Hopefully, The Last Time

Back to where I started. Kind of. Got the motorhome back from the shop the other day, must have been Friday afternoon. He did the best he could, and it did run considerably better when I picked it up. However, the intake manifold started leaking coolant. It was plain to see that it was. He also told me that the EGR Valve had a vacuum leak.

The tuning cost me $50, but I gave him $60. He said once I get those two things fixed to bring it back to him and he'll fine tune it for free. Can't beat that, other than the (minor) hassle of dropping it off and picking it up.

The picture above is the engine with the intake manifold removed once again. I did that this evening. I was really tempted to just leave it with him and pay him to do it, but I knew it's a simple enough job (now) and that it'd probably cost a good amount to have him do it.

I've already got it put back on. I used RTV on all the gaskets this time and things should be great. I torqued all the bolts down to spec. I admit, I skipped that part last time. With luck I'll have no more coolant leak and no other vacuum or exhaust leaks from the intake. 

Still have to put the carb and whatnot back on. I'm letting it sit for 24 hours before filling it back up with coolant anyway to let the RTV cure. I also still need to address the EGR valve leak.

I know all of these engine posts are boring, and far from what this blog was supposed to be. Hah. I'm fairly certain the end will soon be in sight and I can start posting pictures and stories about actual adventures. The blog is kind of the tell all. I promised myself I wouldn't make anymore videos on YouTube until I'm living in the motorhome. 

Hang in there. I'm almost there!

At the Shop

The motorhome tucked in the corner at the shop

The motorhome took its maiden voyage with the new engine this morning. Only  about 3 or 4 miles down the road to a shop. Didn't drive too bad, really. Only had two stops. The intersection right next to the house and then a stop light down by the shop. I threw it in neutral both times for safe measures. Tends to want to stall out at idle in Drive.

I'm eager and nervous about it. I don't like shops. I don't trust them. Even though I like them and trust them a lot more now after working at NAPA for 2.5 years. It would have been nice if the store I worked at was near home so that I would have built the relationships with local shops instead of ones 25 miles away.

Anyway, I want to believe this guy will be able to time it and tune the carb to near perfection. Another part of me doesn't quite believe this motorhome can run smoothly. Just kind of the way this thing has been going the whole time I've owned it. Admittedly, it's an almost 40 year old vehicle with a carb so I'm probably being too picky with my expectations. Even with practically everything being brand new. It's still older technology.

No pictures again. How boring. I need to start taking more pictures. (I added a picture above now. The shop posted it to their facebook page and I 'borrowed' it.) 

Next update comes when I get it back from the shop. Supposed to be today or tomorrow.

Scratch That Last Post

I broke down and took the whole thing back apart. The broken piece of dipstick was just sitting in the bottom of the oil pan. Bonus, I was able to fix the gasket on the rear of the pan that I had unknowingly messed up originally.

It was all back together today and I ran the engine. It needs to be properly timed still and have the carb tuned. I'm admitting defeat on that front. I've been talking to the owner of a shop down the road and it sounds like I'm going to take it to him for all of that. I'm still wondering if there's another issue other than timing and the carb, but I'm sure he'll be able to tell me if that's the case.

I did find another RV I wanted to look at, but it's way up north. And a hefty chunk of change. I just couldn't bring myself to spending such a large portion of my savings so that's why I broke down and went back to work on my Chinook. If the shop can get it to run smoothly, it'll be quite the motorhome.

It Messed Up

I'm literally only an hour away from this horrible thing happening so maybe I'm still thinking rashly, but I don't think so.

I got the motorhome to start today. It wouldn't start the last two days even though I didn't try too hard because I was afraid of wrecking things. There was a ticking noise but I thought maybe things just needed to be worked in or oil wasn't reaching everywhere yet. Not good, but would have went away if that was the case. The noise got worse so I shut everything down. For whatever reason I decided to check the oil dipstick. A good 5 inches of it are missing. So now there's a chunk of dipstick either in the oil pan, or already causing way more damage.

That's pretty much the end of this motorhome for me. After so much time and money invested you might think it'd be silly to throw in the towel now. But, this pretty much requires me taking the entire engine back out again, and frankly I don't want to do that. I've already had this thing for over a year and I'm just done working on it. I want to be LIVING in a motorhome, not WORKING ON a motorhome.

I might have mentioned I'm cashing out my 401k from my last job. That money is scheduled to show up in my account later this week I believe.

It's time to stop messing around and just live the dream, you know?

My current thought right now is that I'm going to start looking for a new motorhome. The best I can buy with the money I've got. Which, as always, isn't a lot. It has to be 100% move in ready. New requirements different from my current motorhome are that it has to have a side door entrance. No back door. Solid hitch on the back. And even though they leak and freak me out for a lot of reasons I think it has to have a full bed over the cab. I would greatly prefer a 20ft for parking issues, but I think I'm willing to increase to 24ft.

So buy a new one, move into it. Forces me to get a job, but at least I'll be living the dream more or less. And just get on with it. That, or find a new dream and give up on this one.

Fingers Crossed

I'm crossing my fingers tonight and sleeping on it to see if I can think of anything I might have missed.

Three months after picking up my new remanufactured engine and taking the old one out, I think the new one is ready to go. Put a good two days work into it, and redid some of what I had already done to hopefully stop a leak already. Now as of about an hour ago I think I'm ready.

Tomorrow, more than likely, will be when I fill it up with oil, put some gas in tank, and try to start the beautiful beast. Definitely nervous about possible leaks, and FIRES, and whether or not I did everything right, and very concerned about the 'break in' period. I don't want to mess this thing up. One, I don't have the money to do anything if I do mess it up and two, I'm not sure that I would want to do this project over again.

Wish me luck.

Throw it ALL Away.

My storage unit has been my nemesis for years. Yes, years. I've been paying on this unit for years. That's a lot of money. It's 10 x 20 unit, which would run pretty expensive in most parts of the country. It started out 'reasonable' and lately they just keep raising my rates. Still cheap in comparison, but too rich for my blood.

My deadline to get everything moved out is this Friday. 3 days away, basically 2 days. I've given up thinking I'm going to make it, and I'll end up paying another $102 for another month of storage. I could literally load everything into the back of my van, make a few trips to the dump, and have it all completely out of my life for less than $102 at this point. The dump is $28/load.

It's to tempting.

All the blog posts and articles online about getting rid of your stuff, decluttering your life, and going towards minimalism still want you to either sell or donate your valuables. That's so much work! I don't care about this stuff anymore, I don't want to put the time into cleaning it up enough to donate it, or listing it on web sites and dealing with flakes or even messing with true, genuine people for a $2 item. Or free items. It doesn't matter. I don't want to do it.

All I've wanted is one person to say, "It's okay to throw away half way decent things in order to get your life back". So far I haven't found that. Surely there are people out there that are doing it. Just chucking it all into a dumpster and rejoicing at their new freedom.

I'm pretty sure it's what I'm going to have to do in the end. Honestly, I don't have that great of stuff. Most of my 'best' stuff already went to the dump because it was full of mildew from being in storage. And don't get me wrong, I have taken a couple trips to Goodwill to donate.

I have trouble with things like microwaves (that I never cleaned before I put in storage), and old TVs. Surely someone could use them, but I don't want to clean them and make them presentable. Metal I have a problem with. I know I can get money for metal. But lately I've been realizing I don't have enough to really scrap out, and wouldn't it be a lot easier and a load off my mind to just bring it to the dump with the rest of it?

I struggle with things that someone in my family might want or could use. Even though I know I'd be doing us all a favor to just get rid of it and never tell them about it. Hoarding seems to run in my family.

Is it okay to just take it all to the dump and be done with it?

Truth is, even when I get my storage cleaned out I still have plenty of stuff to contend with. Right now my old travel trailer is filling up with stuff, I've even had to put some things in the motorhome. I feel like I'm going backwards a little. I have literally no where to keep anything, so just get rid of it. Yeah?

On My Own Again

The job is done and over, and I was replaced by the start of the next week. They didn't even try to get me to stay, which was a little shocking. My manager's final words on the matter were, "A man has to do what a man has to do". I had never made it a secret that I wasn't going to be there forever. He knows of my restless mind and ideas. He stopped over at the house several weeks back while I was literally in the middle of taking the old engine out of the motorhome. Doesn't take a genius to see my plans. Even still, I'm sure I mentioned my plans were never to leave my job this soon. The workplace had changed and I couldn't stand being there anymore. So I did what I had to do.

I have been lazy this week. I know I can't be lazy. I told myself I can't be lazy or else it will become a routine. I justify it by calling this week a vacation. I just got done serving 2.5 years, surely I deserve a week to be lazy.

Even still, I have managed to get a bit done on the motorhome. It's filled with coolant again. The entire front side of the engine is put together, tightened bolts and whatnot. It has been filled with oil twice now. The first time I was priming the system and 2 quarts of oil came rushing out the filter adapter plate. Apparently there WAS supposed to be a gasket there. Drain, and repeat. Gasket is in place and I put a little RTV around it for safe measure. Filled and primed tonight, and all seems well. This has not been an easy project, all of the smallest, most frustrating, things have been going wrong.

That there is the end of one, actually two, annoying projects. The side note is the alternator bolt there. Incredibly difficult to get lined up with the hole in the head. It's done though. The real story is that yellow dipstick. The original dipstick tube broke when I was taking the old engine out. On Monday I went to a u-wrench-it type junkyard and got a tube and dipstick off of a newer Dodge truck. It was different, but would make do. Well, last night I was installing it and it broke off in the new engine. It came out easy enough (actually, my dad got it out while I was washing up). Off to the junkyard again today. The three trucks I had in mind were not going to give up their dipstick tubes easily. I spent plenty of time and it was clear they were just going to break like the others. I had basically given up and went to look at other vehicles in the lot just for the fun of it. I found two Dodge Dakotas and noted that it looked like their tubes might be the same also. The first one I tried, wouldn't you know it, the tube came right out. I was back in business. I tried to take the other one off for a spare but it wasn't going anywhere either.

Long story short, the 77 Dodge now has a dipstick tube out of a Dodge Dakota Sport of unknown year, and I kept the dipstick from the first truck.. a 97 Dodge 1500. The add and full lines don't match up, I had to make my own with a file. After the run around on something so simple / dumb, I'm fine with what I've got.


I would like to think that the rest of the project will go easily. I don't foresee anymore issues. Here's hoping, but nothing about this has been easy.