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.

I Was Driving Down The Interstate And The Smoke Detector Went Off

In the two months we were traveling in The Guppy we put just over 3500 miles on the odometer. The last 300 were the most exciting. We were on our way home and were about 300 miles from home and the smoke alarm went off. I pulled over on to the shoulder (being in Wisconsin and on an Interstate there was a shoulder, not like some of the state and local roads in Missouri and Arkansas) and shut it down. The place was full of smoke. There was a weird smell to the smoke. At first I thought maybe it was wiring burning. I checked under the dash and under the hood. I also checked the RV battery and it was cool, so that wasn't the problem.

After looking at everything I could see, (which wasn't much) I started off again. I only got a mile or two before the alarm went off again. The Old Lady got up and shut it off. I continued on to where I knew there was a truck stop a few miles further. She said she saw smoke coming out from under the engine cowling. I pulled it after we parked and finally we saw some debris on the engine. There were some pine cones and seeds that a squirrel or some critter had stashed on top of the engine.

Thinking that that was the problem we took off in the morning after spending the night in a motel because of the smell in The Guppy. About  5 miles down the road the smoke alarm went off again. This time The Old Lady said she saw smoke coming from under the refrigerator. That's where the furnace is, but the propane was turned off for traveling. We checked around the furnace and couldn't find anything so I looked under the motorhome. One of the hangers on the exhaust system had broken and the muffler dropped down. When the muffler dropped it tilted the tailpipe up and it was pointing at the holding tank. It had melted part of the plastic tank (source of the weird smell and smoke) and it now was leaking. I had some safety wire which I used to wire up the muffler. The wire wasn't very heavy (.032) so I did 5-6 pieces around the pipe and parts of the frame and the broken hanger.  The rest of the trip was uneventful, smelly but uneventful.

Now I have several months to make repairs to The Guppy before we head out again. Obviously I need to replace the holding tank. Another thing I need to replace is the battery charger. It seems to be unregulated. It charges at too high a rate (it's burning out the 12v lights) and doesn't quit charging when the battery is fully charged. I had to add water to the battery as the charger was cooking the water out of it.

And I need to fix the steps going into the motorhome. The steps move when someone steps on them. Looks like the problem is that the wooden structure of the steps was just stapled together and things have worked loose over the years.

I also want to replace the TV antenna. The one we have is the original one from when the motorhome was built in 1989. It's an old analog one and now everything is digital. The only time we got any TV was at a campground in Waco and we were close enough that we probably could have gotten an signal with just a piece of wire. I used a piece of wire for a TV antenna back in the 60s when I was close to the TV station.

I need to replace the marker lights on the front at the top. I lost 3 of the five lens on the lights. I might as well replace all 5 with new led lights.

I don't think I'll have a chance to work on getting the generator running and installed in The Guppy. It would be nice to have it for those times when there isn't an electric hookup available like when you are "boondocking".