Bring the Noise

Published on September 5, 2009 by Ross in the category electrical, RV life | Leave a comment

radio Life in the RV was going to be quiet and dull without any music. When we bought the Brougham, there was a busted old Pioneer stereo mounted in the dash with various buttons and pieces of plastic missing. And of course it did not turn on.

After pulling the existing stereo and looking around behind the dash, it was no surprise it didn’t turn on – wires once held together with electrical tape had long since fallen apart. This included the positive power cable, which, for some reason, had been connected carelessly to part of the cigarette lighter wiring – despite the fact that there was an ‘accessory’ wiring connection 2 inches away. When this cable’s electrical tape harness has fallen off, the cigarette lighter’s positive wiring had just been rattling around inside the dash, shorting out and blowing the fuse every time we replaced it.

To replace the stereo we picked up a Clarion unit at Frys – nothing fancy, but it sounds great, and, most importantly, has an aux input on the front for our mp3 players. Installing the stereo was no work at all really, the only difficulty being slowly working through the speaker wires which ran to the dash from who knows where. The factory stereo installed in the van back in ’73 was in fact a ‘mono’ – with a single speaker in the center of the dash. A previous owner had installed a couple of small speakers – one on the ceiling between the seats in the cab, and one towards the back of the RV. Somehow though, despite there being only 3 speakers I could find, enough wires for 5 speakers popped up behind the dash. Hidden speakers in the shower? Maybe. And if not, I might just install some.

Aiwa Speakers Given that Katya and I both like our music loud enough to cause small earthquakes, these little speakers weren’t going to be enough. Our budget was limited though – not enough to go all out and get amps, crossovers, subs and all the rest of the usual car audio stuff. Instead we took a trip to our usual destination for picking up cheap things we need – Goodwill. Conveniently, there were a couple of Aiwa home-stereo speakers recently divorced from their lifelong partner, and looking for a new one. We plugged them into a random stereo, grabbed a Poison tape from Goodwill’s excellent tape selection, and turned it up. They sounded pretty great.

After peeling back the rubber flooring in the cab, inhaling a significant amount of whatever weird insulation material is under there, and running new wires, our speakers were installed out of the way behind the seats. I also wired up the smaller speaker on the ceiling of the cab to provide a little fill. For now this works. If I was incredibly anal about it all, I’d probably be bothered by the fact that these speakers don’t really match the output impedance of the stereo’s amp, their current position means a lot of the higher frequencies a dampened by the seats… I just realized that apparently I am incredibly anal about all of this, and it does bother me. Silly thing about that is – it really does sound great the way it is.

My next project will be to install a power switch for the stereo so we can run it off either the starter battery, the house battery, or the converter box (the box that allows us to plug into external power sources, like at RV parks). As well as the power switch, I’ll be running some wiring from the cab over to the living area of the RV so we can connect our laptops to the main stereo and enjoy music and movies through something other than feeble little laptop speakers. Conveniently, the stereo came with a little remote control, so we won’t even need to get up to change the volume.

And after all that work, while I’m still back in Portland, working through selling the rest of my belongings and re-homing my cats, I’m stuck listening to music through my computer’s speakers. Guess that’s what I get for not having sorted all this out sooner.

Danger lurks in low places

Published on September 2, 2009 by Katya in the category RV life | 2 Comments

I fell.

Whose fault is this? IKEA! Well, I’ll be claiming that at least. I’m not going to sue them but I can be pissed regardless. I bought a step stool there the other day. It’s a cheap one, like, $4 cheap but seemed like it could be used for you know.. A STEP STOOL

This is how it happened. My dog is old. I’ll make a post about her soon. Her name is Chena, she is almost 11, diabetic, half blind and the shit (EVERYONE will agree).
Me and Ross went to Home Depot before we left for Spokane, shopping for the last minute scraps and screws needed for some basic repairs. I wanted to make a table for my laptop so I could work comfortably. We had already bought the legs at Ikea, $15 each but they can be unscrewed easily for storage (After so much trouble with finding folding table brackets). We bought a 4 foot piece of pine, already in a table like format and proceeded to look for some sort of stairs for Chena at some commercial pet store chain. They were too expensive so we left.

The next day while figuring out the table issue, it turned out to be a bust. The pine was too thin for the screws that the legs needed for support. We considered using the original table, a hideous green melamine thing, but finally decided on my awesome Dunny table that Ross made me while I was in Mexico for 2 weeks.

To make use of the pine, I made a ramp out of it for Chena putting clear skateboard griptape in stripes across one side. Money saved and Chena’s accessibility problem solved. I thought. Turned out the ramp still needed some more support and little steps, or more grip tape, for her slippery little feet.
For a temporary solution, I successfully widened the RV stair by shoving half underneath it the Ikea stool. I tried not to use it or put weight on it but while taking out the garbage, I must have pissed off the gods of plastic because it tipped forward and sent me flying upon my tailbone to the ground. I don’t know what happened to my arm. Something involving grip tape (that I recently put on the RV stair) and something that can gouge a hole quite nicely.

I sat on the ground holding my arm, clenched eyes and gritted teeth for several minutes, not really sure if I should try to stand or walk. I seriously considered whether or not I had shattered by ass bone, or what have you. But what annoyed me the most was that I was sure that the neighbours, who had been working on home remodeling in their backyard day and night, had probably seen everything and said or done nothing. I can’t be sure but since I got here I have almost never seen them NOT in the yard working. I must have pissed off the gods of plastic and the gods of “neighbour’s snack break”.

When I got up I immediately washed off the blood on my arm, put on bandages and secured an ice pack to my lower back. Luckily this was the “unsuccessful dry ice day” and during its brief success, some ice packs were froze. I thought I sprained by wrist but the next day wrist was fine. I could however barely walk and my arm looked like this (below). I can still barely get up my stairs without a shoot of pain 3 days later.

Day one.

Day two

day three

Tip. Only stand on plastic step stools at completely vertical angles with no leaning or uneven weight. To Ikea, write this on your damn step stool.

The Fridge and The RV of Illusion

Published on September 2, 2009 by Katya in the category cooking | 1 Comment

After a week without the fridge and my little ice idea working at its peak (which wasn’t bad) I finally decided to call a technician. It wasn’t easy finding someone who had gas fridge experience. Everyone kept sending me in circles “call an RV place” – “call a gas appliance place”, both being totally logical but the wrong answer. While I was scouring google, Ross was checking out the local Craigslist for me, finding a guy who specifically said he works on gas fridges. I had tried Craigslist a few days earlier and after no response from the 2 people I contacted – I gave up. The guy that Ross found was in Idaho but would probably drive here for a price. I told him the situation, an old vehicle, old appliances, but given the mileage (85k) I doubt they have had more than a year of actual use throughout their life. He agreed and said to make sue the RV is level and try the electrical method again, This time letting it do its thing for a couple hours before checking it. The fridge is electrical and gas which is really nice, but the first day I was in town me and Ross did both methods with no results. Basically we were too impatient. I think both of us were expecting noise if it had been running. After I hung up, I plugged it in, felt heat soon after and then tried to level the RV (just because I work in the most backwards ways possible for every situation).

Leveling the RV was living hell. I used my iphone level for a while with no consistent results, then moved on to an actual 2 foot long brick laying level – also getting completely wack results everywhere I put it. Window sills, counters, upper storage area… me and my friend’s husband Andy (whose yard I’m camping in) could see from outside that the RV was not level… and from sleeping in it, believe me you can tell. We tried jacking it up a bit after we finally agreed on a place to level from. It only seemed to make it worse. The fridge has no shelves in it, so measuring it front to back level was no challenge but side to side I had decided wouldn’t work without removing much of my food and ice. After about 40 mins of attempts and Andy having cut large blocks of wood for me to prop my jack stands on, I gave leveling one more shot and tossed my food onto the couch. The fridge itself was level enough to believe that the process was going to happen. A website I found said it can be up to 2 degrees off in either direction, what they called interestingly “half a bubble” (because my half a bubble was more like 4 degrees). The fridge was perfect one way and just a bit off the another. This is WHILE the rest of the RV had not one straight plane that could agree with another. The RV is apparently a twisted home of mystery, an optical illusion that laughs at me while I run around it and cover my hands in jack grease. I was glad I could sit down and wait for the fridge to either get cold or not.

It never once made a noise but slowly the freezer got cold, then the fridge. This didn’t happen in a “normal” amount of time, I’d say it was at least 8 hours before I was freezing food and cooling water. I waited overnight and finally felt like I could take out my bag of ice (in the cutout 2 gallon water jug) and let it work alone. So far, its doing great. Next step – to actually try the gas process. I’m taking a day off from the fridge. I’m just glad its working at the moment.

First cooking experience

Published on August 29, 2009 by Katya in the category cooking, RV life | 3 Comments

I was pretty happy when upon putting propane into the 36 year old tank and turning on the stove I did not explode. I was however disappointed that the oven didn’t seem to work with quite as much gusto as the one functioning burner. I got the pilot to light but wasn’t really sure why the rest of the oven did not become aflame as I adjusted the dial. I later discovered I was just being impatient and there was a longer process involved that required the pressing down of said button while set to a temperature.

Anyway. I decided for my first oven experiment I would go all out and make a pizza. Not one you stick in the oven and wait for, one you prepare with knives, cheese graters, fresh vegetables and such. We make these things quite often – usually at least half vegan but this time I was alone and able to smother the entire thing in pepper jack cheese. The onions and shallots came from the community garden at my mothers apartment and the red pepper from a store down the street from where I currently am, ahem.. Albertsons. I cooked them in olive oil for about 10 minutes on med-high heat while carefully cutting free and smothering in sauce a quality Boboli crust. I grated a fairly generous amount of Tillamook cheese onto the crust followed by black olives and many jalapeno slices. The oven was set to 450, though who knows what temp it was actually at, and I let her go.

I had spent the afternoon preparing the stove by cleaning it out with intense chemical soakings and the wasting of many a paper towel only to find out that I had missed something rather important. The stove smoked like crazy but I was determined to eat pizza no matter what. I opened the door, turned on the fan (made sure the pizza wasnt on fire) and stuck it out. 10 minutes later I pulled out the pizza and to my wonderment and satisfaction there was a perfectly edible and tasty meal. I normally would have put on some kind of fake chicken product but veggie pizza and protein rich cheese was enough for me (Oh and jalapenos and hot sauce, my 2 major food groups).

So far cooking is a success. I have blueberries to get rid of so its either pancakes or muffins tomorrow. hmm.

Other appliance news.

The heater works very very well. In fact if you leave it on more than a couple mins you will roast to death at pretty much any temperature its set to. I have been turning it on for about 20 mins in the evenings but really theres not much point because I wont be sleeping with it on any time soon.

I got tired of using a cooler after we unsuccessfully tried to turn on the fridge with both gas and electricity so I spent yesterday afternoon on the lovely Spokane bus system trying to find some dry ice. I should have known better but I was hopeful, and my $15 in dry ice (12lbs) worked amazingly but only lasted about 15 hours. I was more than annoyed. I was committed to the idea of using the fridge with its ease of access and superior size to the cooler so I cut the top off my spouted 2 gallon water jug and filled it with ice. I put the “most important to stay cold” things (insulin, yogurt) directly on the ice and everything else in the doors and bottom shelf. It works fine and when the ice starts to melt I can use the spout of the jug to drain the water into my pitcher of drinking water and have some nice cold water. Clever me. So far its been lasting about 2 days a bag so at 99cents a bag, Id say 15$ a month isn’t bad until we can get the fridge working eh?

Food success! Things are pretty normal in here besides the inability to use running water. Soon enough though I’ll finish draining the tank, pull the pump, test it and order a new one (tomorrow soon)

Braking with your left foot

Published on August 29, 2009 by Ross in the category RV life | Leave a comment

On our first trip, from Portland to Spokane, we suffered from issues with the engine failing to idle when the vehicle came to a stop. Freeway driving was smooth and easy, apart from the engine temperature getting a little high when pushing the speed over 60mph on a hot day. City driving, however, was a pain in the ass!

To keep the vehicle from stalling I had to get used to braking with my left foot, shifting into neutral and keeping the revs around 1500 too 2000 rpm. This was made harder by the fact that the throttle / carb was not sensitive enough to allow the revs to be maintained reliably below 2000rm.

It sounds fairly simple, but I had the hardest time with managing to do this! The left side of my body is fairly non-compliant – I can’t write anything legible with my left hand, and I can’t much kick a football with my left foot. Katya, being ambidextrous, was getting more than a little irritated with me as I struggled to get my left foot to operate independently of my right. Understandable considering all her belongings were in this vehicle I was jerking to a halt by braking too hard with my left foot, then jerking forward as I pumped the gas to keep it from stalling. And all that combined with Spokane’s awful roads and the busted shocks…

The RV is stationary for the next month – Katya is learning how to live in it, where to store everything, working through repairing things like the oven and fridge, getting water and propane systems working again, and finishing some of the decor.

Before we drive it again though we’ll be fixing the idling issue, and maybe the shocks too – and the drive will be less stressful on everything in it as we head off to our next destination, us included.