The Heart of Darkness

It's been a few days since I've posted and I have to tell you that the "Crazy" has been in full effect these past few days. Going from a late-night tow truck ride, staying in Daytona on the beach with the fam, driving down to the in-laws for a "memorable" visit and then going back to get the RV only to be sentenced to a 5 day purgatory of 100 degree heat index days in a non-a/c RV with now shore power is something that I would like to avoid in the future.

The repairs that Arrow Service and Wrecking performed were totally undone by the fact that the engine they received from KLQ was not the "runner" that was promised. After all the effort and pushing the new swapped engine just couldn't do the job. After warming up, the oil pressure dropped so much the engine would blow up if it was pushed to hard.  I even located a new 2 barrel carb from a shop a block away to replace the failing carburetor! Thanks Bill!! That left the oil pressure issue to be resolved. 

Now comes the hard part: negotiating with KLQ to honor the warranty, get the labor covered and put a re manufactured engine back into the "Long Hauler". If you paid someone to install an engine wouldn't you expect it to work or get something that did? So would I.

 The Long Hauler sits in a storage yard awaiting a new engine now. Thanks for all the folks that donated to the cause through GoFundMe. It's appreciated.

Even the Wall Street Journal is Talking about it!

Check out the article in WSJ this week! It's as if they are watching us....
Vintage RVing!

The waiting game

The "Long Hauler" should be ready by the end of the day on Monday, later than we expected and if we had known we could have saved a lot of money just going to the grandparents instead of hanging around in Daytona paying for rental car and hotels. That's all behind us now that we are at the grandparents and awaiting the OK for the RV to be done.

The shop pulled the engine and found the issue:

This is the view looking down to the camshaft... well at least most of it. There is a section missing (middle hole)where a part of the cam just cracked and fell into the bottom end of the engine. Let's say this is not a good thing to have such a large chunk of metal bouncing around in your engine. Bad things happen. The part wedged into the crankshaft and seized the engine. Solution? New engine. The good thing is that these old 360 V8's are not that expensive to get and there are no complicated electronics to hook back up. Arrow Truck Repair is doing the work right now.

Plan "B" is to drive back up the East coast back home and save the cross country trip for next year.

A Change of Plans

Sometimes life tosses you a few curveballs and it's how you deal with them that make all the difference. The RV gave us some issues on the way down and now we're in Daytona Beach waiting for Arrow Repair to fix the RV and get us back on the road.

With nearly a week delay that means we're going to have to shorten our trip. The cross-country dash will be shortened and we are still figuring just how short it's going to be.

Stay tuned!

 Let's just say the Tioga is going to receive a new heart this week.... Hope that and a few other extras included will get her completely ship shape for travel! Thanks for Arrow Towing for helping out and getting us back on the road (we hope!).

The First few Days

We finally left on Monday after spending 2 solid days on the weekend, fixing and patching, cleaning and sorting. You know how things happen in "threes"? Well they do. 1) the driver's side mirror decides to fall out and shatter while entering Watkin's Glen, 2) we hit a BIG pothole on 80 and damaged the exhaust header, 3) the windshield wipers decided to bonkers. Then we get to Rachel's brother's house on Staten Island.

Let me tell you. NEVER drive an RV on Staten Island. The roads are horrible and you spend more time dodging potholes and dips and bumps. We never saw so many "BUMP" warning  signs on the highway down to NY!

With #1 we stopped into a Auto Zone and bought a mirror and two wide angle mirrors to replace the one that bailed out. The camo duct tape really sets it off...

With #2 there wasn't much we could do except live with it until we could either fix it or find some shop to repair it (more on this later).

With #3 it was 2 trips to the local to Janet in MD auto store to get the right clips to put the wiper arms back in sync. Our kids wound up spending a couple of days with Marco and Leo! Alex took his bike out for the first bike trip and wound up with a flat in 10 mins.... flat! Could          not       resist.

We do still have the electrical gremlins bothering us. The alternator that seems to not work as hard as it should (only 65 amps so no wonder). My kids managing to drain my 3 12V battery power system in 2 days flat. and the wierd things the RV does when the voltage is low.

Chalk it all up to getting to know your RV better..

Now, onto the #2 item details!
I finally had it with trying to fix the horribly loud engine with the broken exhaust. The next morning after making it to Rachel's sister, I called around to find a shop to help weld it or do what was needed to make it better. Not so easy with an RV. I did get to one local shop, "Renaldo's" and the owner said he couldn't do it but to "follow him". So, I do and he takes me close to the airport to see "Carlo". Carlo runs Airport Auto and his crew got me in and 5+ hours later we have a new header gasket! That's what was wrong with it! Well, okay there's lots more "wrong with it" but hey, take the good where you can get it!

Tomorrow am we set out to Williamsburg then onto Kitty Hawk, NC! Last note for tonight, a request to put a curtain on the bathroom rear window has been placed. Talk about a rear window alright! Truckers definitely are in for a show...

Oh, just shoot me now.

There's nothing like trying to update stuff in an old RV that will just leave you thinking: "why couldn't we just play 8 tracks in the thing already???"

I bought a nice JVC radio for the RV. Cheap (about $65). Now the issue wasn't so much getting it installed it was dealing with the insanity of the knucklehead that installed the 8 track am/fm radio in the first place.

There is a gaggle of white and green wire (I know now that is speaker wire) all over the driver's side floor and each speaker in the van has been rewired to what was the old radio jack.

ALL WRONG. NOTHING WAS WIRED RIGHT. NO MATCHING WIRE COLORS.

The radio is nice enough to tell me the speaker wiring is wrong and it will shut down. WHA!

It's just faster to rip out all the speaker wires and just redo it all with new wire before the trip. Oh, Boy!

The Countdown has Begun.

UPdate! Got the parts needed to fix the A/C and she's cold again! Yeah! Also spent time to replace what was a worn out muffler (very quiet now). It's starting to shape up a bit. I'll need a couple of days during the week to get this wrapped up.

 After repainting the front and spending all the time cleaning it up and getting it prepped my DODGE chrome letters walked off. I figure that this emblem was more fitting. Makes the entire RV look better I think!

3- 12V batteries into the original generator compartment to provide back up power when not hooked up anywhere.  Now to figure out if those old generator wires are still hooked up to the power center....

And the old, tired muffler has been replaced. Welded, clamped and a new tailpipe installed. YEA! Let's go out and get so gas in the tank! Do you know how you find out if your tank is leaking?? Put gas in it! Stay tuned for the next episode of As the RV Turns.....

Getting Closer, closer... wait a minute.

As we get that much closer to the start of our trip all those leftover items needing attention are still needing attention. Between working late each nite at the office and still trying to find time to pay the bills AND have something to buy gas and food for the trip all the while stealing time to do the last-minute repairs to the Tioga is getting crazy.

The parts I ordered came in and Richard and I wrapped up recharging the retrofit A/C system in the cab. We bought an retrofit fitting kit (R12 to R134) the oil and cans of refrigerant. After figuring out which side was the low pressure side and not goofing up how tight to install the new fittings we had COLD A/C for a bit only to have Richard tell me, "Hey Dad, there's a hissing sound from the grill." He was right. One of the hoses for the A/C has a small split far enough from the end that just cutting and reclamping won't work. So, it's onto the search for this 1/2" ID refrigerant hose. Guess what? No one around Geneva has this stuff! Come on now!

After managing to get the 1977 A/C system to blow cold, we blow a hose. Guess it could have been worse and it's not a difficult fix.

I also managed to get a couple of used batteries from the local parts store to use as the off-grid power system. This weekend I hope to get all the cables done up and installed so we have that ready to go as well. Gotta have that Dometic Fridge working! I'll be doing a 3 battery setup as that's really all the room I have in the old generator compartment. One battery will be borrowed from the old Camry wagon for the trip.

This is definitely LOW BUDGET RV'ing. Scrape, find free stuff, fix it yourself, fix it again, Craigslist, Ebay and way to make it work. This thing will be a palace by the time I'm done! More later with pics from the "Repair Shop".

The Very Preliminary Road Trip Map

This is the large version of the potential road trip this August! Yikes! While we do reserve the right to change course on the trip this is the basic route we are planning. It takes us away from some of the interstates and any typical "theme park" type entertainment but we are looking to see the natural wonders of our great USA and some really tacky tourist traps along the way... oh, and really GOOD BBQ! Suggestions welcome!

New Tires and getting Road Ready

We picked up the Long Hauler from Nolt's on Saturday and brought her back home for some further fixes and upgrades. Some of these involve the electrical system. I know, it's shocking isn't it? (moans from the peanut gallery).

 These are the CHEAP LED ceiling lights that actually are pretty nice! Got a 6 pack off of Amazon for about $30! Can't beat that!

 This is a replacement WFCO Power Center. It's an upgrade from the original 30 amp setup (it wouldn't even run the rooftop A/C unit so why was it even in the RV?) so we have 55 amps of potential power when plugged in. The fuses and breakers are also new and safer than the old ones. Below is a shot of the old ceiling lights, rotted, cracked, hot and not very efficient.

The 1977 RV has all incandescent lighting so I decided fro the price to just swap out ALL the interior lights which were falling apart anyway with these cheap LED units. Gotta say that they really work great, run cool and sap only a fraction of the power that the old lights did! I even replaced the dome light in the cab because even that had some honking big light bulb in it. I have to say that Amazon is becoming my go-to place to order stuff for the Tioga. There is stuff on there that's unbelievable and hard to find. The power center will replace the old, tired and half-working one. The charging and battery power option just isn't working anymore and I can't trust my family trip to "oh well, don't plan on using anything in the RV until we plug in somewhere." approach.

Trip to my old clients: Nolt Tire!

Rachel was my Winggurl for the short trip to Nolt Tire this morning. Nolt's Tire  is a project that I did a few years ago and the Nolt family has been good to me. They helped me quiet my old BMW 323i (Trixie) and now I have trusted them to put some new shoes on the old RV! Firestone Radials for that "comfort ride".

They will also do some checkup work on The Long Hauler to make sure that everything on the drivetrain is in good shape.

Thanks Mel and crew!

Working out the bugs, literally.

As any of you who have owned an old RV the risk of carpenter ants invading your wall panels is a real risk. They just love them when the seals leak and the luan materials get wet and just provide that perfect environment for living. We got the RV and instantly I noticed a high population of carpenter ants roaming around so while we started tearing into the water damaged wall panels from the inside it was a perfect time to evict our 6 legged guests! Borate salts, sprays, foams and all that while we were not living it helped a great deal.

Another issue with an old RV are the leaks (which lead to the ant issue!). Around aluminum windows, trim, anything that required a screw, you name it and it needed replacement. First was to uninstall the windows, strip the old worn sealer and use silicone and new self-tapping screws to secure the frames in place. Second, check the ENTIRE aluminum panel exterior for pin-holes (why so many????) seal them with silicone and repaint. Third, remove all the old trim strips that someone decided to caulk but not fix and reinstall with new gasketed screws (stainless!) and new silicone sealer under the trim to make sure no water gets in.

By far the largest enemy of an old RV is the "universal solvent" : water. If you can keep out the rain, you have won most of the battle! All the rot, mildew, smells all came from having water get into the RV. Now that it's watertight again the rest of our work is progressing even faster!

The Shakedown Cruises....

It's been a couple of months since we acquired the Tioga and while we prepare for the month-long USA trip all the systems have been checked, repaired and gone over to make sure the break downs will be at a minimum. The old carpet has been pulled, the rotted interior bits ripped out and replaced, leaks plugged, supply of squirrel walnuts cleared out (yes, we had 4 bags of walnuts under the tub!) and repainting and patching of the aluminum exterior for small holes.

The family is REALLY looking forward to this trip. My hope is that it meets and exceeds their expectations this Summer!

The Tioga Sportsman: Flashback to the '70's!

Doesn't everyone just dream about taking a road trip across the USA? Now, add to that dream just how you are going to do that when you have NO money to do it and then things get interesting. Okay, not zero money but certainly not enough to just fly around, rent hotel rooms for 6 people or rent a new RV for the trip.

What to do? Find a really old RV, negotiate a good price, spend time checking the entire RV and planning on the craziest trip ever for you and your family! The real fun is getting an RV that isn't exactly as big as you should have to sleep everyone.

Introducing the 1977 Sportsman Tioga. Our "Family Truckster" for this trip. She may not be pretty but she's only got 41K miles and the interior is well preserved (think the summer of Star Wars!).