Donna and I stopped in Old Town Florida to see family. We took the opportunity to pull some needed maintenance on the motor home and towed car. Thanks to Chris, Martha and Speed, for the hospitality and technical expertise to help us keep going. (warning – this post is mostly intended for gear-heads).
On the maintenance side of the house, I probably should bring you up to speed on the work we did before we left the Home Office, and then what we’ve done on the road. Before we left, we changed the spark plugs and wires, distributor cap and rotor, changed the gear oil in the differential and changed the transmission filter and fluid. I had some help with the maintenance from Tom (my brother-in-law’s brother-in-law). I also replaced the rear sway bar bushings, which vastly improved the handling. I knew we were going to need tires, and an engine oil change soon, but didn’t get to that before I left Michigan. Still, I felt like we did quite a bit of preventive maintenance on the rig.
In SC we bought new tires, and I changed the engine oil in Florida, just before we got to the Martha and Chris’s house. We decided to take a stab at renovating the cooling system on the motor home after we changed the oil on the car and inspected the car brakes. We changed the oil and the air filter on the car, and did a rear brake job. This ended up eating three days before we got to the motor home.
We changed the hoses (that we could find) and changed the thermostat and coolant on the motor home. During this task, we noticed the air intake wasn’t properly sealed around the filter, and the breather filter at the back of the air cleaner was clogged. So we changed out the breather and made sure the housing properly sealed. Luckily, Chris is most handy and turned an inset for the air cleaner housing to replace one that had fallen off – that helped make the seal more airtight.
Finally, Chris charged up the A/C – which was MOST appreciated on the trip through Alabama and Louisianna. Let’s just say the system was a tad low and leave it at that.
As we headed out, we experienced some power loss issues, which had begun on our way out of Key Largo. On and off loss of power, idling issues, and some backfiring here and there. We ran some gas treatment in the tank, and it seemed to help. We decided to changed the fuel filter, and the problems disappeared. The fuel that came out of the filter was pretty cruddy, and about 5% water. After the filter change, I decided to fill the tank only with gas promoted on the Top Tier Website ( https://toptiergas.com/licensed-brands/ ). Hopefully, that will be the end of our power loss issues.
The machine is running great for now. But I would recommend the following for anyone trying this trip in the future.
Make sure you have a good spare tire. Especially if you have leveling jacks on your motor home. This could save you hundreds of dollars if you blow out a tire. On tires, there is a ‘hot dog’ on each tire manufactured. It is a date stamp near the rim on one sidewall. Tires are good for about eight years (unless of course you wear them out on tread before hand). Once you get close to eight years, the rubber starts to break down, and unless replaced could lead to a blow out. The blow out will do more damage than just the tire. My blow out in Lansing also wiped out the battery and damaged the automatic step control.
Bring extra fuel filters – these are usually easy to change and can definitely help you out in a pinch. Make sure you have any special tool needed to change it. And don’t leave your six quart drain pan at Chris’s, or you will have to improvise and use a frisbee to catch the fuel and inspect.
Bring extra fluids (coolant, brake fluid, power steering fluid, engine oil, etc.). Bring a set of tools, if you intend to upkeep your maintenance yourself. In that set, you should have a torque wrench, in case your need to torque your lug nuts. Chris was kind enough to make me a T-stand, which allows you to transfer maximum torque to the lugs.
I also recommend keeping an air compressor with you. It will help to keep all your tire pressures at level.
Finally, do as much prep work as you can before you leave. The more you do in a controlled environment, the less you should have to do on the side of the road, or in your camping spot (which leads to more relaxation)! Sorry….no pics for this post. Donna and Martha were busy exploring while maintenance took place……