Getting a move on...

We are starting to get the RV ready. We delayed till our friends the road warriors (Michael & Layne) had returned from Mexico. Our park rules say we can't have our travel-RV on our lot at the same time as a visitor's RV. So we had to wait till after their departure for Clarkdale, Arizona. Once the lot was clear, however, I brought the Vegas out of the storage yard, parked it on our site and got busy. Well, OK... it was Lightning Fast RV Repair that got started.

We had some uninvited visitors to the vent line for the fresh water tank. Looks to be a spider's nest; plus some mud daubers left us a few eggs embedded in (surprise! surprise!) mud. Made filling the water tank a nightmare as I had to keep stopping water flow to let the trapped air vent out via the fill line...

Vent hose was home to first a spider's nest then mud dabbers laid a few eggs.

A replacement piece of hose solved that issue plus Jeff fab'ed a custom piece of screen material to keep the critters from doing it all over again.

Then a trim piece over our bed in the rear slide-out fell off cuz the Captain failed to loosen a knot properly. Dana & Jeff got that repaired quickly. When I told the Admiral she rolled her eyes and repeated (again!) 'it's a two-person job to operate the slide without breaking something!'

When we took delivery of the Vegas in May 2021 we were given a replacement screen-door handle-cover. It's a 7" x 9" sliding piece of clear formed plastic that is intended to keep bugs out when the screen door is closed with the entry door open. Lazydays received the part as we took delivery but fortunately they gave us the part as we were signing papers. Dana got that installed in a jiffy.

3 biggies remained (mmm... the 3 I know of today!):

• adjust the hinges for the engine compartment grill so it closes properly
  
• get the &^% AC working
• adjust the strike-plate for the entry door so we don't get locked in or out

While his son Dana was looking into the AC issue, Jeff noticed that both base plates of the engine compartment grill hinge were broken at the 90° bend on both sides (no bend radius which should be a no-no); plus a couple of the arms were bent. Probably the 90° bend had been work hardened by earlier attempts to 'persuade' the grill to close properly. "I can weld that" sounded like music to my ears. Took them awhile to remove the hinge and a couple hours welding plus some angle iron which replaced the broken base plates (and some Walmart flat black paint) and 'job done'. At first I thought to say it was good as new but the truth is it's better than new. No wrestling match to get things lined up. Now it's easy-peasey.

"Open wide..."

Driver's side of the repaired & modified grill hinge

Done-and-dusted- no more gap at driver's side bottom of the grill! "Smile for the camera!"

[ Yeah, I know- should have taken a proper before-photo of the lop-sided grill that stuck out about 2 inches. ]

Dana worked on the cab AC for awhile. He says the problem is not blown fuses as I had thought- the fuse he removed (#41) was still working properly. More likely the issue is the AC is low on refrigerant which is causing the low-pressure safety switch to disconnect the compressor clutch. Mmmm... ok; so why doesn't it come back on the next time we start the engine unless the fuse has been replaced? Well I guess the answer (for now) is that it wouldn't be much of a safety switch if it didn't keep the compressor from running until the refrigerant was re-filled. Well, (grumble-grumble) we'll see.

So, armed with that info, we made an appointment at Shannon's to have the refrigerant checked & refilled. I'm hoping that will get us thru the summer but the truth is, assuming the refrigerant really is low, there must be a leak. As I said above- 'we'll see'. As they say- 'watch this space'.

The strike plate adjustment is more complicated than we realized. The 2 screws used to adjust the position of the strike plate are missing. But even with those screws missing, the door opens, closes & locks OK. Jeff looked it over and had some ideas starting with getting the proper screws installed to hold the strike plate in a fixed position. The Admiral got busy on the Thor Vegas/Axis group on Facebook and did a little research. One owner added silicone washers under the 2 adjustment screws so the screws didn't loosen from vibration while driving. Interesting. That may be in our future as shown in the first pic below (not our Vegas). But first we need the door latch & strike plate assembled correctly.

Strike plate with silicone washers installed to retain the adjustment

Latch with the guide pins above & below that line up the latch with the plate
(looks like this door edge is a little catty-wampus!)

And we need to add to the repair list. The large drawer below the bed keeps flying out when driving. Or more specifically when stopping. It needs a stop of some sort- maybe a push-to-open/push-to-close latch like we already bought but never installed. Stop latches are notorious for not working if they never get installed. Maybe that's something Lightning Fast/Jeff & Dana can get to work properly. It appeared to me the ones I bought wouldn't work cuz they were the wrong dimensions for the drawer-plus-facing of our cabinetry. But I should probably let someone who can distinguish the difference between ass and elbow provide an opinion.

Here's a biggie: I just noticed I need to get something for the front license plate frame that doesn't say Lazydays!

So watch this space as we two old farts get ourselves on the road!