Work in M-F…

Today is Oct. 3rd 2024, and yesterday I was finally able to fire up the heat pump and get air-conditioning. And this morning get heating from the finally installed heat pump. A project I’ve been working on for months now. The heat pump had been installed less than a year when it failed in late May ’24. 

If you remember last time I showed pictures of the shipping damaged heat pump delivered by FedEx. Than around 3 weeks after receiving that damaged one, AirXcel delivered another one, again by FedEx, but without shipping damage this time…except it was obvious that somewhere either the pallet was dropped, or a fork from a forklift caught a cross member on the pallet, or something heavy was placed on top, or the truck had hit a swale in the the road that caused a compression event. Which caused the heat pump to push down on the pallet, breaking a cross piece. So it was on a 10° tilt on the pallet when it arrived. Made the shipping guy stand there while I peeled back the wrapping and inspected. Eventually determined that it was likely just the compression event and there was zero damage to the heat pump as far as I could determine. So I signed.

Then it sat there on the pallet while I tried to arrange for muscle to move it. Two weeks passed and finally had a couple guys hired and they moved it to the platform next to the RV and it’s basement compartment. Opened the top, replaced the oil type pillow block bushings with pillow block ball bearings, rerouted and dressed the poor wiring in the control section, and than tested it. And it tested within spec. Both compressors came on, all the currents measured within specs.  Pretty happy about that. I also found that the factory worker who put the top on had stripped out 3 or more screw holes that hold the cover in place, grrr. So it rattles a little bit when either compressor switches on. But it seems it settled down as I haven’t heard it since the first time I turned it on.

So here it is installed. I won’t say much about the difficulty with installing this in the rack and frame of the RV but I will say that the tolerances were measured and this new heat pump is the same dimensions as the original, but it does take some finagling to get it in the compartment. The main problem is getting it squished up against the foam seal from the return air plastic vent that drops down from the bedframe. Getting it to go that last inch to under that lip is a bitch. Once it’s mostly under the lip, then have to quickly start ratcheting the bolts to raise the tray. Took over an hour to get it positioned just right and under the lip, and the tray lifted without damaging the frame of the heat pump by prying too much with a crow bar and a flat bar.

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Still in M-F…

Yeah, it’s been a long time. I’m having a bit of a problem getting my get-up-and-go going so basically, I’m just staying home and not doing much of anything other than visiting the iRV2.com RV forum and the Winnebago forum, and Facebook, and Nextdoor and Tribel. Vast waste of time. I did make it to the Edgar Allen Poe live show at the Gesa Theater with cocktails served during all four breaks and that was fun. But even with my hearing aids, sadly I couldn’t hear much of what the actors were saying. But I’m familiar with Poe’s works so I was able to follow along.

Some other things going on, 2 years ago here at this RV park there was a small tree next to my LR slide out with stout branches. I wanted the shade and tried to position the RV just right as I backed into the site but then when in position, I stupidly failed to notice that the S end of the LR slide would catch on one of those branches and when I extended it picked up my slide, bent the support extension, and that bent support extension put such strain on the toppers front top seam it tore the slide topper fabric. It’s a ShadePro topper so it’s thick fabric but even it couldn’t handle that extra strain. I’ve been trying to find awning repair while I travel and finally found a sewing shop way out in the boonies that was able to sew in a patch for me. Just $25. Then had a couple guys install it.


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Just hanging around in Milton…

Really not a lot going on here in Milton Freewater since I arrived on May 8th. Visited with the kids of course, my sister finally answered my email about my arrival, today, over a month later. Then there is the RV park management, Pacific Star Management out of California, who bought this property last year or the year before. I sent them an email about my arrival 2 days after arriving. A week later, no response so I called their number and left a voice mail. No response. Then I contacted the onsite managers who were supposed to bring or email the rental agreement to me. I asked them for it 3 times. Nothing. So I’ve been staying here free for nearly two months until 2 days ago when they finally sent me the documents, I e-signed them and sent them back, they showed what I owned (no late fee because my tardiness was all on them), but their web site was broken and wouldn’t send me a password change page, didn’t work until today. Just this AM, I finally paid them the $1400 I owed. Damn. I was hoping they’d forget all about me parking here.

The other thing of note is the heat pump…it was less than a year old back in April when it went bonkers and I am dealing with Airxcel on it. They are nice enough, even allowing me to become an authorized Airxcel repair guy which allows me to bill them for my labor too. I did have to dig out my EIN which is my old business taxing number. They are sending me some parts I need free eventually but they’re 3 weeks late at this point. So the heat pump is sitting outside of it’s compartment while I wait. I have to have those parts in order to run tests on the compressors again because right now, it appears that the #2 compressor isn’t cooling…like they forgot to put Freon in it, or it’s leaked away. Here’s a link to that story…it’s for my Coleman Mach, Airxcel 46515-611 heat pump that cost me $4,000 in May of ’23. I did find the problem right off, it was the cheap shaft pillow block bearing on the outdoor blower motor. It wasn’t lubed by anyone like it’s supposed to be and it overheated, then seized up. I’ve replaced it with a ball bearing type. Here’s the link to the story: 3: Heat Pump… 

So now, with this weekend showing projected temps over 100℉ I’ll have to rely on the two interim window ACs I bought a few weeks back to tide me over. I was able to buy a nearly new Toshiba 12,000 BTU AC that a guy had listed at $250 (half the new price) after I talked him down to $170. He’d bought it for his tiny office where a 6,000 BTU AC would have been sufficient. Stuck the Toshiba into my LR window and it’s purring along. Does a pretty good job keeping the main living area cool even in 105℉ temps. And I got a 6,000 BTU for the bedroom too. Both of them have an ECO setting that makes the AC run weird so I leave those off. Power loss resets them to ECO On so it’s kinda annoying, but workable.

One of the things that happened here was one morning Ms. Kitty was taking a sun bath on the rug inside the open door of my RV when the neighbors kid let his dog out of the car as he arrived, the dog saw my cat and made a mad dash to get her. I heard the ruckus while I was in the back taking a leak and when I came out, the kid had just grabbed his dog by the neck fur and was dragging him out of my RV! Ms. Kitty had dodged the dog behind the drivers seat and when she could made a bee line for the back of the RV. I yelled at the kid, “Where’s that dog’s leash!” He never visited again without that dog on a leash. Anyway, when I collared Ms. Kitty, I couldn’t find a mark on her, but she’d been slimed with dog spit. No missing fur, no puncture wounds, no sore spots on her. Huh. So that cooled my anger. I wiped her down and kept the door closed for a few hours while the kid was visiting his dad/uncle/grandpa. They kept that dog inside their trailer from then on too.

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Back to the US…

After the visit to Mexico, I decided to spend a month hanging around Yuma to take advantage of the warm weather, before heading even further north.

This year, March 2024, the weather has been a bit less predictable then in previous years. The cold weather fronts kept rolling in one after the other and I soon decided to ignore that and head north when I usually did, mid-May.

Anyway, when the rent was due at the RV park near Guadalupe, instead of staying over, I wanted to get up to Yuma because I had a tooth that had begun to bother me and I wanted to get any dental work done in Los Algodones, Mexico, just across the boarder from Yuma. So on March 19th, headed north via the same route I’d taken to get to Guadalupe, via Tecate (that’s where the Tecate brewery and brand started). Noticed my window was a bit crowded with bugs and streaks but I wasn’t keen on stopping to wash it off so not as many travel pictures. This next picture is an example of why I rejected posting most of them. This valley is around 15 miles from Tecate.

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More from Mexico…

Wasn’t much happening around the RV park, other then giving Walter a hand with his full on off-grid solar setup. I was giving advice, such as it was, about the install and the problems he’d run into on occasion. He had a good grasp of the system already so I just mostly agreed with his assessment of how to do things. One problem he ran into was when he’d installed two 24V to 12V converters. When he rotated the switch, it arc’ed and popped. I agreed they were most likely defective as his wiring was top notch. He sent them back and got replacements and those both worked.

But, on with my tours around the area…decided to head back into Ensenada one day just for a look see. I did stop at two RV parks and one I’d read the reviews on still hadn’t rebuilt the main office. So there’s an entire RV row that lost power during a fire that had been mentioned in a review a year prior…still not rebuilt. None of the wifi extenders worked either so wifi was only near the office where they had jury rigged that setup so it worked, somewhat. And I stopped in at Corona Beach RV and that’s a nice one. So I was thinking to heading there after leaving Guadalupe RV park. Turned out I just headed back to the US instead but that’s for later. Here I’m heading back to that massive shipping area and over on the right are some new homes for sale. Since at that time my brother and cousin were considering moving down here, decided to stop by and take a look on the way back from downtown.

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Visit to Guadalupe…

Since I’m staying near to the village of Guadalupe, a picture essay of the town and nearby environs is warranted, so here ya are…

If you click on that map link above, you can see how small it is. The main MX-3 highway is how I’d get to Ensenada. If I went straight instead of following the curve, I would be where this first picture shows. Note this is very typical of the smaller Mexican towns I’ve stayed at over the last 20 years. This is my first visit to the west coast of Baja and I sort of expected less green, thinking it was mostly desert. It was a surprise to find all this vegetation, vineyards, olive orchards, etc. Pleasant surprise really.

Here’s the first corner entering the village. Over on the left are 3 small food kiosks. The Pemex parking lot is like many in these small towns off of the main highway MX-3, filled with small and huge potholes. I was considering filling up my RV here when I moved again but the nasty potholes kind of squelched that idea for the time being. I did explore their access to the diesel pumps a couple times but decided because of the potholes to fuel up back in the US since I had just under 1/2 tank left.

Here’s just a bit further up the road, a mix of homes and small one room businesses…on either side. This main road had it’s share of potholes too but doesn’t take long to figure out how to navigate the area. Did all my shopping at the Oxxo, the Liz store, and a couple other stores. One was a Costco type store with bulk items in stock, another was a basement convenience store alongside the road. Past this area is the main part of town with lots of businesses. There are a couple of mini-malls too.

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Visit to Ensenada…

Last time the article was about arriving at the Guadalupe RV park around 15 miles outside of Ensenada in the wine valley. Today, I explore Ensenada…

First a few pictures of the travel, by car, heading south west from Guadalupe…

Visit to Ensenada…

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And into Mexico…

Left Tucson heading to Mexico in late February…

and first stopped at the TSD station for a diesel fill up. And couldn’t get the pump to start pumping! Tried every trick I knew about pump islands with remote pumps on the opposite side but nothing worked. Dammit! I needed fuel! So I drove around the fueling station (these are business type sites…no humans anywhere around) and tried a different pump, and it worked. Cost me nearly 45 minutes of screwing around to find they have defective equipment but no sign. Wasn’t until I was 10 minutes away that I realized I could have put a note on the pump myself. Doh!

Anyway, I did make it out of Tucson onto the west bound I-8 freeway.

One of the dune buggy havens that dot this area. There’s a huge meeting over those dunes a couple times a year. I’ve passed it in the past but never stopped.

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Welcome to 2024…

Having survived 2023, it’s time to enjoy some lo-jinks in 2024.

Not much had happened after I arrived in Tucson, John, my host, and I got back into our old-guy routine of sitting in the sun in front of his garage every afternoon enjoying the weather (normally sunshine even on coolish days) and tossing stories back and forth. We strictly avoid politics. But we’re both atheists so we do complain about the latest religious outrage on occasion.

I do enjoy the sunsets here…

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2023 – October thru December…

November 1st, 2023 was a travel day heading south towards Winnemucca.

First have to climb the very steep hill on I-84 outside of Pendleton. Known as Deadman’s Pass. Can be really dangerous in the winter so I always try to time my travel through here when it’s safe. There are several Webcams showing conditions. Usually, even after a snow event the roads melt the snow so by 10 AM it’s safe. Of course in the summer, overheated vehicles can end up stuck on the side apron. Coming down is as dangerous if you don’t downshift or have an exhaust brake and overuse your regular brakes.

Several hours later, the Winnemucca valley.

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