Thanksgiving with the Nerds

I made corn on the cob, homemade smashed potatoes, steamed broccoli and veggie Italian sausage cooked with onions and garlic – all pretty much smothered in HP Sauce. If you haven’t tried HP sauce you should. It’s like a tangy steak sauce but better and goes great on meats, potatoes, sandwiches and whatever you’re willing to try it on. We bought it at Fred Meyers in Portland but you can get it at World Market also.

As fun as it sounds, we didn’t just eat on Thanksgiving. It was a pretty nice day in Catalina State Park outside Tucson so we decided to take on a list of projects. Ross started with and spent most the day trying to change out the gas tank inlet that has been leaking on us since Portland. I didn’t even know they used rubber for gas tank inlets but apparently they do and as expected, it eventually corroded away. The hose we bought was pretty hardcore with a bit of metal running through it and cost about $50 for 3 feet. Unfortunately it had to be cut, so scuffed hacksaw and pliers later we had the two pieces needed to complete the project. The last people to attempt to fix it ran into the same issue as us, a metal pipe with an oblong mouth – that needs to connect to a round hose. As you can imagine, this didn’t work so well and we still leak if we overfill but at least we’re not smelling gas anymore. We plan to use some “hard as metal” epoxy” to complete the task.

While Ross was tearing his hair out trying to finish that project, I was inside hanging heavier ceiling hooks for the divider curtain, organizing our bins that sit on the bumper shelf (one of which we were able to get rid of) and putting a railing on the top of my closet so things can be put up there and stay up there while we drive.
The day before we had hung a standing oscillating fan on the ceiling above the back shelf, a necessity for circulating heat in this thing, and Ross wired up a 3 way switch so that the front stereo he worked so hard to install could be used with the house batteries, allowing us to use the stereo for movies or music while we’re not driving (so it wont drain the starting battery).We are definitely making progress on the projects, one of the only things left is to patch the manifold, patch the hole in the floor and figure out whats up with the water pump.

The day after Thanksgiving was our last day at Catalina State Park and although it was more than time to move on, I kind of wish we’de stayed long enough to avoid this winter storm that’s taking over New Mexico and Texas.

It’s not hard and you can do it just about anywhere. On my first car I glued them around the edges of the interior and made my piece of junk Ford LTD into a chola-mobile. Gotta love the dingle balls.

This was a fairly minor project.  We purchased a new wiper motor online, somehow only paying $5 for shipping.  No idea how companies price shipping.  Seems to be entirely arbitrary.  Anyway, fitting the new motor involved little more than removing a grill and and 4 bolts holding the old motor in place, and replacing it.  This was all great – I could wipe the windscreen clear any time I felt like tapping a wire on one of the battery terminals, but you can probably get a ticket if you try do that kind of thing while you’re driving.

Wiring the switch into the dash was a little more complicated.  Really we needed a 4-state switch – off, low speed, high speed and washer jets.  We opted to just get a 3-state switch, and forget low-speed mode.  The resistor required for low-speed operation was missing anyway, which is why you can see the two wires twisted together in front of the wiper motor.  I wasn’t responsible for this, and it’s a minor example of the lazy hack-jobs that have been done throughout the vehicle’s wiring.  Wiring the switch took a while of staring at the circuit diagrams in the maintenance manual to work out.  And despite being absolutely, mostly, fairly..somewhat sure I wired it right, the windscreen wipers don’t park themselves when the switch is set to the off position.  I’ll have to pull the switch and fix that, but at least for now, we can drive in the rain without having to guess where we are going.

I had seen the ,73 Brougham on Craigslist and called on it once already. It was not at the top of my list because it didn’t have an air conditioner but everything else sounded good for the price. It had 85k miles, second owner and drove “great”. When we went to go take a look, the previous owner nervously said over and over again “I just think it would be better to be honest with you” when stating anything negative. I tend not to listen to anything desperate people say when I’m buying something from them and this was no exception. It was fairly obvious the RV was old, in pretty good shape but would need maintenance. Of course it ran great – except for it being out of gas when we first attempted to fire it up. It’s not rare that someone handy with tools will make a car run like a champ just long enough to pawn it off though – It wouldn’t have been the first time I drove away with a car that ended up having a bad motor. This time I was a little more cautious than with some of my previous cheap cars. We checked all the fluids, color of smoke, listened closely to the motor, shifted through the gears, checked lights and whatever else we could think of. The test drive went well but as with any used car, I weighed my losses were the thing to die on me soon after. Estimating the worth of a vehicle while dead is often part of my buying process (because I only buy old cheap cars). With the RV I decided that it held its worth quite well, running or not.

The drive home went well except that I wasn’t exactly used to not being able to see anything next to or behind me. I had driven u-haul trucks before but not an RV and not with mirrors that shake out of position every 30 seconds.. I also hadn’t driven at all in 3 years. It was just about dark when we left and I followed Ross in his car about 7 miles across Portland through side streets and neighbourhoods. It wasn’t all bad until he decided to take 39th ave around Hawthorne, a narrow 2 way, 4 lane street with cars parked on both sides, bikes everywhere and the lane next to you not nearly wide enough for a car let alone an RV. I eventually just got off after one too many “holy crap that felt close” encounters and took side streets the rest of the way. We later discovered that on top of taking all the wrong streets, the windows and stairs were left out – Classic first time RV owner mistake I imagine (I’m calling it that anyway).

At first we didn’t do anything with the RV. I parked it very successfully in one of the car spots outside the apartment and it fit pretty much perfectly. I was in finals week and didn’t really have the time to work on it, hang out in it or even clean it until that ordeal was over. Then after finals, I went to Mexico for 2 weeks. I went out and started it every day or so because the previous owner had mentioned that both batteries, the starter battery and one stored in the side panel, were almost dead but while I was in Mexico it didnt get started as often and by the time I got back they were both completely dead. We turned in both batteries and replaced the starter battery which did exactly as expected, started it. Now that I was back I had the time, although not the money, to find a mechanic and schedule some work. I had filled the RV up the day we bought it, costing around $50 – a few weeks later, although it was running, it was about half empty. I had noticed a gas smell while driving it and starting it but thought it was maybe a bad muffler, or that I was flooding it when I started it. Turns out it was just straight leaking gas from the fuel pump. Being as this was a little dangerous to drive with, I had it towed by a large toothless man who worked for Beaver Towing to my new mechanic of choice. $300 later it was fixed and we scheduled a tune up and oil change, $300 later that was finished as well. I asked the mechanic what else he saw wrong with it and he stated word for word “we check out all new vehicles that come here so we can give you a quote on any other work it needs and this RV is in great condition, I’m jealous really”. Little did I know he was a bit of a lying bastard and we would later discover that it needs a new manifold, shocks and a rebuilt carburetor.

Many things are too good to be true but that doesn’t mean they’re not worth it anyway.

The first photo