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RustyTools · 04-16-2019, 05:26 AM

Were you in the FL Keys within the past couple weeks? Saw y'all, or another one just like it. Pretty amazing coach!!

**Spdracr39** · 04-16-2019, 05:37 AM

Your list is similar to mine. Key is to just be patient and work steadly on one or two projects at a time. If you try to move to fast it will be very frustrating.

ronaprhys · 04-17-2019, 10:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RustyTools

Were you in the FL Keys within the past couple weeks? Saw y'all, or another one just like it. Pretty amazing coach!!

No - would've been nice because we're dealing with almost nothing but rain up here. That makes it fun when you're trying to get things done.

Quote:

Originally Posted by spdracr39

Your list is similar to mine. Key is to just be patient and work steadly on one or two projects at a time. If you try to move to fast it will be very frustrating.

Yeah - I working on the patience thing. So far my style here has been to do identify what must be done and work on those, but give myself 1-2 little things to do that also help with a sense of accomplishment. That way I get to see more things crossed off the list.

Right now the coach is parked in our driveway which, as a driveway should, slopes slightly away from the house. Coincidentally, the slide-out's on the uphill side of that. Wouldn't normally care, but we had it open in the rain and clearly determined that leak (as evidenced by the water damage we knew about) exists and isn't good at all. I've taken a quick look at things, but haven't seen any clear signs of where the water's getting past the structure and into the wood, but it's definitely happening. I believe there may be a small tear, rip, or hole in things up there. In the future I'll be pulling that structure out to see what I can find and repair. It was always slated to be repaired due to the water damage, this just accelerates the plan as we don't want to always have to pull the slider in during the rain.

So, either prior to us leaving for this trip or when we're in the campground, here's what I've got on my plate:

Install a mount for the upgraded TV - we're replacing the old and busted TV with new hotness, so we can have HDMI where we want it. Unfortunately, the TV that was in there is an odd size compared to new TVs (had a larger outer bezel, controls, and a sound bar on the bottom as opposed to the more modern ones where the screen goes almost edge to edge). They had it mounted in there with rectangular wooden trim ring that held in place. Since the new one is smaller than that opening, I'm fabbing up a backer board that'll attach to the substructure and hold the flush mount that the TV will attach to. Shouldn't be difficult, just take a bit to make sure the measurements have everything as centered as possible. From there, run the wires so we can hook everything up.
Chase the leak to see if I can see a likely ingress point that can be patched.
Get a bunch of pics and details on all of the lights I want to replace on the exterior. We're organizers of an off-roading event in Moab and one of our sponsors does LED lights, which makes me happy - brighter, sturdier, and much longer lived.
Also, that backup camera is vexing me again. It was working, now it's not - but the two side cameras (which turn on with the turn signal) are perfectly fine. Have to get up there and check for loose connections, water intrusion, etc.

ronaprhys · 04-20-2019, 05:51 AM

The shakedown cruise is proving informative. First off, we were able to hook up the toad and drive to our campground with relative ease. Those systems worked flawlessly. As I'm sure you all know, it takes significantly longer in an RV to get anywhere - this would normally be 5-5.5 hours and it took us 7, but that's to be expected. Other observations/findings:

We've discovered two additional leaks, both in the garage. They appear to be simple enough fixes at this point. One's on a window on the side, the other is a vent that's got a loose corner. When we're back and it's dry I'll get to work on those.
One dog is pretty much okay with traveling, the other's a bit nervous. Hopefully time doing this gets her used to it.
One of our tires was completely flat again. Prior to this trip, it had a slow leak so I had it pulled and tested but the tech couldn't find anything. Sounds like this one is going to vex us for some time.
When you're camping and it's nothing but rain, it'll take a bit to make the interior perfect for chilling and relaxing. I'm thinking we need to replace the one couch that's in there with recliners. Since we don't have a traditional bedroom, it's difficult to get my legs up.

ronaprhys · 04-26-2019, 05:50 AM

One of the things we did find out on our trip home from Indiana is that their roads are no good and the water-damaged trim around the slide out has decided to start giving up the ghost. A few pieces fell off due to all of the bumps in the road - mind you, these were just pinned in without any glue or strong mechanical fasteners, so when the substructure rotted away, down they came.

Right now, from our exploratory demo work, we can see that it's (from outside to in) flashing, OSB that's screwed to the slide out structure, another thinner OSB board stapled and/or glued to that (which hides all of the screw heads), the vinyl roofing material is stapled to that, and then the actual trim boards. Here's the plan to replace it:

Carefully pull down the trim that's up there so we don't incur any additional damage. Probably will have to work on separating the top board so we can get to the screws underneath.
Use Trex board to replace the OSB. Water won't hurt it.
I think I've found the source of the leak, so that'll get appropriately plugged up as it looks like a small hole in one of the side flashing pieces. Plus any and all flashing the comes down will get caulked completely into place.
I'll use the existing flashing, as it looks like it'll come down with the trim, to transfer the holes from the fasteners that are there to the Trex board. That way I'm not making any new holes nor leaving any existing ones unplugged.
Caulking into all of the holes, on the back of the flashing as it goes up, and between the flashing and Trex board.
Then those will get remounted up properly, giving us a much stronger and more water-resistant substructure.
Re-attach the vinyl to this. Hopefully staples work easily. If not, I'll come up with something else.
To this, I'll screw in some nice poplar boards and decorative trim pieces - primed and painted on all sides, so we help a bit there with waterproofing, too. I'll screw these into the Trex and then use plugs to hide the screwholes.

Assuming I do everything correctly, this should come out rather nicely.

Past that, we did put up a TV, but it sits a bit high, so I'll have to pull the mounting board that was put up with, lower the flush mount an inch or so, and then remount it. Hopefully a soundbar fits under that so we can have even better sound. I'm also going to get rid of the TV above the cockpit and see what storage options I've got behind it, try to plug a leak we've got in a vent fan in the garage, and do a few other things.

Plus testing the leveling jacks to see if they just need to be reset or if we've got damaged components.

ronaprhys · 04-29-2019, 11:46 AM

Busy weekend and this time I remembered to get pics! Most everything I did this weekend involved dealing with that damnable water leak. Here's what I discovered:

That's what I was greeted with when I pulled down the boards. As you can see, the water damage appeared to hit several spots. My first concern was stopping it from continuing. As I pulled the boards off I can see that the slide-outs' ceiling is also damaged, but that repair has to wait for now. This time around it's fixing the structure so it doesn't continue to crumble and fall on us, but also so that it doesn't leak and cause more damage.

This pic is behind the flashing that's show in the above.

Here's my interpretation of what's happening here.

The flashing is actually contributing to the problem. Because it sits behind the wood and wasn't sealed properly, water would get to it and run down behind the flashing - and then pool in the foam backing on the vinyl interior roof, which meant it then soaked up into the OSB boards, which obviously fail pretty quickly when wet.
Because the flashing wasn't sealed well, it was rubbing on the extrusion that it attached to, so badly that it wore a small series of holes in the back.

With that in mind, I've done the following:

I cleaned everything thoroughly so any caulk or other work I'd do wasn't over bad stuff, with the exception of the padding for the foam. Simply put, we're not ready to tear out the slide-out's entire ceiling and redo it yet. That'll come as part of a later remodel. Same with the Luan on the side of the wall, closet to the damaged corner.
Before putting that up, I caulked everything up as best I could. The fabric layer above the extrusion? Caulked. The entire extrusion? Thickly-caulked.
Replaced the sub-structure with pressure treated lumber. Initially I was going to use Trex or similar decking material, but that stuff is silly heavy - it felt about 2x as heavy as similar deck boards, which is what I used. I know there's a concern about using those boards on an interior space, so I did some research on it. Because they're deck boards and dry, they should be fine in an interior space where they're substructure. Using PTL as a food surface (counter top, cutting board, etc) is a big no-no, but here shouldn't pose any health issues.
Once the board was up and firmly attached (it only took three different sets of self-tappers before I found some that weren't too long and wouldn't break or cause me problems), I checked and the caulking had squeezed the whole way up such that water isn't getting in down behind the board I put up.
I didn't put the horizontal flashing back up, though. I will, but it needs to be modified first. As noted above, if it's in there and the caulking were to fail, it's just going to direct water behind the board and into the foam. What I will do, here in the near future, is either modify my current flashing to come down that top board and then curve back to the structure behind it so it directs water AWAY from the wood instead of to it. I'm also contemplating just rubberizing the entire thing - maybe if I re-do the total roof anyway, I'll use the extra to coat this. Not sure yet.
I then used poplar boards that've been painted a light grey as the visible trim pieces. Gives a nice clean look and (potentially) matches the the color scheme we'll be going with as we slowly remodel everything. No pics of those yet as we're still finishing the painting so we can cover the screw holes where everything was attached. The poplar trim is attached to the PTL substructure with wood screws. To help keep all of the boards even, I used pockethole joins to attach the poplar boards to each other.

Still need to get some rosettes/roundels for the corners and something for the middle - but once that's done, this project will be complete.

Also, we cleaned up our TV install, put in a sound bar and subwoofer, I polished up the other headlight lens, and added some stick on wallpaper for the backsplash and area behind the stove. Not sure I'm sold on it, but it's temporary until we re-do that area.

ronaprhys · 04-29-2019, 06:09 PM

Another quick repair - hopefully this helps quite some of the squeaky we've been getting from these units. If nothing else, they'll no longer look like old and busted yellowed out plastic.

The old and (literally) busted one at the rear:

The new hotness, complete with new foam liners and filters.

So shine. Much white. Better goodness.

TMan59 · 04-29-2019, 06:21 PM

I would just like to say that you have a great attitude taking on these fix’s.
Some folks completely freak out if the tv doesn’t come on immediately!

ronaprhys · 04-30-2019, 06:01 AM

Thanks! Right now it's mostly fixes, but we're getting to the point where they'll start to be mostly upgrades. That'll be a happy, happy day when it comes.

Aside from painting the trim and doing a little bit of finish work there, most of the fixes now become smaller and quicker things - except trying to figure out why our leveling jacks aren't working. I'll be trying Powergear's reset procedure soon to see if I get lucky with that. If not, it's down to trouble shooting the things manually, which doesn't make me happy.

ronaprhys · 05-07-2019, 08:24 AM

Last weekend was fairly relaxed, in terms of getting things accomplished - but we're basically ready for our first longer trip (two weeks, cross country and through the mountains). Here's what we managed to pull off:

Fixed the new leak at the rear Fantastic Vent - the cover was broken, so I temporarily rigged a new cover up there. So far it seems to be holding well. The entire vent, and probably that section of ceiling material, needs to be replaced. That's for a later date, though. It's going to be a pain getting up there and working since it's on a slope.
Got the leveling jack system mostly working - this is better than it was before, which is good. It tries to auto-level, but did fail. I think I can probably manually adjust things enough if I need to. However, there may be a failed sensor, motor, or something out there I need to deal with later. Time will tell.
Attached the water filter permanently, rather than just having it lay in the wetworks bay. I didn't like that it sat in front of the black/grey water discharge area, so I moved it to the far side, as far away as I could get it.
We put the motorcycles in, just to see how everything would fit and to help our packing planning. Pretty easy to get them up and down the ramp, too. I was surprised as I thought it might be more difficult given the length, but we were both able to ride right up it without any drama.
Used a Quick Fist that I had laying about to mount a fire extinguisher in the garage area.
Putting a slide-out rack for the pots and pans.
Put up some baskets for shoes right by the door. That way we can pull off dirty ones before venturing throughout the cab, helping to keep things cleaner.
Did our packing of the stuff that'll stay there more or less permanently.
Washed it. Lots of little stains that appear to be in the paint that didn't come off, but still - it's a lot better than it was.

Some in-process minor projects:

Making a spice rack using some pine, steel sheet metal, and magnetic spice tins. This should make storing and accessing them very convenient.
Have to figure out where to keep the spare tire. Damn thing's kind of big and heavy, so I'll have to figure out a good way to mount it out of the way.
Need to get the bikes in there, strapped down, and then get it aligned. I'm annoyed by the shake it has between 55-65mph and want that gone.
Need to change the oil on my toad (Xterra) and give her a good once over, maybe clean the inside.
Working on a personalized plaque to hang in there.
Have to do some tweaking to better organize the pot lids
Personalize the GPS unit we picked up so it has all of our specs in it.

Past that, it's packing and getting ready for the trip.

ronaprhys · 05-10-2019, 02:33 PM

Well, today was fun. Was taking it in for an alignment and as I get of the highway and turn from the off-ramp to the regular road, the coach loses all power. Step the accelerator and nothing. Switch to manual mode on the transmission, step it down to M1 - still nothing. It'd start to engage the gear then kick out. Warning lights are the red STOP inside the engine pic and the yellow CHECK TRANS. If I let it idle for 30 seconds or so, both would go away, but then as soon as I tried to move, they'd come on and no movement. After a phone call to try and trouble shoot the issue, and idling for about 5-7 minutes, everything starts working again. Haven't had the issue since then.

I get the alignment, which helped diagnose the shimmy-shake we have at 55-62mph (it almost completely disappears at 65mph). We've a tire where the rim appears to have a slight warp. Nothing that needs to be fixed right away and rotating that to the passenger side really cleared up much of the shake, as does having the motorcycles parked in the garage. Also, turns out our slow leak in the tire was related to a valve stem core that was just slowly leaking. Replaced that and we seem to be good to go.

After that, I drive to our local Freightliner shop and we pulled the codes. Looks like it's the throttle position sensor, so I ordered one of those.

Guess what tomorrow's fun task is?

ronaprhys · 06-12-2019, 06:24 AM

It's been some time since I've updated this thread with anything. We did do our first long trip (Detroit to Moab, UT, then over Ouray, CO, and closing it out in Pagosa Springs, CO prior to heading back - about 3,800 total miles or so). We had a few issues, most of which have been fixed:

On the way out, just past Indianpolis, the bumper on my toad mostly ripped off. Too much off-roading had weakened things, so we had to get it tack-welded back on. From there, I had a friend of a friend who could fix it, but he lives near Denver and I had to be there by 8am the next morning. After an overnight drive, with 4 hours of sleep in Colby, KS I made it. 3 hours of work and we were back in business.
My fiance was driving the coach and the house AC stopped working - and the chassis AC isn't good at all. Then, to make matters worse, it stopped taking diesel. The fueling issue was fixed by correcting the filler hose - it had shifted out of position and collapsed a bit, allowing fuel to pool and not run into the tank. This also explains the issues I was having filling where I had to start slow then speed up.
Because she had that stuff to deal with, she was slower, so I drove back to Colby and met her there, hooked the toad up, and off we went.
Since the AC and everything else worked on shore power, but not on the genset, I did all of the trouble shooting that I can do on the genset (went to the transfer switch, saw that I had 124.7v in on both legs, the transfer switch is working fine, and that as soon as a load's applied, the voltage drops reasonably quickly and the transfer switch pushes it over to shore power (or off, if not connected). We just lived on shore power or drove with the windows open on the way back (yay for cooler weather everywhere but MO) and made it home.
Had the generator looked at. Turns out one of the pulleys has mostly failed. Having the entire tensioner set up replaced and a new belt should fix that - I'll know for certain at some point next week.

Other than that, and getting rained or snowed on almost every day (including riding the motorcycles over Wolf Creek Pass in the snow), we had a good time. A few key learnings (check for water on top of the slider when it comes in was a big one), we're set for more adventures.