Our Family Photo

Well some of you knew this post would come someday, and today is that day.  Tasha passed away last night at 10:45PM PST.  (1/14/11)

It was not from anything we would have expected, and it made the decision quick.  She ended up with bloat.  Bloat is one very serious issue when it comes up.  I will not get into what it is other than to say more or less the stomach flips over and twists.

We rushed her to the 24 hour animal hospital here in Indio, CA, where they got her stable quickly and was able to tube her to release the pressure.  But the damage is done at this point.  When the doctor started to tell us about the condition, I stopped her and asked if she was in any pain and if we went back to see her would she know it was us, she answered no to both.  So at that point I looked at Brenda and the choice was quick as we both knew the outcome.  We choose not to be with her as we did not want out last image of her to be on a steel table with a tube.  After all, she was not awake for the most part.

So, it was not the hips that gave out in the end which would have made the choice even harder, it was something that had to be done.

Making the choice to come on this trip was one of the best things we ended up doing.  I say this for Tasha was VERY HAPPY on the road with us.  I was even able to lay down with her yesterday outside in the 75 degree weather.  She normally gets up and moves away after a few mins, this time, she laid next to me and fell asleep as I was petting her.  So, it was a great last day until the end.

So, 14.5 years, a great life, and memories that will last a lifetime.  Tasha was one “Special child”.  She will always be my “Baby Bear”.  (Inside joke were she looked like a baby black bear if you scrunched her face.)

Dust Storm - The sky should be Blue!

Ok, this is totally Outside Our Bubble!!!  I wanted to post this quickly as it is something we have not experienced before.  We are currently in the middle of a dust storm!  50MPH winds with gusts as high as 65 here in Van Horn, TX.  It sounds like our coach is being sand blasted!  And I guess it kind of is.

We are stopped at a KOA for the night and we got here just in time to setup and hunker down.  Below is a YouTube video of what it is like.  Be sure to take note of the color of our Saturn.  (Dirty Brown was not an offered option.)

The new 709-PH installed in place of the old system.

Christmas came, and it went.  What can we say about it?  Not much really.  Just the two of us and the 5 kids.  And by that I mean the 4 cats Tory, Whisper, BK, and Angel and Tasha our Shepherd.   But what did happen is we bought each other new tank gauges!  Oh my!  Yes, we sure do splurge on each other now don’t we.

SeeLevel II 709-PH Showing the Fresh Water take at 67% full.

What you see here is the new SeeLevel II 709-PH RV tank gauge panel.  It replaced the old LED 4 level (empty, 1/3rd, 2/3rd, Full) gauge that came with the coach and kept giving false readings.  This new gauge reads in percent full (or empty depending on your view on life), and is very accurate.

As you may recall if you are following along in our travels, is that we stopped in Granbury, TX.  Well the reason we did that was to have this system installed.  I ended up with more than an install, but a learning experience for not only myself, but Cory the distributor and installer of the SeeLevel Gauges by Garnet Technologies.  You see, sometimes in a coach, you need to figure out how things were wired.  Sometimes when you think something like a blue wire should be data, it ends up being live 12v!  Ouch.  And when you expect a brown wire to be the Black Tank sensor wire, it ends up being the wire that runs to the 12v start of the water heater.   Not kidding, the good people over at Gulf Stream for some reason just really used weird colors for what they did, sometimes changing the color from where it started and where it ended up.

The Gauge Closet with the old panel pulled out.

So what you see here is the old gauge panel pulled out with all the lovely wires that ran to it.  What you do not see is me going nuts as the colors did not match up like they should have.  So, it was 2 hours of trial and error.  What else tossed us for a loop was that the ground wires that came from the old gauges did not actually go to ground, they went NOWHERE but to the old board itself.  I ended up needing to tie the grounds to actual ground to make this work.

Old gauge panel with cut off Generator area.

Here you see the old panel where I had to cut the top part off for the generator control.  It may be good to note that this control is actually not needed for the coach has one up front and also the Xantrex inverter controller can start it.  But I cut it off so I could add it back into the gauge closet.

Old system pulled apart

And here is the old system all pulled apart.  You can see the old LED bar lights that would make the scale for the full levels.  It was not that part of the system did not work, but the tank sensors themselves would become, well, mucked up.  Thus it could give you a 2/3 full reading even if it was only 1/3 or even less.   This does not help at all when you are looking to RV for a given period of time without a dump station.  You NEED to know how you are doing tank wise.

New tank sensors installed on Gray and Black storage tanks.

Here is what the new tank sensors look like.  They are the long 12″ ribbon boards you see.  They actually have a transmitter and receiver in them.  More or less how this works is this…The transmitter sends out a signal. Their are 8 receivers that have 4 receptors each.  (or is it 6 receptors? No mater.)  It then reads the fluid level based on the reflection of the liquid in the tank.  So the signal goes out, it hits liquid, and bounces back.  Based on what receiver sees the reflection, that is the level of the liquid in the tank.

Completed Gauge Closet

So here is the completed gauge closet.   The generator hour meter and start/stop switch is on top, followed by the new SeeLevel 709-PH showing 71% full on the fresh water, then the reading from the Progressive Industries power protection system showing currently the amps on leg 2, Slide out control, Xantrex Inverter controller, and then power distribution.

All in all, it came out very well and we now have readings from the 709-PH that show the volts of the 12V system in the coach, Fresh Water Tank %, Gray Tank %, Black Tank %, and Propane %.  It was a Very Merry Christmas after all.  We love this product!

Tank Bay Tank Reading Display

Oh, I almost forgot!  I also took the time to install a display inside the tank bay.  No more needing to get a report from my better half, my wife Brenda, as I full or empty a tank. This was one of Brenda’s favorite selling points. :)  (Note, I have not yet put the white cover back inside the tank bay that hides all that.)

Coach would not fit into the service bay.

Well, as you read in the past post, we needed to stop and have our ERG Cooler replaced as it was leaking onto the engine and burning antifreeze.  As you can see by the photo, we would not fit into this service bay so the work needed to be done outside.  Nice that is was blue sky and not as cold as it has been so we could get the work done.  Also nice as we were able to stay in the coach with the cats and Tasha as I am not sure that would have been the case if the coach went inside.

Below are a few photos of the repair.  We are happy to say that we were back on the road by 11:45AM and we are still on track to make it to where we wanted to be on the 22nd!  (So we added one night here vs stopping two nights somewhere else.  That’s RV life!)

It may be good to note for anyone that may need this work done.  They will end up replacing the antifreeze and also doing an oil change.  The oil change is due to the fact that the oil could have been invaded by the leaking antifreeze.  So, if you need the work done, do not get your oil changed right before as we did.  (go figure!)  If you can wait, do so, as you will get a free one.

The tech inside the engine area removing the ERG Cooler.

What the engine looks like after the ERG Cooler was removed. (It sits right above the exhaust manifold. See next photo)

Shinny new ERG Cooler installed. Pretty!

Whisper seems to have been worn out from the work being done. Not sure what he did, but it must have been hard as he fell right to sleep as soon as we hit the road.

We are now safely in West Monroe, LA for the night.  Tomorrow we have a short drive about 3 hours.

Our coach burning off antifreeze leaking into engine.

For those of you following along for some time, you know that we have stopped more unscheduled stops then we care to admit. Well, I am here to say that yet again we will be staying longer here in Meridian, MS, at least one day longer if not two.  This could put us behind with where we want to be by the 22nd in Texas.

You see, the check engine light came on and of course it gives us no real clue as to why the light was on and why it said to stop the engine. (RANT TIME…I am sorry, but one light with no other message when the system has an engine stats system is just, well, STUPID!  It should TELL YOU why the light is on without needing a computer to hook to it. After all, if I had it in “engine error” mode, it will tell me the error, but only when the error is happening and only if you leave it in that mode, then you see nothing else. So it could be programmed that when an error happens, display the message.  AUGH!)   So, with a quick call to my new buddy Dwayne at Freightliner support, along with my keen notice that the check engine light came on going up hill, and went off going down hill, Dwayne knew where to look.  Check the coolant reserve tank to see where the fluid was.  Sure enough, it was low.  So, when we went up hill, the fluid was low enough that with the coach tilted going up the hill, it no longer contacted the sensor.  When we leveled back out or then went down hill, the light would go off as contact was made.

So now, where was the fluid going?  Well, seeing no leaks, it could only be one thing…the engine burning it off and you would not know it.  I happen to remember that our friends Bob and Pat has sent us a note sometime back as a heads up that he received from another friend, it read… “I was up to loosing a gallon of coolant in 200 miles. Freightliner found that the EGR cooler was bad and dumping coolant into the exhaust through the leaky cooler, therefore I never saw a leak. I mention this because Freightliner told me this has been a problem on the Mercedes EGR engines.”  Well, Bingo!  That had to be it seeing we have the same engine.

An EGR (Exhaust Gas Recirculation) Cooler is a heat exchanger installed in the EGR circuit.  Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_an_egr_cooler#ixzz18U8BtxZD

Sure enough when talking with Dwayne, he also came to the same conclusion.  Now what?  We were stopped at a rest stop so Brenda jumped on the computer to look up a shop that dealt with our engine.  Well, WE GOT SO LUCKY!  You see, we had planned to stop in Meridian, MS  at Benchmark Coach and RV Park for two nights and the engine repair shop was 2 miles from the RV park!!!  Yes, you read that right!  2 miles away.  Seeing they also are a Freightliner service center, Dwayne jumped on the line with them and connected us into the call.  He gave them the run down and the service manager Scott came to the same conclusion quickly. EGE leak.  The shop actually had another unit, a truck, in with the same issue and same engine and was ordering the parts needed and was just going to double the order.  WOW.  :)  So we are set to have it repaired on Monday as long as the parts arrive.  So, I added water to the reserve tank and off we went…100 miles away.   Made it without issue.

We thought this may come in handy knowing what you may want to look for when you seem to be loosing engine coolant and see no leak.  This can happen with any engine that uses ERG.  Also you can have this issue if you notice white smoke coming out of the tail pipe after sitting for 30 minutes or more with the engine off after driving.  This is based on the pressure built up in the coolant system forcing the coolant through the leak and into the engine cylinders.  When you start up, it will burn it off in a white cloud for about 5 minutes or so.  (See above photo.)

So, thanks to Dwayne and Freighliner for sticking with us all this time.   Always an adventure with us.

Ok, this post is not so much about our travels, but more about the coach and more to the point, Window Awning.  Now you may say, why do you want to talk about window awnings?  Well you see, in the past, Brenda and I would talk about if we should or should not get a set installed and if it really helps vs the cost.  Seeing that we were asking ourselves this question, others may also be considering the same thing and asking the same question.

The below video will end the if we should once and for all with the help of technology.  In a quick word answer, YES!  We had the guys over at ShadePro produce and install ours.  They are at most of the major RV shows and you can have then done at the show as we did when we were at “The Rally” back in July.  So, here you go, asked and answered…

Why You Want Window Awnings…