JuniorBirdMan

What a coincidence! Herm, you're right on! I was boondocking in rural Maine when my furnace decided to go on strike. When I get somewhere with WIFI I'll post pictures of the 'fix' that I stumbled across. But the problem turned out to be in the thermostat. When I pulled the cover off the thermostat I noticed a small dial inside that controls the cycle times. By turning the dial toward "shorter cycles" I was able to get the furnace to cycle more frequently and to maintain a more consistent temp in my Ollie. It's a 30-second fix and no tools required! Yahoo! Aubrey

Chuck, Even a Cajun couldn't come up with a cocktail like that. Did you give it a name? Aubrey

Sherry and Pete, Thanx for the help on this issue. It looks like it'll be a relatively simple job to keep things from being damaged. My "little" brother lives in Casper, WY and I'd like to visit him (and Yellowstone) this winter, but I was worried about that plumbing in the bumper. Mais, cher, dey got dem giant crawfish here in Maine, but dey don' know nuttin' 'bout Zatarain's. Next trip I'm gonna brought plenty Crab Boil and red beans fo' dem. Dey mus' be hongry, yeah! Aubrey

Antifreeze! Now why didn't I think of that?! That'll protect the system whether boondocking or just traveling in really cold weather. Thanks, Pete. I owe you one! Aubrey

That might work. Also, I've got a device on my boat that warms the engine compartment with hot air. I'll research it when I get home (I'm in Maine now) and see if it has possibilities.

Hey Pete! Any thoughts on how to keep the whole gizmo from being damaged while camping in subfreezing weather?

Hey, great link! I'm getting ready to head up to the northeast USA and plan to follow the changing of the leaves back down south while spending 1-2 months on the road. Some of those drives look spectacular. Thanks for the posting!

If you've got the Freedom Axle, you can get directions on repacking at http://www.freedomaxle.com/downloadFiles/operationmanual.pdf. It doesn't require removing the dust cap or the hub and makes repacking a real no-brainer (which for me is a good thing).

NOWWWW you tell me! Yuk!

Not knowing any better, I had the Nest Egg continuously hooked up to the car for almost a full month and sometimes went 3 days with no AC power at all. I never noticed any weakness in my starting battery so I'm guessing (read: "hoping") the smart charger protected it as well. Ignorance is bliss. Well, sometimes anyway.

Yeah, I've just been measuring the temp of the hub cap. That's probably not optimum, but after 4000 miles of checking them that way I now at least have a good feel for what "normal" might be. An added benefit of the infrared thermometer is that kids can entertain themselves for hours checking the temperature of everything in the car while motoring down the road. My grandson and my nephew can even tell you important things like what the temperature is inside my right ear as well as the difference in temp between a puppy's feet and his tongue.

I've also got the BCT load range "D" tires on my Ollie. I was a bit leery of them since they're made in China, but I've now got over 8000 miles on them including two day-long trips through west Texas at temperatures up to 109 degrees (both times) and regularly cruising at 75 mph with no problems at all. As an aside, some of the rest areas out there have signs posted that warn to "WATCH FOR RATTLESNAKES". Sure enough, within 5 feet of the sidewalk I yanked poor Woodstock's leash when he was less than 1 foot from having a nasty encounter with one. While traveling through Wyoming, I managed to cut the sidewall on one of my Ford Exploder tires. What should have been a relatively minor inconvenience turned out to be quite an odyssey. It seems Ford just started using 18-inch tires this year and they apparently haven't made it very far into the supply chain yet. I had to travel 80 miles to Cheyenne where visits to 6 different tire stores were of no help. I finally had to get the local Ford dealer to have one specially shipped in. After 2 unplanned days in Cheyenne and $375 (OUCH) I was finally on my way again. After seeing the nasty burn on Tumbleweed's hand some months ago I stopped at Home Depot and picked up an infrared thermometer (about $30) and now I check my hub temps at every fuel stop without having to touch them. I have found that with minimal braking the hub temps stay pretty close to the ambient temperature. With moderate braking, the highest hub temps I've seen were about 20 degrees above ambient temperature, so I've adopted the +20 degrees as a limit of sorts. A side benefit is that after noticing that one hub was always warmer than the other after moderate braking, I was able to readjust the brakes to make sure they were doing their job equally.

I accidentally ran across an interesting event and wondered if some of you electrical wizards could help answer some questions. I was powering the Nest Egg with the Honda generator set on eco throttle. The car was still attached to the Ollie. I went into the car to "crack" the windows a bit and when I turned the ignition on I could hear the Honda revving up. Wondering if was just a coincidence, I did it again with the same result. Questions: Is the Honda trying to charge the car battery or is it just powering the systems? Is there any danger in this? (small gauge wires, blown diodes, etc?) Could this be an emergency way of charging a weak starting battery? Any and all help is appreciated. BTW, there appears to have been no ill effects to either electrical system, but the ignition was only left on for a few seconds.

Oh, well. I guess I can always siphon between the tanks. I just hope not to get confused about which is which.

Yahooo! Pete, thanks for the post and for doing the engineering work. I just finished installing the same sewer hose system and it is great! A pleasant surprise was the technique included in the package on how to rinse the black tank (and precharge it) with the grey tank and how to empty some of a full grey tank into a partially full black tank. A particularly satisfying event in my Ollie ownership experience occurred this morning when I tossed the "stinky slinky" into the dumpster!

Whoever removes the axe shall become king of Trujillo Meadows.

I think it all boils down to personal preference. I personally prefer the cool white and used them throughout. Do you prefer incandescent (warm white) or cool white fluorescent in your home? They are roughly equivalent.

This just in from a good friend: Some of the plumbing in the vicinity of the water pump can cause a bit of vibration noise. While the pump is running just hold some of the pipes to see if any are causing noise. They can then be secured with tie wraps. I wish I'd thought of that.

I just installed the Shurflo accumulator in the fresh water system. It was a breeze! NO tools required! It's a tight fit because of the dinette seat insert that sits above it, but I was able to easily shift some hoses around a bit to make it fit. It seems to cut the water hammering some, but it's real value is in that it stops the very frequent cycling of the pump when trying to run a trickle of water such as when using the "pause" function of the showerhead. That made it worth the $40 to me right there! It should extend the life of the pump significantly (not to mention cutting way back on that irritating "start-stop" that occurs). One note: It's mounted in a horizontal position because of space, so it'll have to be rotated to the vertical position to drain the water system for winterization. But that's real easy to do.

Larry, I read on another forum that someone was changing the carburetor jet on their Honda generator for high altitude operation. Are you going to do that with your Yamaha or does it have mixture adjustments? I'm trying to figure out if my Honda will work as is for just a few days or if I need to modify it.

Hey thanx! I've now added that one to my bookmarks too.

Here's a website that's pretty handy for neophytes like me: http://www.rvdumps.com It lists a lot of locations and tells whether they are free or charge a fee.

Check the plug for the charger under the small dinette seat. Mine came unplugged and the steady beep was the inverter telling me it had insufficient voltage to operate (although it took me quite a while to find out what it was).

I think (hope) it'll be pretty simple to install. I ordered one but it's on backorder for a few weeks. I'll post a full report when I get it.

Great tip! Thanx. Has anyone tried the Shurflo accumulator ($40 at Camping World) in the fresh water system to help control surging?