Interesting Travels With The Guppy

It has been interesting traveling in The Guppy. On the way to Arizona the driveshaft fell out and we had to abandon the tow dolly. But all in all we made it to our destination. On the way back we had different problems. When we took off in AZ I had to jump it started. After I gassed it up it started without a jump. That was the last time it started without a jump. In Grand Junction, CO I bought a new battery. I had hoped to make it home before buying a new battery, but the old one wouldn't hold enough charge to start anymore.

These are the two rear tires from the driver's side. When we got into Missouri I felt a vibration and couldn't figure out if it was the road or a tire. When I on to a different road and the vibration was still there, I stopped at a truck stop and checked the tires. They all had air and the lugs were tight. I got about 5 miles farther and one of the rear tires came apart. Most of the tread came off, but it still was inflated. I had stopped on an uphill stretch so I drove a little farther to where it was more level. I couldn't go much further because someone else was on the shoulder with a flat. Looking back it could have been worse, I could have still been on US-60 with no shoulders, but I was on I-49 which did have a shoulder just barely wide enough for The Guppy. Anywho, I changed the tire while hoping I didn't get run over by the traffic. After I had the spare on we continued on our way. We stopped at a campground that we had kinda planned on for the night. The next day we hit the road again and got about 100 miles when the other driver's side rear tire did the same thing. Most of the tread came off, but it eas still inflated. I didn't want to repeat the previous tire change and didn't have another spare so I drove slowly on the shoulder to the next exit. I stopped at a gas station and asked where I could find a tire shop.

I was told there was a tire shop at the next exit, but I couldn't get there by a side road. I took the tire from the day before in my car and went searching for new tires. At the next exit there was some kind of tire shop (no garage, just a couple of building and a pile of old tires. Nobody was there so I asked st that gas station where I could find another tire shop. I was told there was one 7 miles down the road at the town. I drove there, found the tire shop and they must have been out to lunch also. A guy at the gas station across the street yelled someone would be there in a few minutes. Anywho, the guy had the tires I needed and I got one on the wheel I had with me. Went back and put the new tire on The Guppy and then drove it to the tire shop to get 3 more tires.

The tires were 16 years old and when 2 of them went so close together, I decided to replace all 4. When the second tire let go it did some damage underneath. It tore up a wire bundle that I'll have to figure out what the wires are for when I replace them. It also broke the pipe from the gray water tank. And it ripped the mudflap off. So I will have some work to do before we can use The Guppy.

We purposely avoided Kansas because of our problems going thru Kansas on the way out and turned out Missouri bit us!!

Why does shit happen when you are cruising thru BFE??

Test Run of Guppy Repairs

Last week we went camping with The Guppy and we got to see how it works when there was no power or water hookups. I took along a second battery in case the RV battery wouldn't last the 4 nights we were there. I brought my boat battery which has the same type terminals as the RV battery. After 2 nights I switched batteries when the RV battery was down to 10.2-10.3 volts. Probably could have used it longer, but didn't want the refrigerator to stop working and not notice that it had. It did last longer than before I changed the battery charger, I think the old one was draining the battery when there was no power hooked up.

In a previous post I mentioned cleaning out the fresh water system. It worked very well. The only thing I noticed was that when the pump built up pressure and shut off, occasionally it would run for a few seconds even when no water was used. I have a hunch the check valve in the pump might be leaking because I haven't seen any signs of a leak in the plumbing. I can get a new screen with a built-in check valve and that should take care of that problem.

On the plus side with the water, The Old Lady took a shower and said it was almost like when we are hooked up to city water. The shower doesn't work that well in any case and is on my list of things to do.

Old school coffeepot and toaster.

We've had this four slice toaster for about 30 years. We got it when we didn't have power at The Ranch and used it to toast bread on a woodstove. The coffeepot is fairly new, we got it after we got The Guppy. We got it for when we are boondocking and don't have electric so we could cook coffee on the stove.

One of my next projects will be to see if I can get the generator running and installed back in The Guppy. According to the hour meter it only has a little over 43 hours running time. The generator was removed before we bought The Guppy. I think it was removed to replace the slides that hold it in The Guppy and allow you to pull it out to work on and/or check on it. I'll change oil and filter before I try to start it. If I can get it running I'll try to figure out how to put it back in The Guppy. It would be handy to have it for charging the battery. I tried running the engine to charge the battery and figured out I would have to run it way too long to charge the battery.

Tried to see if we could get any TV reception and failed. A couple days later when we went out to eat I figured out why I couldn't get any TV reception as we climbed this big hill while going in the direction of where the TV transmitters are. One of these days I get a new antenna, the one we have is an old analog one. It is also a directional one, in that you have to turn it to point towards the transmitter to get the signal. I'm going to get an omnidirectional one so all I have to so is raise the antenna when I want to get a TV signal.

Power Outage

This morning the power was out.  The Old Lady was up first and she called the Toll-free number to report the outage because it was only a little after 6am.  The person on the other end had a southern accent, so The Old Lady didn't think she was local!!

After I got up, I thought about the fact that last year I bought a power inverter.  Thought now might be a good time to try it out and be able to have my morning coffee.  When I mentioned the power inverter, The Old Lady said I could use it to run the refrigerator.  Different priorities I guess!!

Went looking for the inverter and found it buried in the storage shed, dug it out and got my boat battery.  Looked for some wire and thought I'd found some that would work judging be the thickness of it.  Hauled the stuff to the house and started to hook things up.  The wires were from an old ohm meter and while the outside was fairly thick the wire inside the insulation was very puny.  It was all insulation and only a few strands of wire.  Went looking for wire that would work while muttering about how I know I've bought spools of wire in the past, but where the fuck could all that wire be?? Having lived in several places in the last decade and having had stuff here and there, it could be in any number of places. Probably in the storage unit we are renting in town. Finally found some wire heavy enough to handle the current from the battery to the inverter and started clearing out next to the frig to set it up to power the frig and had an extension cord to run to the coffeepot. Had just discovered that I would have a helluva time getting at the cord for the frig when the power came back on.

One of the things about living in the country is that when the power is out, you only have a limited amount of water, what is in the tank.  Without power to run the waterpump, you don't have water.  When hurricane Bob hit Cape Cod in '91 I was still able to take showers after the power went out because we had city water and a gas water heater.

Later today we will be making a Menard's run and have added what we need to hook up the battery to the inverter to the list.