Smokey or not so smokey

The oil leak might be a thing of the past but I won't say for sure until I spend some time on the freeway.  But for now it is looking good.  I took a few trips around the area and after re-tightening the oil pan bolts there is no sign of a leak.
Another thing I did today was install the LED lights in the bedroom ceiling light.  Only 3 strips were put in this fixture unlike the front room light where I used 4 strips.  The bedroom light did give me some trouble because the wall mounted light switch does not always work good.  But that is something I can deal with now that I know what is going on.

This is the 4 strip light.

This is the 3 strip light.

And then I looked at the air cleaner intake hose problem.

It is not attached to anything and drops down and the air is blocked.  Not a great way to get air to the engine.  I looked for some way to extend but I think I will just bolt a bracket on it so it stays in place.

And I contacted John Deere to see what they could give me as far as Chassis info.  This is what I was told.

John Deere no longer supports these because we sold this line to OshKosh in 1989, who in turn sold the line to Freightliner Custom Chassis in Gaffney, SC in 1995.  Freightliner's customer service number is 800-385-4357.  They should be able to direct you.  

Julie Powell

JD Parts

Deere & Co.

So I have an OshKosh by gosh chassis.

The Superchief after 4 weeks

Can you believe that I have owned the Superchief for 4 weeks now?????   And several things have been fixed but there are still more things on my to do list.
Today I fixed the crankcase vent tube, anyway that's what I am calling it.

I bought a preformed hose and cut off what I needed.

The new hose installed.

I still need to find a way to see how it looks with the engine cover on but I did strap the oil filler tube down lower and think it will not get bent flat like the old one.

And now the weather is colder and wetter so it might be so time before I work on the water system.  I did buy a new water pump but have not started that project yet.

A new power cord plug

Today we went to Portland to visit our son and see his new apartment.  Not really RV stuff but of course I did find time to stop at RV Parts Outlet and buy a couple of things.  Something I wanted to replace was the power cord plug.  It looked like it got hot and so I wanted to try a new 30A plug with a handle on it.  Take a look.

The old one didn't look so good.

Cut the wires and strip like the instructions tell you.

The wires are attached.

The new one is ready to go.

And I can find it in the dark better now that's it's yellow.

And I did some looking around the engine too.

This hose connects from the air cleaner housing to the oil fill tube.

 I don't know if this hose would allow pressure to build up in the crankcase but it might.  And then the pressure might cause an oil leak................well it might.  I cut the larger hose from the steel tube to the valve cover and pulled it down to keep it from getting pushed on by the engine cover.

This get's pushed on by the dog house over the engine.  I am looking for anything that might cause pressure in the engine.  And I did check out the PCV valve too.

I'm Back on line today

OK I am fully connected again and have been still busy with Smokey.
Today I hooked up my newly updated LED ceiling light.  I ordered a roll of LED lights and replaced the fluorescent lights with the LED's.  Take a look at this.

I cut the black and white wire to the old tube ballast.

Then I cut strips of the LED's and soldered the red and black wires to the LED strips that were cut to the length needed and connected them to the correct black and white wires with wire nuts.  I know that is not the best connections to make but they are temporary.  And in a few years I might even fix them again.

This is the strips attached and wired up.

At night without the cover on.

The light closest to the TV A/C is LED and the one over Sophie is fluorescent.

 And then I did put together the other bed platform.  There is some trim to put around the base as soon as I figure out how I want to access the storage underneath.

It looks like we are ready to take off and do some camping.  Well Sophie thinks we need to clean and clean some more before we hit the road.  But it is looking better all the time.  I am even learning what some switches do.  I spent time today oiling up all the outside doors and storage area locks.  That even took awhile to do.

Oil leak progress and other stuff

Tuesday I started on the oil pan gasket replacement. It looked like a pretty easy thing to do. Remove the starter, which was easy with the one wire and 2 bolts. Then the cross brace under the engine came off. It was easier than the Dodge 440 starter. Then all the bolts were taken out of the pan only to find out that I needed to drop the exhaust pipes from the manifolds to get the pan to come out. I had thought about just working the new one around the pan without taking it all the way off but I did find that a couple of pieces of gasket material were stuck blocking part of the oil pump screen so it was a good thing to take it all the way off.

The exhaust bolts came off pretty good. Sprayed the bolts with rust buster and did the loosen and tighten thing with them until they came off. Since I had the starter out I ran it down to O’Reilly’s auto parts and had them check it on their machine. It was good but just thought it would be good to check it.

Later I was able to put the new gasket on the pan and install it. I even replaced the cross brace before running out of energy and calling it a day.

Wednesday I installed the starter and the exhaust. No big problems until it came to removing the old oil filter. Now it has been some time since an oil filter has given me a workout but this one did not want to unscrew without a battle. It looked a little worse for wear when it finally gave up and unscrewed.

Then with fresh oil and filter I took a serious look at the radiator and fan shroud. This thing has been rubbing the fan on the shroud for awhile now. There was even a thought of lowering the radiator, but after taking out the 4 screws the shroud dropped down to where it should be and was tight enough to just put some cable ties in and I think it will be fine like that. Another thing that was bothering me was the air intake for the engine. From the inside the snorkel just flopped around and didn’t feel like it was attached to anything. Once I removed the heavy covers around the top of the radiator I saw the snorkel was not attached and it had dropped down behind the top of the radiator so that I could not even fit a finger between it and something that would keep the engine from getting fresh air. This was another thing that was good to fix.

So after getting those things fixed I took it for a drive. First just around the block and checked for leaks, then a farther and faster drive still without leaks and finally a long fast drive. No more Smokey but still some leaking oil. I am not sure where it is coming from but it looks like the oil pan gasket is working fine. There is an auxiliary oil cooler the has hoses from the oil filter area to something up around the radiator that might be leaking. More cleanup and drive to find this leak. But the exhaust pipe was not smoking so this is an improvement.

There was something in the mail today for Smokey. I received the LED lights I ordered from China. And tonight I hooked them up to see how they looked just laying inside Smokey. So far I think they will be fun to use in the ceiling lights. Stay tuned for the lighting upgrade.

The new LED lights just plugged into the lighter and layed on the floor.  That's a lot of light.

In the center of the picture is a small box and that is the intake for the engine.  It was dropped down behind here and blocked the air.
 

And I unbolted the cooling fan shroud and it moved into place so for now I will leave it unbolted and zip tied in place.  So that doesn't rub.

I took the weekend off and internet is down

Please check back in a couple of days as I do not have internet right now.  It should be back in a couple of days as I work on my Superchief.

I'm on the coast this weekend

Friday we left Smokey home and headed to the Coast with Wilbur.  Cannon Beach RV resort.

Wilbur on the left, Wall-E and Jeffs '73 on the right.

 

 

And of course Terry needed to add a choke cable to his newly installed carb.
He said he is getting 11 MPG, but you know how he lies.