Our RV Adventures

After getting somewhat caffeinated this morning I started checking out what I was going to have to do get my old Atwood water heater out of its hole in the wall and the new one in its place.

Inside looked to be pretty easy.

The two water line connections were easily loosened, and it would just be a matter of changing out the 3 power connections, using new wire nuts, of course. And as far as I can tell the unit is just sitting on the plywood platform and not fastened down.

I may have to fiddle with the water piping though since I’m not sure if the inlet/outlets match up between the two units. But it shouldn’t be a real problem.

Outside it was a little more difficult. There’s just the wires for the 12VDC that feeds the gas part of the water heater, and the gas connection.

Since the gas was turned off in the rig I wanted to just loosen the fitting to forestall any later problems.

Problem!

I could not loosen the fitting. Either the copper tubing to the left of the fitting started to bend, or the elbow going into the gas valve started to loosen. Even rapping on the fitting didn’t help. So after messing with it for awhile, I sprayed it with PB Blaster and moved on to unpacking the water heater.

At first glance after opening the box, it looks like it’s packed in Styrofoam, wrapped in bubble-wrap, and held together with plastic straps.

But the Styrofoam is actually the insulation around the water heater, and the straps just hold it all together. I wonder though how many people have cut the straps and removed the Styrofoam thinking it was part of the packing material.

I begin to wish that there had been some Styrofoam packing materials, rather than just the bubble-wrap, when I lifted the unit out of the box and a loose screw fell out on the patio.

Turns out that the loose screw that I’m pointing to near the center came out of the heat deflector vent up at the top and also made the green wire ground connection. Easily fixable and not really a problem.

But the unit is dented at both the top right and bottom right, and the gas valve piping should not be at an angle like that. But the shipping box is in perfect shape, with not a dent or mark on it, making me wonder if if went in the box this way.

The dents are really just cosmetic and won’t show, and I think I can straighten out the gas line, but I won’t know if it actually works until I install it. Which I’m going to go ahead and do.

But I am going to contact the 3rd party seller on Amazon and register a claim in case there is a problem with it.

So we’ll see how it goes tomorrow.

About 2pm we headed out to have lunch at Los Ramirez and then, after a stop at a local lumber supply place for a tube of caulk for the water heater door panel, we drove up the feeder toward the HEB on FM646, and were happily surprised to find that after 4 years, and Hurricane Harvey, our local Monterey’s Little Mexico was finally open.

I say ‘surprised’ because their sign indicated that they wouldn’t be open until next week. And though we normally only have one real meal a day, we decided to come back about 6pm for a light dinner.

When we got there we found a 30 minute wait and a full parking lot. And unlike other Monterey’s this one has a completely new look, with really nothing indicating it is a Mexican restaurant. No flags, no banners, no streamers, no multi-colored lights. Just the open, industrial look that seems to be popular now days.

But the food was as good as always. I got my usual bowl of Chicken Tortilla Soup,

and then we shared a large order of Beef Fajita Nachos.

Really good, and we’ve already decided we’re going back on Tuesday.

Getting back home about 7pm, I found that the PB Blaster had done its thing, and I finally was able to loosen the gas fitting. So it looks like tomorrow’s changeout it on.

Stay tuned.
    

Thought For The Day:

Don’t give the scorpion a lift if you don’t want to get stung. Or ‘You knew what I was when you took me in’.

Well, as I had hoped my new Atwood Water Heater showed up this morning, so I know how my long weekend is going to be going. At least if it doesn’t keep pouring down rain all weekend like it did today

I mean, we’re talking gullies being washed and pets falling from the sky, type of rains.

Tomorrow I need to pick up a tube of caulk to seal around the outside door, and that should be all I need. Except time, I guess.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m setting up a new computer for our Shipping department, and one of the programs I’m trying to move over is our copy of USPS’ Click N Ship Business Pro. And it should be really easy.

All I should have to do was to install a new copy of the program, and then export the Address Book from the old computer and then import it into the new computer. But someone at the PO doesn’t know how to program, because every time I tried to export the list, the export crashed with an error message.

Turns out that though the Click N Ship program allows you to have a ‘ in a name or address, like O’Neal, it won’t let you export names or addresses with a ‘ in them. Nor will it let you import them either. And it won’t let you chose another export format like Tab Separated rather than CSV.

Of course I’ve figured out a work-around, but it’s going to be a little time-consuming since there are over 4000 addresses in the file. Oh, well.

Continuing with yesterday’s rocket video’s, here’s a really unusual launch technique, if you can call launching sideways a ‘launch’.

Turns out that one of the two engines shut down right at the launch, and the software did a great job of recovering. However with only one engine, it was never going to make orbit, but they wanted to get as much data as they could before they let it crash back into the ocean. And since the launch was from Kodiak, AK, they weren’t likely to hit anything.

Originally the Space Shuttle was supposed to use a Flyback Booster for the first stage instead of the flawed SRB’s that brought down the Challenger in 1986. The Flyback Booster consisted of the 5 main engines from a Saturn V mounted to a Shuttle-like manned glider that returned to the Cape after separation

This next video is an amazing animation on a Shuttle utilizing the Flyback Booster concept, It’s so well done it’s hard to believe it’s not real. From the flickering of the helicopter blades overhead, to the scratches in the film segments, to the heat waves rising from the landing strip. Really something.

Tomorrow we’re thinking Los Ramirez for lunch and then back home to work on the water heater changeout, assuming the weather holds.
 

Thought For The Day:

If you want to know “Where’s The Beef”, apparently it was in the drive-thru line at a McDonald’s in Marshfield, WI.  It seems the gentleman bought 3 calves at an auction and had no other way to get them home. So there’s actually 3 of them crammed in there.