A Year Ago Today & Other Thoughts

One thing about using a blog as a journal of sorts, it is easy to go back to certain times of the year or a particular month to see what was going on with you, where your mind was and what was going on.

Since my weather here in the "tropics" of southern Indiana turned south last night, with it raining every since, at times very windy and hard rain .. I thought I'd get some blog reading done in my busy retirement schedule at a little past noon.

Ironically it was a year ago yesterday, October 2, that the weather also changed for the worse but that wasn't the big news going on. The big news going on was after a couple of weeks of RV ownership and only 1 long shake down cruise with the hounds included ... I had found an oil leak. If interested you can read about it here.

I can say now, that one small incident poured a lot of doubt into my mind ... enough to put the RV up for sale a few days later just to see what kind of feedback I would get. Also the site I listed it on had a special that day ... list it until it sold for ~$20. So it basically was listed through the winter before selling in early April.

When my eyes picked up that small drop of oil dangling from the hose connector, my first thought was not about the problem but the first three answers I got when I asked five people years before "What do you think or know about RVs?". Three of the five had the same answer ... "They are money pits". All three had owned an RV from all different categories...the Class A, an older Class C and an older Class A.

I guess some people just get lucky and rarely have problems ... or they don't blog about them.

Anyway that was my first thought as I moved my finger up to touch that drop of oil. I spent the next few days around my daytime job, replacing those lines with OEM lines from GM. I'm not a mechanic so to me it was a pain in the ass to do the repair. I wasn't thrilled about the situation. After the test drive all things ran smoothly with no oil seen underneath the RV.

Still those thoughts of having more repairs waiting for me around the corner at unexpected times didn't give me any warm and fuzzy feelings, just a lot of doubt. It is also when I started thinking that the tow vehicle and a trailer might be the best combination for me.

I've gone through all of that in the past, so for new readers you can check the past blogs on the right sidebar if you are curious what went on. Once you open up the "month" link, the posts are listed with the oldest on the bottom.

Now on to just general rambling.

After a few months I am enjoying my internet satellite service ... the speed ... but I am not enjoying the part of trying to stay within 15Gb's per month, it's hard to do. That's my monthly allowance with Exede (prior Wild Blue). I always knew that watching any kind of videos were data suckers but I found out something the other night that changed when I would upload my pictures from my computer to Flickr.

That uploading of pictures also took more data than I thought. So I have to decrease my daily usage the rest of the month to keep within the limit of 15Gb's. The company stated that unlike others, once you reached the limit you would NOT lose internet access but would just have a slower connection. I found out last month when I ran my account to 15Gb with a couple of days to go on purpose, that nothing would load....so it did run slower I guess but you could do nothing as far as the internet. I wanted to see what happened if I hit the limit earlier than 30 days.

Data plans remind me of the new war declared this past week when AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint all came out with new data plans, offering to double your data now for a new contract and a new phone. Nina over at Wheelingit has a very good detailed description of the different plans on her blog today.

If any of you are at the point of changing internet plans while on the road or thinking about it ... I'd take a look at her post today and look at Nina's detailed options available.

A few days ago I did the "devil" of upgrades for my Apple iPhone and iPad. The news was full of horror stories about what would happen if you did the upload at 8.0, but like I said the other day the 8.0.2 seems to be great ... I have no problems a few days later. Sure I have to find and learn some new ways of doing things but that's ok ... I'm happy with the update.

I noticed recently the blog is kind of turning away slightly from RVing posts. Readers have decreased about half from what I use to have before announcing that I wasn't going anywhere. Strangely enough the #1 post searched and read of all time on this blog of three years ... is about the Lil Snoozy Trailer. I get readers looking for information on that trailer on a daily basis and at times it is the most read of all the posts that day. If I were depending on affiliate income with ads all over my blog that decrease in traffic would be a concern ... but as it is, I understand why some people stopped and it has no affect on what I write now or in the future.

The hounds decided to slow down their number of photo shoots and have taken a couple of days off. With it raining outside both basset hounds will get no further than the roof overhang and the bloodhound will sit next to me outside with a look as if "what are you taking me outside for, I'm not going out in that weather".  So there is a break in dog photos, but they will return soon.

So like I was saying the RV posts have kind of decreased lately. I haven't been looking at any trailers for sale nor glancing on Craig's List for RVs that are local. I moved my large folder of RV bookmarks back to the general bookmark population and off my favorites bar that runs across the top of my screen .. so out of sight. I still read all the blogs along my left sidebar on a daily basis.

I still have urges to hit the road. But what in? When I saw Tom's blog up in Alaska yesterday and his weekly forecast posted on his blog, I commented that I would pack up and leave with that forecast. Yet, those temps are nothing close to what what we will experience in the main months of winter. I already can feel I don't want to put up with that kind of weather.

So the travel bug still lingers deep inside the brain cells.

Oil Leak Source Found

As scheduled on Monday, I crawled under the RV after I got home from work. It was a pretty simple and fast find. I wiped all the oil residue off the oil filter, oil pan, the hoses, and even absorbed the small spot up in the front of the oil pan where it meets the engine. Instead of waiting the 24 hours to see if I had any drips and then driving it on Tuesday, I turned the engine on after cleaning it up and within 2 minutes of idling the engine, my first drip showed up.

Those hard lines are coming from the oil filter, then the black hoses meander through and around the frame and just inside the wheel well, turning back to hard lines that go into the lower radiator...the oil cooling hoses. The 4 connectors between the black hose and hard lines are factory sealed.

So Monday night I took a quick trip to Napa Auto and then to AutoZone, both showing me an assembly for a Chevy 6.0L on a 3500 van frame...but the length's of the hard lines didn't look right, nor the angles. I came home that night and did some further internet searches without much luck.

Tuesday after work I headed for my local mechanic in this small town, "Bill's Auto Repair" that is right across the street from the small mini mart/gas station called "The Picnic Basket".....I am assuming you can read from those two business names and understand just how small the town I live in is. Which at times makes it hard to find repair or replacement parts for anything that has a problem. Even though the town is small and hard to find replacement parts at times, I felt that Bill would know where and how to get the correct oil cooler hose and/or assembly.

He told me he didn't have room above the lift in his garage to work on RVs and he was too old to crawl under an RV and have to work in his gravel parking lot to replace the hose, but he thought he ecould get the GM OEM part for me. I just had to give him the VIN of my RV and he had a site that would cross that VIN to the correct GM OEM part.

I picked up the correct hoses today and matching them with my pictures of the lengths and angles of the hard lines, they are identical.

You have understand something first before you think I am now home free on this repair job. I am not a mechanic, I'm an accountant. I do regular maintenance on my old Chevy pickup truck and use to on my old 60's VW buses I collected a few years ago but as far as doing major repairs ... not me. Also when I have attempted most auto maintenance "Murphy" shows up and makes a normal 1 hour job into an all day affair with me swearing at the end of the job that I will never buy another used car in my lifetime".

"Murphy" didn't take long to show up. Just as I picked up the hoses Bill told me "you know you will need a special tool to open those connections to your oil filter block and the radiator". No, I didn't know that, I thought from the picture I would just unscrew the nut and that would loosen the hose connections enough for me to pull the old lines out and install the new lines then tighten the nut.

I ended up going to the local Napa Auto and buying a plastic connector tool set that says it will work but it doesn't look nearly as impressive as the tool kit for different size connectors that Bill showed me in his shop. I'll try the one's I bought first. Bill said if those didn't work, I could take his set home with me to use as long as I could get them back to him the same day, because they use them every day.

How's that for service?

So as I sit here with the new oil cooler lines, I look at the weather forecast and see rain for most of Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I'll wait and see how it goes but I hope to replace the hoses on Saturday with a mindset, yes, it might take me all day just because the two connections to the oil filter are in a pretty tight place. I'm not sure if I can drive it 45 miles with this oil leak to the nearest RV shop to have them do the repair, if I can't get my tool around those two connectors to pull the old lines out and insert the new lines.

These are the two places I need those tools to fit. Sorry for the blurry pictures.

One thing before I go. This repair job does make one thing evident. If this would have happened while I was on the road out in the middle of nowhere I would have either needed to tow a toad or have Good Sam's Services where they would tow my RV to the nearest repair shop where just the repair costs would have been a lot more than the $103 I have spent so far on parts and the tool.

I am now thinking of towing a toad even though I would prefer not to.

Oil Leak Update - No News

The day started with rain and it has rain lightly all day. I didn't feel like working outside even under the RV to figure out the oil leak problem in today's weather, but a couple of comments, a few emails and a couple of phone calls led to some pretty good advice. I will start tomorrow after work while it's sunny and dryer than today.

One consistent thing said by all that replied, email or called .... they did not think it was anything serious. If fact it might not be oil at all...possibly power steering fluid from the connectors that connect the hard line to the black hose. I did not know from the pictures those were lines to the power steering.

Yesterday when I saw the leak, I went immediately to check the fluid levels of oil, power steering fluid and brake fluid .... all were at normal levels, so nothing on the dipsticks showed I was losing a massive amount of fluid.

Tomorrow I will get home late afternoon and clean up all the sprayed fluid residue and anywhere else that is not dry. Then I will put some cardboard underneath this area to see what drips for the next 24 hours. If there are no drips on Tuesday afternoon, I'll take a short 20 mile round trip and then look again and check the same area for any leaks or blown residue.

Once that last check is done on Tuesday afternoon, I'll go from there.

The seller did call me today and said he had not seen any kind of leaks like that, the 7 months he owned it. He did say the only trip they made was a 800 mile trip to Mississippi and back to Indiana about a month ago. So, one trip in 7 months, that's a lot of time being parked. Maybe it's just a seal that need to be reseated after being driven?

Probably nothing more than just coincidence I had a leak right after I bought it. I don't believe the seller was trying to hide anything in the transaction. I did not notice anything the night I test drove it and I didn't notice any leaks on his drive where it was parked.

So it sounds like a minor problem and should be an easy fix.

I deleted my post about my old blog url being back in use. From that post I received over 2,300 views and most of those were spam emails from anonymous senders. Since the number of views has increased today after I had changed my comment settings, I decided I would delete the post for good.

More Downsizing & A Surprise

After waking at my normal time around 7:30 am, a cup of coffee while the hounds are outside checking for any overnight visitors in their yard, I went through a long list of stuff to do this weekend. The list is long and I need to get started early just after this cup of coffee. There are two demons that may jump out at me that may make it hard to accomplish anything. These are a couple of photos I took at 7:30 as the sun was trying to get over the trees. It looks like my neighbor's corn is a few weeks away from being picked. Cool temps this morning.

The hounds are always doing their morning search of new smells around the perimeter of the yard...except Heidi who is the sleep monster of the crew and is not even out of bed at the time this picture was taken. She seems to always know when its a weekend and she can sleep late. That is why only 2 hounds are pictured.  

A few people are telling my by email that I am crazy for thinking of selling my house with the property that surrounds it. That is why it's always been a hard decision for me in deciding whether to sell the house or not and what vehicles to sell.

The 1st demon I warned you about jumped out as I was drinking coffee. The INTERNET ... reading email, blogs, sports blogs, sport forums, rv forums, ....you get the picture. Before I  knew it 11am was almost here.  I hate when that happens. I know when I have things to do on a weekend, I have to go straight to the list and don't even look at the computer. There's always tomorrow.

So a late start. I wanted to check on the manufacture date of the tires. I knew I was looking for a 4 digit number that would be the week and year. The tread on these tires were new, hardly used, no cracking or dry rot on the side walls. Seller said they were a couple of years old. I even used a small led flashlight that night I looked at the rv tires. I later found that 4 digit number not on the back side of the tire but the front side of the tire, so that information from the rv forum was incorrect I guess.

The date of manufacture did not matter to me because just for my own peace of mind I was planning to installing brand new tires on any RV that I would buy. Since you have read this far you need to know the date....July 2006 .... which makes them at that 7 year mark and needing replacement. I am glad I was planning to install new tires anyway. Still the date surprised me a little.

Here is the SURPRISE ...

As I was crawling under the rv, I wanted to see where all the tubes and tanks were connected and I wanted to do a little more in depth inspection just out of curiosity.

What I saw next was not what I expected. Oil residue all over my oil pan, the new oil filter that was changed less than a 1,000 miles ago and a couple of hoses that looked fairly new...

I kept moving forward to where I thought I was at the front of the engine, when I found the source.

I am NOT a mechanic but it seems there would have to be quite a bit of oil leaking to have that much blowing residue on the oil pan, filter and hoses. I am guessing its a seal that needs to be replaced. Hopefully one that can be replaced without pulling the engine.

I have sent these pictures out to a couple of friends of mine that are 'gearheads' and see what they say. I will definitely call the local truck mechanic and have him take a look on Monday.

I don't think its anything major but what concerns me are the "little" discrepancies" I am finding after buying the rv compared to what the seller told me....such as:

1. "I have had this rv for a little over a year, bought it a year ago spring".... title says he bought it just 7 months ago in February 2013. Makes me wonder if he sold it because of the bed size and location like he said or this leak.

2.  "Tires were put on just before I bought it, they were new so probably a couple of years old at the most".... good tread, no cracking or dry rot on the sidewalls, but a manufacture date says the 28th week of 2006...mid July 7 years ago. Time to be replaced.

3. "I'm old school when it comes to maintenance, I like doing all my repairs and change the oil every 3, 000 miles".....if I were doing all my repairs I think I would have noticed this leak.

Could it had just happened....coincidence with purchasing? Yes it could.  When I said in my post last week that I had looked underneath it, I did no crawling....just looked underneath for anything out of the ordinary, saw the new Blistein Shocks, no damage on the skid plates, no leaks around the tank connections....I just didn't crawl far enough to find this....if it was there last Wednesday.

So I will move this leak as my top priority and get it fixed before anything else. After that I'll have new tires installed. 

I will close with saying, the 2nd demon showed up around 3pm...college football on tv.  By that time I had found the oil leak, had cleaned the house and looked around at more stuff to sort, sell or give away.....finding out "stuff' multiplies while you sleep during downsizing. I have not bought anything new ....but the more I look the more I find....it's like I ever started downsizing this past year.

After all that I found by 3pm, I decided I deserved to kidnapped by the college football demons and call it a day.