Our RV Adventures

I’m still working out what I plan to do next about my oil leak problem, but I want to talk to Cummins again before I try something else. However, before I do anything, I’m going to crawl back under the rig and pull off the filter and the new gasket and adapter head and see if I can see a problem.

My reasoning is that after I replaced those parts and we headed out on our Kingsland trip a couple of weeks ago, we had absolutely no leakage when we stopped at the Buc-ee’s in Katy. Every other trip we’ve had leakage by then. So something I did worked, at least until we’d traveled another 75 miles or so, and the leak returned, worse that ever.

Because of this I’m going to retrace my steps and see if anything jumps out at me

But none of this is going to happen for a couple of weeks, since this coming Thursday we’re leaving on our Christmas In New York trip. So pretty much nothing is getting done until after then.

As I mentioned the other day, when I got back from Kingsland this past Wednesday afternoon, I found a bad 50 amp breaker in our pedestal. And strangely enough this same thing happened to us back in April of 2018, too. That time it was when we got back from one of our local oil leak test drives.

But this time I had my 50 amp Tester all ready to go. And it worked great.

So I thought I’d repost this part of the blog from April 29, 2018.

A couple of weeks ago when we got back from our RV test drive we found that our pedestal was dead.

And as I was sticking my VOM probes into the 50 amp receptacle, wiggling them around to be sure I making a good connection, it galvanized me to build up the tester that I had mentally designed a few years back.

So to refresh my memory, I sketched it out on a pad and started sourcing out some parts. Then it occurred to me that rather than reinvent the wheel, I might ought to check to see if somebody already sold one, saving me the time and effort.

I didn’t find anything commercially-made but I did come across this home-brew effort.

A couple of weeks ago when we got back from our RV test drive we found that our pedestal was dead.

And as I was sticking my VOM probes into the 50 amp receptacle, wiggling them around to be sure I making a good connection, it galvanized me to build up the tester that I had mentally designed a few years back.

So to refresh my memory, I sketched it out on a pad and started sourcing out some parts. Then it occurred to me that rather than reinvent the wheel, I might ought to check to see if somebody already sold one, saving me the time and effort.

I didn’t find anything commercially-made but I did come across this home-brew effort.

http://www.myrv.us/electric/Pg/tester_50amp.htm

Pretty much my same design, but I did like the box and the connector he used so I borrowed that idea, and then went all digital with it. Great minds, etc.

And here’s what I ended up with,

based on this design that I drew up.

It only took about 30 minutes to wire it up and get it put together. So the first thing I did was to take it outside to the pedestal, disconnect the coach, and hook it up.

And it worked perfectly. But in the bright sun the lights didn’t photograph very well. So I connected it up again after dark.

Much more visible on camera.

The two circuit testers check L1 and L2 for open grounds, open neutrals, reversed grounds and neutrals, etc. All of which I have encountered at campgrounds over the years.

I would have used two voltmeters but couldn’t find one narrow enough to fit two side by side. So I just swap the one back and forth as needed.

The green LED on the top left checks to see if you have real split phase 220VAC coming from the pedestal and not just two 110VAC lines coming into it. Again something I’ve seen several times over the years.

Thought for the Day:

Common sense is a lot like deodorant. The people who need it most never use it.

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As you know, Jan has been at our daughter Brandi’s up in Katy since last Sunday. For the first part, until Wednesday, she was Landon-sitting while he was out of school for the week. And now since Brandi, Lowell, and Landon went up to Cleburne, TX to have Thanksgiving with friends, she’s been Kitty, Baxter, Jack, and Moshi-sitting, while I’m back at the rig in Santa Fe. But of course we couldn’t miss out on Thanksgiving together so I drove up to Brandi’s Thursday morning so we could have Turkey Day Dinner at the Katy Cracker Barrel.

We got there early, about 10:30, and I dropped Jan off at the front while I went and found a parking spot in the back. I figured we’d probably have long wait since pretty much all of the front porch rockers were occupied and there was a lot of people milling around.

By the time I got back to the front, Jan was just getting to the front of the line to check in. When we were told 15 minutes, Jan asked again because she was sure the young must have said 50 minutes. But she said 15 again as she entered our info on her iPad.

But then just as we turned around to go back outside, we heard, “White, party of 2”. And it was the us Whites, too.

And the kitchen was really pumping out the food, because we had our plates in only about 10 minutes.

It was as delicious as usual, with of course, the only ‘real dressing’. In case you’re wondering, that’s Cornbread Dressing. And Cracker Barrel’s version is so good we occasionally get a couple of pans of it on other holiday’s

We were full and done in less than a hour. And it was only $12.99, and that included our drink and dessert. And no dishes to clean up, either.

Brandi and Lowell managed to get their Christmas trees up before they left, though they’re not decorated yet. In fact Jan says that there are 8 big tubs of decorations stacked around.

And I did mean ‘trees’ plural.

There’s the big 16’ foot version in the living room,

and the smaller, white one in the dining room.

Quite a setup.

I’ve gotten a LOT of comments, emails, and suggestions concerning my continuing oil leak problems. Too many to really answer them separately.

Right now I’m thinking over how to proceed from here, and I’ve got a couple of new ideas that I’ll go over with you, probably in tomorrow’s blog. And I’ll also try to answer everyone’s questions then too.

Thought For The Day:

“A Little Knowledge Is A Dangerous Thing.
So Is A Lot.” – Albert Einstein

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