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‘Tis the Season -> For Repairs…..

December 12, 2010 by libertatemamo 5 Comments

“You put your right foot out,
You put your right foot in
And you shake it all about.
You do the Hokey Pokey
And you turn yourself around,
That’s what it’s all about!”
“The Hokey Pokey” circa 1940

Paul conducting a continuity test w/ the broken outlet. A multimeter helps to figure out the woefully inaccurate wiring diagram from HR.

In many ways, the Hokey Pokey is a fine reflection of life in an RV. After all, being on the road is bit like dancing in a mini-earthquake for ~200 days a year.  You take a regular home stocked with plumbing, electricity and appliances, add-in electronics, woodwork and propane…and then rock it all about (for rythm), put a few trees in the way (for fun), a couple of road-bumps (for entertainment) and you end up with the Hokey Pokey of RVing. In other words, something’s bound to come loose, fall down or plain ‘ol break. It’s just the way of life on the road, and with RV techs costing ~$80-100/hour in labor it pays to be handy.

Since we’re on the road most of the time, the RV Hokey Pokey’s pile up until we manage to sit still for a while and that means doing everything exactly opposite to most folks. So, whilst the typical person would do Spring Cleaning, we’re doing Winter Cleaning, and whilst most people in their right mind would do repairs in Summer, we’ve got the tools out in December. Either way being in a “fixed location” for the winter finally gives us the chance to work on all those little issues that have piled over the year of jostling around our home on the road. 

So, here we are tools in hand. In our relationship your could say I’m the visual handyman, having always had a knack for these things, while Paul’s the muscle. Between the two of us we can usually figure most stuff out. This past week we’ve attacked the long list of issues:

  • The microwave/convection oven – the controller board managed to fry itself in the middle of a hefty pile of ribs in N.Fl. Thankfully the ribs were able to be saved in our propane oven, but the microwave was not so lucky. It took 3 weeks for this one to get fixed.
  • Outlets – one of our outlets stopped working somewhere in NC.  With the help of a rather inaccurate wiring diagram from Holiday Rambler (why, oh why don’t coach’s come with decent wiring diagrams?), a good multimeter and a bit of eye-work we managed to get that one nabbed.
  • Slide-out cover – The “tree incident“, still humbling and fresh in our minds from SC was finally taken care of with new parts from Carefree and a bit of elbow grease from “the boys” (Paul and his dad, with yours truly providing invaluable direction…as we girls do).

There’s a bunch more on the list as well as some maintenance stuff, so I’ll be reporting as we go along. In the meantime, we’re doing a little Hokey Pokey victory dance in the RV, basking in the glory of our mechanical genius. The dog, of course, thinks we’re nuts, but then again us RVers are a different kinda bunch.

The microwave finally gets back into its spot. These things are fastened at the bottom, by the way, by big screws that go into a bracket on the back wall. Who knew?

"The boys" and yours truly installing the new slide cover

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We LOooVE Comments, So Please Do

  1. Lynne says

    December 13, 2010 at 4:39 am

    I Love fixing our RV!! The daughter of a man who renovated old houses in Chicago and a retired Air Force aircraft electronics technician, I love fixing stuff. Fixed almost all write-ups left over from our Lemon Law lawsuit. Our very first trip in our first RV, we got our chicken dinner stuck in the microwave (the button stuck) and had to remove the door to get our dinner out. That was our first experience with just how complicated RVs are. And like you said: it is like taking a home and shaking everything in a blender.

    Reply
    • libertatemamo says

      December 13, 2010 at 9:56 am

      Totally with you. It’s very satisfying when you get the stuff fixed.

      Reply
  2. J. says

    December 13, 2010 at 9:06 am

    Not related to this post…sorry. I had contacted you earlier about Taggart’s harness. That computer went south and I lost everything…DH let me use his old one. Could you please resend that info to me. Thanks and have a Merry Christmas.

    Cat

    Reply
    • libertatemamo says

      December 13, 2010 at 10:02 am

      Sorry to hear about your computer! We use the HDW Walking jacket and have for years! When fitted correctly kitty cannot squirm out of it. We love them: http://www.hdw-inc.com/walkingjackets.htm

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. A Few Random Updates – Cracks, Ovens & Dog-Surfing | Wheeling It says:
    April 7, 2012 at 5:45 pm

    […] may have remembered that our microwave/convection oven crapped out in the middle of a rib-roasting right before we reached Florida. Well, it happened again. We’ve come to the conclusion that it’s the fault of our […]

    Reply

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