Posts from the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Meet the Jacobs E-Brake

Last October when we stopped to have our Cummins diesel engine serviced at Cummins Rocky Mountain Service Center, the service techs told us that part of our exhaust brake was almost rusted out.

What’s an exhaust brake?

Basically, it’s a device that works by essentially sticking a potato up the exhaust pipe. The purpose: to slow down the motorhome without using the air brakes. An exhaust brake is very handy going down steep mountain roads because instead of using the brakes continuously (and getting getting them too hot), you can just flip a switch to enable the exhaust brake.

Anyway, we’ve scheduled a visit to a service center in Lake Havasu this March to replace the rusted pipe. I’ve been dreading this because I have no idea how long it will take — will the service center order the right part? How much will it cost? Where will we stay during the repair?

So I thought I’d take a look at our engine brake and see if I could determine what was needed to fix it.

Voila! Today I pulled off the engine cover (which is in our RV bedroom), took a photo of the engine brake, and called Spartan Chassis, the manufacturer of our Newmar’s chassis. I gave them the VIN number of our RV, sent them a photo I took of our engine brake, and a few minutes later ordered the part ($160 delivered) I needed (hopefully).

The part should arrive next Wednesday. Fingers crossed. Here are some photos I took . . .

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Voltage Boost + Wash & Wax

VOLTAGE BOOST

I mentioned this before . . . the voltage coming into our RV would drop so low at times that our electrical management system would disconnect the power to protect our electrical appliances.

Not a good situation.

So we invested in a voltage regulator (or “auto former”) which basically boosts incoming voltage whenever it gets too low. It has worked like a charm the past week. Some photos . . .

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WASH & WAX

We had our RV washed and waxed today because I don’t want to do it . . .

Hang Gliding!

If you have followed our blog this Winter, then you have probably seen photos and some movies of the “Lake Havasu Air Force”. These are several guys in powered ultralights who fly around Lake Havasu. Fun to watch when they buzz the beach.

One of these ultralights, the pontoon-equipped one, landed on our beach today and offered rides to the gathered crowd ($99 for 30 minutes).

Jan and I jumped on it. I went first and then Jan.

I was able to bring a movie camera along and took several minutes of video while flying — along with some footage I shot onshore when Jan went up. Between the shore and in-flight movies, here’s a 3-minute flick of our two flights today. It was great!

The first campground we fly over is Crazy Horse.

By the way — the guy with the helmet is the pilot Joe Lorenzen, a former Alaskan who resettled in Lake Havasu eight years ago.

And now this . . .

In our Day in the Life post, we forgot to include two, really essential items — daily Mail Call and the Honey Wagon:

Before Tom knew the “secret” orange flag signal, he made the faux pas of asking for the mail before the flag had been raised. He got the mail, but also a cranky talking to.

The Honey Wagon stops by the non-sewer equipped sites twice a week. In S&B terms (“Sticks and Bricks” — those of you who live in regular houses), that amounts to normal bathroom use but showering every other day in the RV. There are campground showers, but we really like using our RV’s shower.

A Day in the Life

Though no day seems typical in Lake Havasu, we documented what we did Wednesday (February 12) which seems as close to a “typical” day as any. Here goes . . .

7:35 AM — RISE & SHINE

Ellie usually wakes us up by going over to Jan’s side of the bed, panting in Jan’s face, and thumping her tail against the wall.

However, this morning it was Flirt who woke us up by jumping on the bed and sidling up to Tom’s face. Lick, lick, lick.

It was my (Tom) turn to get up with the dogs so no big deal.

7:37 AM — FEED THE DOGS

Ellie first, Flirt second.

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7:40 AM – VOLTAGE & OUTSIDE TEMPERATURE CHECK

Crazy Horse Campground, like all too many campgrounds, suffers from “low voltage” issues.  This just means that through bad wiring or a poor city power supply (usually the former), the campground’s voltage can drop to a low or unacceptable level, especially when the campground is full. We have an electrical management system that automatically disconnects our RV if the voltage drops too low.

However, sustained low voltage can damage RV electronics, especially motors (like our refrigerator compressor). We’ve taken steps to fix this using an “autoformer” (more on this in another blog).

We also typically check the outside temp before walking the dogs and adjust our clothing accordingly.

7:45 AM — WALK THE DOGS

Let’s just say Ellie is as regular as a clock while Flirt is not so much . . .

7:49 AM — BREAKFAST FOR JAN

Jan had cereal with milk, but I had to wait to eat because we ran out of milk. Jan drove to the campground store to fix that.

8:20 AM BROWNOUT!

Since everyone in the campground is making coffee, toast, and running their microwaves at the same time, the park voltage dips.

At voltage this low, our electrical management system disconnects from camp power and we start running on our RV inverter — or running off our batteries.

We turn all the electrical appliances off and in a few minutes we reconnect to camp power.

8:30 AM — JAN LEAVES FOR HER ART CLASS

Jan is taking a watercolor class  at a local community college in Lake Havasu. Jan is loving it.

8:35 AM — DOG NAP TIME

After a hard morning of eating and pooping, it’s time for the dogs to take five.

8:40 AM — TOM COMPUTES

Tom checks how much Internet data we’re using (because we have a limited amount per month) and does the online banking.

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10:55 AM — MORNING DOG PLAY

After a few hours sleep, Ellie and Flirt (especially Flirt) get active and get into snarly dog play.

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11.00 AM to 1:50 PM — TOM INSTALLS AN ELECTRICAL OUTLET

Tom’s installing another web camera in our RV so we can monitor the dogs from another angle. This camera has sound — so we can tell the dogs to “Stop that!” over an Internet connection. So we’ll need another AC outlet in order to hook up the new camera.

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2:00 PM — LATE LUNCH

After her art class, Jan brings home a Subway sandwich lunch. Perfect.

We take Ellie and Flirt out and meet up with Katie, Flirt’s swimming buddy:

2:50 PM — MAIL CALL !

The Fedex truck arrives and drops off our forwarded snail mail.

3:10 PM — RENEW RV LICENSE PLATE

No photos. Tom just logged into Wisconsin’s DOT web site and renewed our RV plates.

3:30 PM — RECHARGE RV WATER SOFTENER

We have a small (actually very small when compared to a house’s) water softener. Just like a house softener, it has to be recharged every so often. In our case, Tom waited a month too long, so the recharge was long overdue.

In a nutshell, our softener just needed to be flushed several minutes with fresh water and then have table salt added. That’s it!

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4:00 PM — NEIGHBOR DAVE STOPS BY

Dave wanted to check out our La Fuma recliner.

4:12 PM — AFTERNOON DOG PLAY

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4:49 PM — LAKE HAVASU AIR FORCE

One member of the local “air force” makes an appearance in his pontoon ultralight.

5:00 PM — DOGGIE DINNER & EVENING WALK TIME

5:30 PM — MILLER TIME FOR THE HUMANS

6:17 PM – SUNSET

You really have to be here. Pictures don’t do it justice.

6:50 PM — DINNER

Schwan’s Chicken Cordon Bleu with baked potato and mixed vegetables.

7:00 PM — PBS NIGHT

It’s PBS TV night — Nature, Nova, and something else.

9:13 PM — TAKE DOGS OUT

The dog walk of the day. Then we’ll watch the Daily Show and/or Chelsea Lately in bed.