R Trouble V

RV, thy middle name is "Trouble."

We expected June through August to be largely a down time for the rv.  Down time turned out to be with a capital "D."

The air conditioning was a concern.  On the way to Luray (sounds like a song title), the fan would only operate on one speed and even then, the air was not that cool.  That was not a problem as it was a relatively nice time of the year in April.  After extensive research, I determined that it would take about six hundred dollars, no kidding, of labor alone to fix the fan speed problem.  The labor intensive job required taking the dash off to get at the recalcitrant part, the fan control switch.  Determined by my frugal nature and sense of high adventure, I left early one morning with my trusty tools and a resolve to fix the problem myself - or at least give it the old college try.  Long story short, my Rube Goldberg remedies did not work.  After about 2 hours of these, I got frustrated, searched for a way to reach up under the dash, and fix the control manually.  I soon learned that it would require an Orangutan's reach and dexterity to reach the problem area under ordinary circumstance.  However, by imitating a pretzel, that is, laying on my back across the seat and transmission housing with one foot leveraged against the couch, going up by the steering column while missing the abundant jungle of wiring, grunting like pig in flight, and holding my tongue counterclockwise to oppose the electromagnetic flux of the earth's rotational forces, I was able to have one hand on the back of the control and the other on the control knob.  With a weak push on each hand against the ac culprit controls, I was able to then cause the fan control knob to regulate the speed of the fan.  Now to get out of this position....

The ac obviously needed recharging.  I took it in to a local guy and had it done.  Case closed - famous last words.

When taking the rv back to the storage facility, I heard a beeping never heard before.  Upon parking the rv and checking around it for problems related to the beeping, I noticed an orangish fluid underneath.  The mechanic was called and the rv taken back.  It was not ac fluid, it was hydraulic fluid that was leaking from the automatic levelers.  So, the rv was back in the shop.

In their infinite wisdom, the manufactures had put the hydraulic lines so they would rub against the battery tray and eventually sever the lines.  Grrr!

A week later, I went to pick up the rv.  It was out front on all four levelers up all the way.  I thought, good to know that they work now.  I got in the rv where the mechanic was and he was checking out something else, the infamous yellow warning light for service previously mentioned.  He said, I'll raise the levelers so that you can see that they work."  I said, "Uhh, Bob, they are already raised."  To save time and space and to not bore myself or the reader, it went something like this.  Bob surprised - Bob confounded - levelers win battle - Bob fighting valiantly with meters, screwdrivers, wooden beams, hammer, flashlights - Bob under rv with rain pouring down and flowing under the rv trying to disable levelers - levelers laughing (I swear that I heard them) at us both - and so on. One and a half hours later, the rv was in the shop with a promise to get it fixed.  Bob never cussed once.  What a guy!

A few days later, the levelers were fixed after ordering a part from a vendor/manufacturer.  Between the ac and levelers issues,  we had spent around thirteen hundred dollars.  Just an average adventure month with the rv.

The daughter's baby time is getting close, and other things came up, so no trips.  Nothing to sweat with the rv, right?  The guy from the storage lot calls and says that a window is broken on the side of the rv.  It appeared that a bird had flown into the side of a window and made a quarter sized hole - which promptly grew into a hoola hoop sized hole when touched.  It is amazingly easier and probably less expensive to replace the whole window frame with the windows in them than customize a tempered glass window for that type of vehicle.  It took four weeks and close to a thousand dollars, most of it covered by insurance, to repair.

Okay, free and clear, right?  The day the window was installed in the storage area, I was checking out the rv in general and noticed something strange.  There was no license plate on the front of the rv.  I was chiding myself for not putting it on well and checked the back one.  No plate there either.  Being an amateur detective of sorts with the emphasis on sorts, I concluded that the bird that broke the window had also taken off the plates and absconded with them.  Absconded is professional talk for took Roger's plates away to make him cry, cuss, etc.

Police report, spent hours getting new plates (would have been more except for a marvelously, kind woman at the MVA - how often does one get to say that), and wringing hands over possible safety of the storage lot.  The sheriff's department located the plates today on a van with a guy saying, "Who me?" in regard to the stolen plates.

To read the above, one would think that this was a terrible, trying, testing, tiresome, experience.  I can report to you that it is a HELLUVA  lot worse than that.  Glad to get that out of my system - well, somewhat anyway.

We are going to the Hershey rv show next week and to the Smoky Mountains the following week.  Unless..............