Engine work and other stuff…

Last time, I had driven from Yuma to Parker Arizona and while searching for a place to spend 2-3 nights, had my serpentine belt break which caused the engine to dangerously overheat. Lucky that Cat engines have a 2nd belt that just runs the water pump so if the serpentine belt breaks you still have water coursing through the engine. That allowed for moving the RV from Emerald Cove just 1/4 mile or so to a nearby BLM park without damaging anything by overheating. Or even stressing it much because after I’d shut it down and allowed the engine to cool, I used that old trick of turning on the cab heat full blast. And with such long hoses from the back of the RV up to the dash area, I was able to drive with the engine temp staying in the normal range.

And after moving, I expected to be able to fix the problem myself but when I discovered that the A/C compressor idler pulley was seized up, and I’m not well versed on A/C repair, decided to let a shop handle this problem. I did actively consider limping up the road to Pahrump where I knew of a shop with pretty good reputation. I figured that if I only traveled at night when it was cool I could make it those couple hundred miles. And I could get around the broken belt by running the generator to keep the batteries charged since the alternator would be non-functional. Caution prevailed though and I decided to be smart and get it fixed here in the Parker area.

Meanwhile, I didn’t have Wifi and needed that for research so paid Tracfone $40 for 2 months worth of 1 Gb data/month. Outrageous I know, but didn’t have much of a choice and didn’t want to have to trouble with trying to change phone plans. As you can see, I did have lots of space around the RV to work if I decided to do it myself. I was also considering using my Coachnet roadside assistance (RSA) to have the RV towed to whatever shop I decided on. When I checked, found out the RSA had expired so called them up and renewed. Not a problem with Coachnet.

Here’s a shot of the housing across the river. Just a half mile from here is Michel Jordan’s Colorado River house boat. Nice looking floating house.

Nice spot here along the Colorado River. Quiet too. Only cost me $2.50/night with my senior pass. It was starting to warm up during the day though the nights were still chilly, but it was better then Yuma. And dry camping so I was on battery. Didn’t run much battery operated equipment in order to conserve. Just put on an extra blanket. A couple times every day, I’d run the generator at least an hour to charge the batteries, make coffee, start the computer get online for research for my engine problem. But I could tell while monitoring the battery voltages that I wasn’t going to be able to boondock for long because the chassis batteries were losing voltage rather quickly during the day, with basically just the refer operating and occasionally using the computer on inverter. What most RV’ers that try to boondock without solar panels don’t realize is that the engine and tranni computers, along with the dash radio, plus all safety devices on board all suck power from the batteries. Even with the battery storage switch in the storage position. If I’d let it go too long, like stretch it out another 4 nights, one or both battery sets might have gone dead leaving me to have to call RSA. I suppose I could use the car to jumper it so it’s not a big deal, but I didn’t want to harm the batteries either.

Back to the repair. I’d done some online search and found some part numbers for the parts I’d need, and checked the reviews I found for local repair services plus had an idea of how much work it was going to be. Though I was reading that people had paid up to $2500 for a broken serpentine belt, I felt pretty confident that I could do better than that with the knowledge I had.

There are only 2 shops in Parker that work on RVs and Vinnie’s Auto had the better reviews. So I’d driven over there and talked to them, liked what I heard so made a repair appointment…which was for 7 days later. I knew I could just cancel if I fixed it myself. Which I thought I might be able to do at first.

Anyway, I’d become acquainted with my RV neighbor here at the BLM Crossroads Campground and he mentioned that I could get 3 free days over at his membership park next door…all I had to do was to listen to their hour long membership pitch by a salesman. My neighbor has the membership where he has to leave the park for a week every 3 weeks so he was over at the dry camp for a week when I met him. Also learned that he’d bought into the park 15 or so years before and the price back then was $5,000. Jeese. While we were talking, I discovered he had accidentally burned up his water heater when he forgot to reconnect the gas pipe to it after a repair. Pipe was just hanging there. Turned on the propane, fired up the heater…literally. I checked it out, saw I could fix it, and proceeded to cut out and replace all the burned up wires. Everything else looked pretty good. After the rewiring, fired it up and after the air was worked out of the system, it worked fine. This gave him a reason to help me with my RV repair and he loaned me several tools while I was working on preparing the RV for the shop.

But, I knew I’d need shore power very soon if I didn’t want my batteries damaged so as the 3 days at the BLM campground came to a close I stopped at Emerald Cove’s main office and talked to the receptionist about my problem. Asked her if they did a hardship thing? Like many RV parks do when someone has a breakdown of their RV nearby they’ll let them stay there even though they’re a membership park? And she says, “Yes, but only if you listen to the sales presentation”. I agreed so the next morning I drove the RV over and the office had me on their list, assigned a space for me, I got all set up, and went over to the presentation. The salesman did his best to convince me that paying the current price of $9,000 was a bargain somehow? And that’s the plan where you have to leave for a week every 3 weeks. The best plan is $12,000. After that expense are the yearly dues and fees. Yikes! Couldn’t get out of the presentation fast enough…but I politely listened to the pitch. While the salesman didn’t give me a personal tour of the facilities of the park, he did give me a free Android phablet. I was happy to get it since I can use a new one if I go overseas again. The park isn’t much considering the buy in price for a membership. The spaces are gravel, there’s very little shade, no grass at your site, the roads are compact dirt and gravel, and there’s not much river access. It does have several pools that the kids really enjoyed, and there’s a couple hot tubs. Oh, and a nice bar and kitchen. There’s also breakfast on the weekends at the clubhouse which was very good. I did enjoy the bar every night I was there as it’s unique enough…plus a very pretty blond sat next to me the first night and we got talking. Reason enough to go every night. Plus my new friend Paul came over to the bar too. Turned out she was visiting the RV park and had sat for the salesman’s pitch the same day I did. So I had someone to talk to about it while there.

There was a nice view of the river from the office. River is pretty wide here. Parker is on the opposite shore around 5 miles downstream from this RV park.

Looking mostly right across the river from the office.

I prevailed on the receptionist to allow me to stay until the day of my repair shop visit and she arranged it for me. So although most get to stay free for 3 nights if they listen to the sales pitch, she allowed me to stay 4 nights. Found out later that they do that for people all the time if it’s a big family or something, and here I thought I was special. But 3 nights is the typical offer.

I didn’t take any pictures of Emerald RV Resort for some reason, or I just misplaced them ‘cus I can’t find any. I was preoccupied with getting the RV ready for the shop though. Like I spent almost 4 hours setting up and then cleaning/rinsing/cleaning/rinsing the rear radiator using Simple Green – Purple. Also cleaned the engine as best I could. Before I could do any of that cleaning though, I couldn’t even turn the parks water faucet on by hand because it was so corroded. Had to have the park maintenance come over and reef on it. I didn’t want to break the faucet by doing it myself with a tool and have water spraying 50 feet into the air. Then other times, spent hours climbing over the engine loosening up frozen bolts for the auto repair shop. Had to run to town several times ordering parts and buying supplies and one tool.

From Greenfacts.org: “Water hardness is a measure of the amount of calcium and magnesium salts in water. … The more calcium and magnesium in water, the harder the water. Water hardness is usually expressed in milligrams per liter (mg/l) of dissolved calcium and magnesium carbonate.”

At the Emerald Cove park, I was told it was over 1,000 mg/l (58 grains/gallon). And that explained why all the faucets in the park had white crusty deposits all over them. Even though I was only in that park for 4 nights, there ended up to be deposits on my shower head, kitchen faucet, and kitchen filtered water faucet before I left. And Kwan the Kat sort of turned her nose up at that water too. She hated it, but only reluctantly drank it when she got so thirsty she had to. I realize now that for her I should have used the distilled water I had on hand.

It was very nice of Emerald RV Resort to allow me to stay when basically it was due to a breakdown and not any interest in buying a membership. They weren’t that pushy either and the salesman sensed I wasn’t interested in buying early on so the presentation was only 45 minutes long.

While figuring what I was going to do, I took several trips over to the Parker auto shop to find the best route with the fewest hills to hopefully delay overheating. Also decided I wanted to arrive at the shop by 9 AM before the day started to warm up. All this to avoid a tow, which is a hassle even though I had insurance to pay for it. I felt the RV would make it over there in the cool of the morning even without the serpentine belt. Didn’t know that for sure though.

And that turned out to be true. Read all about that trip and about the repair here: Broken Serpentine Belt…

Let my neighbors know the night before that I’d be leaving at 7ish in the morning, made arrangements for my new friend Doug to follow me later in my car so I wouldn’t have that extra weight to tow. When I arrived, there was this guy standing there with his dog on a leash smoking a cigarette. Him, not the dog. So I’m waiting for him to finish or to move out of the way, and he doesn’t for like 10 minutes at least. Ass. Eventually he moves and I pull the RV in right where he was standing and beyond somewhat.

Here’s a shot across the street from the shop where the repair would be done. My appointment wasn’t until 10 AM. They had me park next to that 5th wheel instead of inside the shop.

It was only 7ish when I arrived and soon after I parked, Paul showed up in my car. As a thank you, stopped for breakfast on the way back to drop off Paul and I treated at the Crossroads Cafe. Yum. Very good food. Wanted to stop there because every time I passed the place, the parking lot would be near full. It wasn’t bad at 7:30 AM though.

Later in the day, the work on the repairs was done so I paid then headed to the Blue River RV resort. I’d talked to the office the day before and they had a spot all ready for me. It’s the Blue River Casino’s RV park. I’d stayed there several years ago when the Seahawks won the Superbowl. This time I wanted some time to put things back together that I’d messed with because of the repairs, like tightening the bolts on the alternator and replace and bolt down the large metal lid to the engine compartment.

Here’s my spot when I was there. The wifi is a volunteer setup as the park doesn’t do wifi. It’s free, but not very fast at only 1.25 Mbps download. Barely enough bandwidth to read email and do some Facebook reading or posting.

Here’s the clubhouse/showers/restrooms and the wifi rooftop antenna. Direct line of sight but it’s still poor. The whole town has poor wifi. At least at every RV park I’ve stayed at here in the area has poor wifi. Four different RV parks, all have bad wifi.
After 3 days, everything in the RV was buttoned up, I’d seen enough of Parker again so it was time to move north to Pahrump as it was starting to get up to the 80’s F during the afternoons here.

So off I went heading to Pahrump. Weather was overcast hot and cloudy but it never rained. Made for a nice trip. No wind either. And then by the time I got to the cooler area near Las Vegas, it had changed to mostly sunny.
Check out the flowers alongside the road.

And as I got close to Pahrump, it was nice to see snow still on the hills because that indicated it was still going to be mild here.
And that turned out to be. It stayed mild here in Pahrump for over a month after I arrived on March 30th. And that gave me time to comfortably work on several RV projects I had on the work list. Maintenance items. Also took the time to wash the RV and the car and get other chores done.

So that’s the story of my breakdown in Parker, hope you return next time when I talk about working on the heat pump and the damaged basement door. Thanks for visiting! Have a comment? Use the form below…