More work on Smokey

A couple of things have been done.  The TV antenna inside handle was gone and the rotating part was broken.  So with a new handle on the shaft I had my wife turn the handle while I was on the roof oiling and helping it up.  And after some oil and working on it the thing cranks up and rotates just like it should.  I never had one of these Winegard antennas before so now I am moving up from rabbit ears to a rooftop antenna.

The some cleaning was done.

I cleaned the leafs and crud out of this roof vent.

The bedroom with some new mini blinds up.

Summer is here..........almost

With the temperature up to almost 70 today it seems like Summer to me.
The cleaning and fix up continues with removing the couch, cleaning under it and other parts of the carpet.  This coach had a dog in it and so there were spots that smelled of a dog.  My favorite carpet cleaner is Folex.

It works good on most stains on carpet and upholstery.

I put up some more mini blinds.  And then I got really carried away and replaced the straps on the window awnings.  I have 2 A&E awnings and 1 Carefree.  The A&E ones were super easy to change but the Carefree needed a little work with a drill to make it easy to do.

I still think this is a good looking Bago.  And look at those new window awning straps. LOL

Then I did work on the TV antenna.  It was missing the inside handle and turning part.  Well part of it was there but broken.  So I put the new handle on it and had my wife turn it while I worked on it from the roof.  It looks like it will work after all. 

Ant killer

Have you ever had ants in your house???  I know where I live every few years either they show up before I spray or for whatever I see a few in my house.  So I tried something I read about and thought I would share it with you.  It is using Dawn dish washing detergent and water.
http://www.mylot.com/w/discussions/1620457.aspx

And another place with Dawn info
http://usesforeverydaythings.com/dishwashing-liquid/dawn/

So does it work?  I just sprayed inside the house with Dawn and outside with my regular pest spray.  The ones inside stopped moving so that is a good sign.  Maybe I will leave them just stuck to the wall overnight, in case some more come in and when they see the others they might just turn around and leave.

I did put up a blind on the dinette window in Smokey today.  Nothing fancy but it is better than no covering.

When you pull the string on the left it pulls up every other slat.
Kind of a neat feature.

Body work on the Wagon

Those of you who know the history on my '93 Subaru Wagon know that I never thought I would keep very long but I like it so now to fix it up.  I have some rust holes and started by searching for products to use for filling holes and stopping the rust.  What I decided to use is called chassis saver made by Magnet Paints.  And after seeing it at the local auto parts place, Stuarts Auto Parts for $39.95 I looked on line and found an Ebay auction with 9 minutes left.  The 1 bid posted was for $25.00 and with a $26.00 bid I bought it.  So that was how I choise to use this stuff.
Take a look http://www.magnetpaints.com/underbody.asp .

Here are the starting pictures of the bad spots on the wagon

 And then after using the pressure washer and a pin point tip to blast off paint and rust.

So now to remove a few trim parts and clean up before the Chassis Saver arrives.
And the Bondo I plan to use is waterproof.  I hope it sticks to the chassis Saver paint.

Here's the king pin parts.  I guess the top cap is just held on with two bolts.  And the grease should come in from the bottom fitting and work its way up.  Probably the biggest job will be to clean all the old grease off so I can see what I am doing.

OK I went out and fixed the seal but not like I thought I would.  Sure it seemed easy enough and all went great, except you can't get both bolts out unless you remove the brake part that holds the brake caliper.
But look at the pictures and see what I did.

Looking down from the top the grease flows out easy.

Before removing the bolts.

Looking up at the bottom of the cap you can see the missing piece of gasket.

The new piece of gasket going in.

Grease comes out where I want it to.

This job is done.  Kind of makes a person wonder who greased this before and what they thought was going on.  I guess if I used a pneumatic gun I couldn't feel how easy the grease came out.   Another good reason to use hand tools sometimes,  and that I am to cheap to buy a new grease gun.

Greasing the Superchief

Yea I really wanted to check the underside of the Big Bago so today I got out the grease gun and found the drive line fittings, steering arms and things like that, but when it got time to do the king pins I ran out of grease in my gun.  So after a trip to the parts store I was back in business.  The levelers make quick work of lifting the front wheels off the ground.  But I think I need to change the gasket for the top of the right side king pin cap.  It leaks grease out real fast when I put the grease in the top fitting.  Only two bolts hold it on so that is a job for another day.
  There was a nut missing on one of the rear air bag mounting bolts so that was taken care of today.  And I did scrub on the carpet inside where it had a big old stain.  Some day I might have the carpet all clean and then everyone who wants to see the inside will need to take their shoes off when the come inside.
  I also found out something I had thought might be going on.  When I first drove Smokey it seemed like it would want to straight when you let go of the steering wheel.  So today when I lifted the front end off the ground the wheels were turned but as soon as they were off the ground the wheels straightened out all by themselves   So that means that the big old shock looking thing connected to the front end works like that or some gremlins are in the steering.  You decide.

And thanks again for looking at an ad on my Blog.  I am in line to get another check from Google ads soon.  It is only taking me a year to hit the $100 mark.  And then they send me a check.  Now how cool is that.

Look at the new lawn ornament

When you have friends like mine, you have to understand that having one Winnebago is never enough.  And when the opportunity comes up, you have to do what you can to save one more from the scrap heap.  I'm not sure this one will survive except for parts, but look what I was sent.

So who do you know that has 2 '68 Bago's???????????????????

Back from the coast & more Smokey stuff

After spending a week on the Oregon Coast we came home.  I sure wish it was warmer outside.  I know the weather is much worse across the country but we can always complain about the weather.
I did put the 4 new window knobs inside Smokey last night.  And there are plans to spend a few nights in Smokey soon.  After all it is Spring and that means Hoodstock is coming.
  Some more things off the Smokey list today.  I knew the left side speakers were not working on the radio and after reading the radio manual I figured out that I had to pull and turn on the left knob to switch from side to side control of the speakers.  Who knew!!!

  And I took my old mattress to the thrift store so we now can put the two new memory foam mattresses in when we are ready to go.

  And the third thing I fixed was the red light on the dash.  It was part of the security system and that kind of scared me to think about.  In the manual it said there was a starter disable if something set off the alarm.  That was the last thing I needed to deal with someplace,  not being able to start the engine.  At least I have the book on the alarm system if I need to work on it.

I just cut one wire, pushed it back in the dash and poof.....no more red light.

Here is my newly chromed exhaust pipe.  I sprayed it myself.

And I pulled out the awning just to see if I could remember how to do it.

And this is one of my new window knobs.  I think I could use  another  4 more for the bedroom.

Whale watching

We saw some whale spouts today. I am still figuring out blogging on the iPhone. So far so good.

How about a game of pool

We stopped by the Chinook winds casino today and they were having their pool tournament. That means they had 72 pool tables in their conference center. I have seen it before and it's quite impressive to see all those tables set up being used.

Window knobs fixed

I guess window hardware on Winnebago's take a beating.  On the '70's models that have sliding windows the latches are glued on.  And after 40 years or so they fall off.  The real problem is finding the latches after they have fallen off.  So I fixed several of those.  Now on the '89 Bago they use a round knob that opens a crank out part at the bottom of the window.  And my round plastic knobs were probably chewed on by a dog or just cracked from use.  Whatever happened, when I went to buy news ones they came in 2 lengths, 1/2" or 1".  So it looked like 1" was the size to get, wrong.  Mine were 1-1/4".  So I made the choice of using a 1/2" extension to make them the right length.

I love this picture of the carpet removed from a '74 Brave.

Whats under the carpet

Finally some time working on Smokey

Since Smokey is now in my driveway I got a couple of things fixed and taken care of.  The hood release is now fixed so that when I pull the knob under the dash it pops open.  How cool is that.

And then I did an oil and filter change on the Onan genset.  I bought the oil and filter at Orielys auto parts.  But the filter that was called for was kindo od short so I traded it for a 3600 filter.  I guesss Fram makes a PH3600 but the Microguard 3600 is the same size.  And this genset had a NAPA Gold 1762 on it.  But since the filter is recessed it would be hard to tighten or remove without a different kind of filter wrench.

There was a bolt missing from the bottom of the genset.  Just another thing on the to do list.

Blogging on my iPhone

So I now have an iPhone and of course there is an app for that. And I can enter text with the keypad or by speaking . But now for pictures .

A trip to the tire shop

My valve stem was leaking so a trip to the shop was called for.

What a nice day here, we even took Wilbur out for a drive

Something about the sunshine makes me feel great.  And after spending some time in Smokey putting the shower sky light back up my wife and I took Wilbur out for a drive.  I thought Wilbur never ran better and we both had thoughts of trips we took and places we've been.

My new iphone needed some more apps to get the pictures on my Blog but it's working now.
After driving Wilbur around town I have a special spot for smaller RV's.

Will we have a warm weekend and what will I do?

I have been busy learning about roof cleaning and this weekend I might just get time and weather to try it out.  And then there is the new iPhone I started using.  It seems to be a big upgrade in the cell phone thing.  You know I still know people who have no need for cell phones, and then there are friends who can't think of not having the whole world in their pocket.  So for me I have no home phone and just use a cell phone.  It works great when I get to travel more.
  Yard work here I come,  unless I can get out of it.  Then I can play when the work is done, and my wife will be happy.
  Someone ask me about Weight Watchers(WW) and if I did the online or meetings.  That got me thinking,   yea even I think sometimes.  We have now been on WW for 1 year.  And we attend a meeting almost every week.  We have E tools, which is the online WW stuff, but really enjoy the meetings.  I have to go with my wife,  but there are plenty of women, and of course they wear light weight clothes to weigh in.  I have even seen the clothes come off as they don't like to be up any from the last week.  But I have to be aware my kids might read this and think their dad has been looking around at the WW meetings.  Never would I say I go to WW just to enjoy anything other than learning about eating.

More on roof cleaning

So after my last post you probably knew everything about roof cleaning,  But I did read more and found out that if you add some Ultra Gain Dish washing detergent to the bleach and water mixture it will work better and even smell better.  There is no climbing on the roof  if you have a way of spraying the mixture from a ladder.  I have a plan to use a sump pump set in a bucket on the ground and use a garden hose to spray the mixture on the roof.  Wish me luck with this project.
  I have a couple of houses to try this on so I can get plenty of practice at this before I work on the house I live in.  I did go to the dollar store only to find out the were out of cheap bleach and didn't have the dish washing soap I wanted.  Oh well there is always tomorrow to go shopping.  That's the great thing about being retired.  You can make several trips to the store to get everything you use to be able to remember to get in one trip when you were working.

Roof cleaning and moss removal

Oh boy it's that time of year for yard work, and my wife is already planning for bark dust to be delivered.  We have been taking advantage of the dry weather and have finished much of the flower beds around the yard.  And soon we will have a big pile of "work" to spread around.
  And I started to clean the gutters and roof.  My big concern is that my next door neighbor had her roof cleaned today.  And she had talked to me about getting her roof cleaned and not wanting it pressure washed.  Well sure enough I heard the pressure washer running this morning.  Now she knows that's not good to do and she was surprised when they started using it, but the kid doing it told her it was not a hi pressure cleaning.  Yea you tell me that as dirt and moss is blasted over onto to my house.  So I have been looking into this subject on line and found this info from the
 

The most effective method of cleaning algae and moss from a roof is with a
50:50 mix of laundry strength liquid chlorine bleach and water. Apply with a
sprayer and allow the solution to dwell on the roof surface for 15 to 20
minutes, and then rinse thoroughly with low pressure water. Extended dwell
times may be necessary, how ever, avoid letting the solution dry completely
as this may prevent complete rinsing. Take proper precautions to protect
landscaping and surrounding areas from the chlorine bleach solution. Use
appropriate personal protective equipment w hen working with chlorine
bleach. Algae will disappear and wash away with subsequent rains. Moss
will loosen over time and may be removed with a leaf blower. In severe
cases, it may take more than one bleach treatment to kill all of the moss.
Never use a pressure washer to clean an asphalt shingle roof as this w ill
cause granule loss and very likely premature failure of the roof system.

So there you have it.  Bleach and water.  It looks like I will be watching how my neighbors roof  lasts and I will be buying bleach...lots of bleach, probably at the dollar store.

If you want to visit the ARMA site here it is,  http://www.asphaltroofing.org/sites/default/files/press/MS%20Algae%20&%20Moss%20Article%20May1411.pdf

Do you know why I hate cell phone companies

Yes today was new cell phone day.  I thought I had it all figured out before we went to the Apple store for a new account with Verizon and buying 4 new iPhones with our old phone numbers ported from Sprint to the new Verizon account.  Yea it seemed simple enough.  And with my daughter getting a better discount on cell service than I get I thought it was time to go on her plan.
  But the plans all fell apart after spending 1 1/2 hours at the Washington Mall Apple store without getting anything fully set up.  And then we had no more confidence in our sales associate.  So when the supervisor came out we had enough and cancelled our plans.  And it was only later when we went to a Verizon store to start up our plans of getting new phones that we found out the Apple store got one number ported into a n empty Verizon account and we had problems getting this straightened out.
  Well a few hours later we had new phones and they were starting to work.
  Oh I love changing cell phones.  That or getting a root canal done, oh make that a colonoscopy done, since I never had a root canal before.

Look at that new lug nut shine

Today I aired up my slow leaking tire and installed some of the new lug nut covers.  I took my air compressor to the storage place and started up the generator and plugged the compressor into the outside receptacle and it worked great.  I don't know why I keep thinking I will have things not work but there is no problem with the gen-set yet.  I did buy a new oil filter and oil to give it a change and some day I will change the oil.

Is this a nice looking wheel or what.

You know if I was one of those guys who spent time polishing the chrome I could have a very shinny wheel, but maybe another time I will clean the wheels up.
  And I do need to take a drive to the tire shop to see if I can get the slow leak fixed.
And the weather was very nice and warm today.  And if we get more yard work done then we can take off and see some of the country.