric, we should be able to return the coach to a very desirable condition. If not, we can replace it with some new modern sleek coach that moves into a bed position electronically with the flip of a switch - how very porn star.
Exterior - And I thought my car was in desperate need of an oil change. The thing takes 22 quarts of oil! We artfully lined 4 pans up to collect the oil as it came gushing out. Actually, "gushing" is a poor descriptor - "glopping in a medium/slow fashion" is more like it. Trevor pulled the plug and out it all glopped, like lumpy runny Jello chocolate pudding - mmmmmmm, my favorite. He was able to swap out both fuel filters as well as the oil filter, but the coolant filter will have to wait because the darn sucker wouldn't budge. Priming the engine Now for a little cheater fuel line priming. Ok, so we've done our research, talked to mechanics, there are a few schools of thought on this. You've got an engine that's been sitting for a long time, the fuel essentially dried up from the lines. You have to prime the lines so the darn thing will start. You look online and you can read articles written about how you'd better think twice before starting that engine before priming it. But the Detroit Diesel 671 injectors are supposed to be self priming. Sigh. Our new-found diesel mechanic up in Sacramento advised us to prime it. Ok - probably should take his advice. But how do we go about this without setting up some elaborate priming configuration like they recommend on http://users.cwnet.com/~thall/tomhall.htm Our mechanics and the guys over at Specialty Truck kind of get quiet on this topic. Ok fine, we'll figure this one out ourselves. Trevor whips out the air compressor, holds the output over the fuel line (behind the fuel filter) and proceeds to push the fuel from the filter through the lines. New filters in place, new oil, and the fuel line (installed by the moron, but now our new best friend mechanic) dropped into our 5 gallon tank of Diesel, and the fuel lines primed we stood there staring at each other. Oooooookay…this is it. Is there anything else? No…not really. I guess we can go start it. At this point it's dark out - probably too late to be starting a diesel engine. But hey - who would expect us to walk away at this point without seeing if all work had paid off? After all this time, not really knowing what the outcome will be, the suspense was too much. Key in hand, we head to the captain's chair with little care as to how late it was. Key in, lights on the dash come on - so far so good. The things not in gear, good. Trevor looks at me, I nervously smile back. Here's that moment where you realize that in the next few moments a few things are going to be determined. Am I building the suspense up enough here? Anyway…you know that either the engine could start and life is good, provided it doesn't then cut out right after you finish celebrating. Or, it could just sit there sputtering, making the awful noise that engines makes when you know your bank account is about to get a lot smaller. Ok, back to the engine. So he turns the key and it fires up. At that my family and friends is the Dénouement. Alright, I'll elaborate a little more - fine. It started on the first turn and didn't cut out when we were done celebrating. We ran out to check on things in the engine compartment and found that, yes - there's an engine back there. Trevor was able to manually engage the throttle and lots of environmentally friendly black smoke came out. We were also able to engage the air throttle from on board which checks that off our list - we weren't sure that was in fact working. At this point management came out and told us that people have to work in the morning and revving diesel engines in the middle of a trailer park isn't exactly conducive to a good rest. So we killed the engine with big grins on our faces, packed up and headed home.
Day 5 - 8/06/04
Today was just meant to be a low key day, I wanted to stop buy so we could pull the garbage can in from trash pick-up day. But we just couldn't help ourselves and we rolled up our sleeves and got a few things done regardless of it being Friday. Trevor fired up the engine again to make sure that the night before wasn't just some cruel fluke. Things sounded normal and then the engine sputtured and cut out. Uh oh. I look back towards the compartment and realize that the 5 gallon jug of clean diesel fuel we had been drawing from was still safely tucked away in the underbay - the fuel line just dangling. I figured engines don't run too well without fuel so I pointed it out to Trevor. No real harm done - just needed to re-prime the fuel lines and reconnect the fuel line. But this time he decided to plug up the auxiliary fuel draw and have the engine draw straight from the main tanks. I crossed my fingers, prayed to the Biocide Gods, and waited anxiously. At first the engine sounded like it was loosing it's footing - a little weak, sounding like at any moment it would just die. But finally, lines fully flushed with fuel, the engine came back to life again, in all it's powerful glory! We let it run for probably about 30 minutes, Trevor inspected the air pressure, did a walk around inspection checking things out. The air bags filled up which is good news. I had been sweating quite a bit over this. I knew that our biggest task ahead was getting the engine running, but the next biggest concern was the air bellows. Air bellows are basically these bags that fill with air to help level the rig while the engine is running (we'll be modifying these later so that they work to level the rig at all times, even if the engine is off). They look to be made of the same rubber a tire is made of, and from the outside have the appearance of little inner tubes you'd go floating down the river in. In my folks files I had found receipts for a recent replacement of the air bellows on one of the wheels. So I decided to look into the air-bag system and found that each axle has 4 sets of bellows on it (i.e. 2 sets on each side). We've got two axles which makes for 8 sets of bellows for one rig - the receipt I dug up shows they cost $200 a set. So replacing the things could run anywhere from $200 to $1600 depending on how many need replacement. Further research on the proper maintenance and life expectancy of your typical air bellow basically produced a phrase that I'm beginning to get tired of reading; "intermittent care and maintenance will be necessary to maintain optimum performance, otherwise repair or replacement will be needed." So, basically we just had to wait and see. Fortunately, my folks had stored the rig with blocks under the axles. This enabled the airbags to stay nearly inflated this whole time which meant the rubber wasn't compressed onto itself which would most likely promote drying, cracking, and eventual leaks. Thanks mom and dad! We'll know for sure once we kick those blocks out from under the axles and let the rig stand on it's own four feet. But chances are they're just fine and we won't have any problems. We'll get to that in a week or two. Okay, enough for one Friday!