Our RV Adventures

We did our walk this morning, at least the first part of it anyway, for a distance of 1.13 miles, just making a complete loop of the park. We’ll try to walk again tomorrow since it’s showing 80% chance of rain on Monday, 100% for Tuesday, and then Wednesday morning we’re back down in the Clear Lake area for our yearly checkups. So after tomorrow, Thursday might be our next shot at a walk.

After our walk, we sat outside for a while with our coffee and some of the great pumpkin muffins that Sherry gave us at lunch yesterday. Really, really good, and Jan wants the recipe. Even though it was in the 70’s, it was pretty overcast so it was still comfortable.

Later in the afternoon I was back on pump repair. I wanted to try to completely disassemble it and see if I could figure out what was wrong with it. But before that, I hooked the pump motor up to 120vac to see if it would even run.

And it did, but very slowly, with a lot of straining. So it was obvious that there was a lot of drag on the shaft from somewhere. My first thought was bearings, but you never know..

So I started out with this.

As I figured the fan was just pressed on the shaft so I used a small gear puller to get it off. Then removing the two screws let me start to remove the motor shaft.

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So I kept at it, pulling pieces off,

until I finally ended up here, with a big pile of parts. As they say, parts is parts. Hopefully I can get it all back together.

There are no roller or ball bearings, just brass sleeves, and they all looked clean and smooth, as did the shaft, so that wasn’t the problem.

But when I inserted the rotor – shown below

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back into the stator – shown here

and tried to turn it, there was a lot more drag than normal. In fact there should be no drag at all. They shouldn’t be rubbing or touching in any way.

It looks like there is just gunk built up on both the outside of the rotor and the inside of the stator, and that’s causing the drag. At least that’s the theory I’m going with right now.

Tomorrow I’ll dig out some 2000 or 3000 grit sandpaper and lightly sand the two pieces to see if that makes a difference. If you ever try something like this, be sure you only use regular sandpaper, and not steel wool or metal oxide paper. Tiny bits of metal can get in the windings and short out the motor.

Finishing up for the day, I stuck the two metal pieces into a small bowl of CLR to clean them up and remove some of the rust. The plastic pieces I dunked in a bucket of a Dawn and Awesome mixture to let them soak overnight.

I do have a backup plan for all this, though. Besides the option of buying one of the pumps on eBay for $100 to $185, which I’m loathe to do . . .  because I’m cheap, this afternoon I had another idea.

All I really need is a washer pump that runs on 120vac (which I’m sure all of them do) and has a input/output hookup kind of like this.

It only has to be close because I’ve got plenty of room underneath there and I can reroute the hoses if I need to. And the size isn’t a problem either for the same reason. So if I don’t have a handle on all this by Monday, I’ll take the pump down to an appliance parts place and see if they have something close.

About 4:30 Jan and I headed over to Willis for a Whataburger dinner, great as always. Then coming home we made a quick stop at the nearby Kroger’s for a few things.

All in all, a nice day. But then isn’t that what RV’ing is all about?

Thought for the Day:

Student Essay Bloopers

During the Renaissance America began. Chritsopher Columbus was a real navigator who discovered America while cursing about the Atlantic. His ships were called the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Fe. Later, the Pilgrims crossed the ocean, and this was known as Pilgrims Progress. When they landed at Plymouth Rock, they were greeted by the Indians, who came down the hill rolling their war hoops before them. The Indian squabs carried porpoises on their cabooses, which proved very fatal to them. The winter of 1620 was a hard one for the settlers. Many people died and many babies were born. Captain John Smith was responsible for all this.

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Since we were heading out for lunch about 12:15, that was our excuse for not walking this morning. But I did get in a call in to Westland Sales about my Splendide drain pump problem.

As I mentioned yesterday, I noticed that when I turned the fan shown below,

the white pump impeller shown below did rotate. But when I turn the impeller itself, the fan didn’t turn.

Now my first thought was that there was some sort of slip clutch on the impeller so that if a sock or something got hung up, it wouldn’t burn out the pump but would just spin free. But I wanted to be sure before I went any further with the repair.

And it turns out my thought about the clutch was correct, and that’s the way it’s supposed to work.

So tomorrow, first up I’ll put 120vac to the motor to be sure it works, and then put the washer into spin/pump mode to be sure it is sending 120vac to the pump. This part may be interesting since the washer is presently upside down in the kitchen, but I’ll make it work somehow.

Then I’ll disassemble the pump as much as possible and clean it up, and then try to get some lithium grease into the bearings. Hopefully this will get it working again.

And before I put the bottom panel back on, I’ll spray it with the black Rustoleum paint I bought the other day to paint my re-welded screen door hinge. The panel is kind of rusty so it could use a little clean up.

We head out about 12:15 to meet blog readers Sherry and Clark for lunch at the nearby Asian BBQ & Grill. Neither of us had ever eaten there, but Sherry’s son, who lives in this area, recommended it.

Based on the Yelp reviews and pictures, we were hoping for our own local version of our favorite Little V’s Vietnamese Bistro. Since Little V’s is out in Katy near our daughter’s, and over an hour away, we don’t get there as often as we’d like, so we had our fingers crossed.

Getting to the restaurant, we were warmly greeted by Sherry and Clark, and spent some time getting to know them. And we quickly discovered that there’s a bunch of ‘news’ in their lives.

Sherry is newly retired, as in just last week, and she’s still trying to adjust to the big changes in her life.

And Sherry and Clark are on their way to being new ‘semi-fulltimers.’ They have a new Jayco 31ft Class A, and are planning to check out the fulltime lifestyle by taking several months this summer to travel the East Coast all the way up to the Escapees Escapade being held in Essex Junction, VT the last part of July. They did a one month trip last year, so this will be another step in that direction.

But the most important ‘new’ is the fact they’re ‘Newlyweds’, only married for 42 days.

So Congratulations to the happy couple!

Finally we got down to ordering, starting out with an order of their Shrimp and Pork Spring Rolls, Really good, with a great peanut sauce.

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For our entrée’s, Jan and I tried to duplicate our favorite dishes from Little V’s. We both got the Grilled Lemon Grass Chicken over Vermicelli, while I added a skewer of grilled shrimp to mine.

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Our meals came with the Fish Sauce above, but we also asked for some of their Dragon Sauce. Really hot, and a lot of flavor too.

Jan and I both really liked our meals, and though we both agreed it wasn’t quite up to Little V’s, it was a delicious replacement, especially considering it’s about half the cost of Little V’s. Always a favorite of mine.

We will certainly go back.

Finally saying our goodbyes to Sherry and Clark, and thanking them again for the Pumpkin Muffins and bottle of Cupcake Moscato they brought Jan, we drove over to the nearby Sam’s Club for a few things before moving next door to Wal-Mart for a few more things. Then on the way home we stopped off at Starbuck’s for a caffeine pick-me-up. Jan went with her usual Cinnamon Dolce Latte, while I tried out what is now my new favorite Starbuck’s drink, a Smoked Butterscotch Latte.

Tomorrow we’ll try to get our walking started up again, and then I’ll get back on the pump repair.

Thought for the Day:

“Loyalty to country ALWAYS.”

“Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”

“Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.”- George Washington

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