After leaving Parker, and arriving in Pahrump, I took a short break from doing any RV work after having to deal with the engine issue, but in the back of my mind I was well aware of the heat pump (hp) issue and when I arrived at the park, asked for and got a site with plenty of shade. And oh, was the weather nice. Balmy. Light breeze most of the day, temps in the 70’s and mostly sunny. Just perfect for working on the RV outside. Weather predictions suggested it was going to stay that way for several more weeks. And for the first week I was back at Preferred RV Resort I just researched things I’d likely need for the hp work. I did take a break from resting and opened the grill in front of the hp. This allowed for the removal of the hp’s electrical box cover so I could record the values of the motor capacitors and get them ordered. The caps are those silver things at the bottom of the wiring cabinet shown here. Those two white caps behind the oval silver cap were also replaced. Those are the ‘Motor Start’ capacitors and have a special small circuit that helps start a motor. You can tell the motors might need new if they make grunting noises as they’re trying to start:
There is another cap inside the case for the ‘Outdoor’ blower but I’ll get to that after I pull the hp out of the basement compartment. I also got a plastic squirrel cage fan on order because my noises indicated that would be needed, as based on other owner’s experiences. Turned out that wasn’t true, but I was trying to be prepared. Then I ordered 4 pillow block ball bearings because it was recommended that they be replaced while in there. Turned out I only needed 2 not 4.
Here’s where I got most of the information I needed to work on the hp: Basement A-C
Note that if you click on that link, it will start preparing the document for printing. Just click cancel. Also note that my hp setup is a bit different then the one in that article requiring a slightly different procedure, specified here: Coleman 6535a-871 Heat Pump
Didn’t take long to do the maintenance as it turned out that was all that was needed…just a leisurely week of work. Had a helpful neighbor that was available to help remove and replace the hp when the time came.
Remember the great weather I had so didn’t need A/C except for 2-3 afternoons and didn’t need heat as I have several electric heaters. Specifically, replaced two large motor shaft (pillow block) bushings with ball bearings, vacuumed everything, oiled 4 motor bushings (different then the pillow blocks), replaced all the motor capacitors, cleaned and tightened all the electrical connections. I expected to have to replace the squirrel cage fan but my metal one was in such good condition, there was no need. After everything was done, the hp purred like a kitten whereas before the work it squealed and thumped something fierce.
And with that work all done, I moved on to replacing the basement compartment door that was damaged in the accident I’d had the previous August. I’d gotten a replacement door from a salvage yard and had it painted in Mexico. Here’s how the damaged door looked as I was preparing to remove it.
And the new door all snug in place.
The full story is here: Body Work due to Accident…
After that was done, I noticed that since the back wrap around ‘bumper’ was off, that gave me pretty good access to the 7-blade trailer socket. I wanted to replace the bracket that held it because it was made of thin metal and was bending too easily when I inserted the toad’s wire cable plug. I also wanted to improve the 12 Volt supply that goes from the RV battery to the 7-blade and then via the coiled cable to the car’s battery when towing. I was in a hurry when I originally set up for towing and used too small gauge of wire back then and wanted to beef that up. I wasn’t able to turn on the running lights in the toad because the battery would be dead after a day’s travel because of that. But since I only travel during the day it’s not a big deal, but something I took care finally…3 years late is better than never.
Here’s the new wiring diagrams I made up afterwards: Towing related Schematics…
I had removed the lower bumper to access the heat pump so that give lots of access to the 7-blade socket and made it easy to replace it’s bracket and add a new heavier 12 volt wire back up to the battery compartment (on the right in this picture right next to and forward of the hp compartment).
After I got that socket all situated, I took the opportunity to test the RV’s rear lighting setup. It is kind of difficult for one person to test those lights from the drivers seat so I’d often use that as an excuse to not bother. This time I couldn’t avoid it. And found a problem. It never seems to end.
Anyway, there was one brake bulb burnt out, an intermittent running light bulb (when the lens was tapped on with the end of a screw driver, the light would flicker), and the brake light strip in the middle of the RV was really dim. When I removed the first lens, I found a rusted mess. Eventually, found that all the sockets were corroded and rusted. Couldn’t find any US based supplies for the sockets so had to improvise. Also couldn’t find a generic replacement middle brake light assembly, most were too narrow to fully cover the hole in the endcap, so had to take mine apart and add my own LED’s so I could reuse it.
That story is here: Rear Indicator Lights…
That fix was kind of fun. Wasn’t in any hurry to go anywhere in the RV so didn’t need the lights working for a while, working outside for hours at a time was delightful, until the sun made it’s way far enough to blaze full force onto the picnic table where I worked, plus had to do brain work in figuring out how to adapt the available parts with the existing assembly. Saved lots of money too.
Even though the weather had started getting too hot for me to enjoy the afternoons outside, the heat pump was working soooo well, inside the RV was very comfortable. Then the next morning I could work outside again. Nice.
And part of that staying inside gave me time to figure out what I wanted to do with the original battery operated Red Devil vacuum system that, along with a battery powered flash light, had been original equipment and mounted inside a small cabinet under the sink. Mounted into their own chargers. I’d tossed those soon after purchasing the RV as the batteries were bad and not replaceable. I wanted to adapt that space for my own wired vacuum as it wasn’t very attractive inside that cubby behind the door as originally built. So I pulled out the old white board with the (now) unnecessarily large holes and went up to the RV park’s carpentry shop. Shown here at the end of this building. The shop has all the cool wood working tools you’d need. Plus lots of free wood scraps to work with. I found some 1/4″ clear plywood that would work perfectly, cut it to size, sanded, and shellacked it a dark color.
After installing the new back plate now the equipment inside there doesn’t look so messy. The electrical cord is routed up over the top of the back plate where it plugs into an outlet behind the back plate.
Looks much nicer now. The old backer board had two large 3″ holes for some reason. Wasn’t handy for the way I was using the space though so eliminated them. In fact, I didn’t need to do much to the board except cut it.
After that was done, kind of ran out of RV repairs and mods to do so turned to the car. The SES (Service Engine Soon) lite was on continuously and with my ODB II reader telling me it’s a 0404 code that research told me was a EGR valve problem took me to the local junk Yard…Two Brothers Junk where they have several Saturns in their yard. Bought 2 of the EGRs to play with but neither of them solved the problem. Gah.
And then the RV park had a shindig with goodies to eat, a band, and an antique car show.
Well, that was fun. Delish brat too. A couple weeks later, they have what’s called Pioneer Days here in Pahrump. I went down to the park early and didn’t have any trouble finding parking space for the car…
It looked like there might be a rodeo type theme but nothing ever happened there. The tents were just there to sell trinkets and food. That’s it? That’s all Pioneer Days is about? I did have breakfast, really good, and coffee and hung around in the shade for several hours but nothing really happened. I was probably a day early.
There was even a CULT allowed to set up their lying ass tent to sucker people in…but I never saw any sucker, er, person enter their tent. Next door was an art gallery but my battery died in the camera before I got more than that one shot.
It was a few days later that it became the end of May…and it was getting to be time to move on north to avoid the really hot weather this area usually experiences this time of year. Pahrump isn’t very far from Death Valley after all. This year had been delightfully mild up until the last week of April. Which allowed me to get a lot of outside RV work done. Very happy about that.
Kwan the Kat enjoying her favorite place.
My new spot in row D.
Heading for the gate to go shopping. Place was getting to be fairly empty. Usually there’s several RVs over on the right side of the street here.
It was getting too hot at my regular site in row 100 so I asked to move over to a shady spot in Row D. I’d looked around several times and when this one came open, I jumped at it. Had nearly full coverage shade all day until late afternoon. Did have to cut the tree branches out of the way for the Satellite dish but it was a pretty nice spot until around 3 pm, than it was pretty darn hot. Good thing the A/C was working or the heat would have driven me out of the RV every day until late at night. It would have been miserable if I hadn’t performed that maintenance on the heat pump.
One thing that happens near this RV resort is the nearby fireworks stores shoot off their aged out fireworks every Friday and Saturday nights in the empty areas behind the RV park. So that’s fun, fireworks every weekend.
Even though it was uncomfortable in the afternoon’s the weather stayed mild enough to enjoy the area long after I would have traditionally headed north. Mid day until sundown was usually pretty hot, but the morning and evening was cool enough that I got plenty of bike ride time in. I had been paying my rent by the week so I could take off quickly if it got to hot and it wasn’t until June 12th that I finally decided it was time to travel north to Ely, NV. I took the route through Las Vegas…I wanted to go to Ely because it’s at 6500 feet and indicators suggested it would be cool for a while longer. Here’s the map of the route I took: Pahrump to Ely
And that’s where we’ll pick up next time…on the road to, than enjoying Ely and the cool weather.
Thanks for reading!