December 10, 2005

December 10, 2005

Yuma, Arizona

YEAR 2 DAY 176

 

Today was sunny and very warm.

This morning for breakfast we shared a couple of large Mexican pastries we bought yesterday in Los Algodones. I did preventive maintenance, changed the air filter on the truck, then refilled the trailer's fresh water tank and drained the waste holding tanks. Joanne started working on rearranging the bedroom closet, and discovered that the closet bar was loose and needed repair. She removed most of the clothes from the closet, and I crawled in to reattach the loose bar. Many of the screws had worked loose and fallen out from vibration during travel. Next job was to install the new fuel filter on the truck. I followed the instructions in the owner's manual carefully. First step was to drain any water that the fuel filter had filtered out of the diesel fuel. I put a little plastic food container under the "water in fuel" drain valve, and opened the valve. I started the engine. I waited and waited for diesel fuel to come out of the drain valve, as per the instructions. The engine ran for about 30 seconds, and I was becoming concerned about no diesel fuel coming out of the drain valve. AH, SHIT ! Diesel fuel was pouring out underneath the truck, onto the driveway. I immediately shut off the engine. There was a huge puddle of diesel fuel soaking into the gravel driveway of the site we're parked on. I'm sure the absent owner of this site will be thrilled with that when he returns ! Sorry ! The owner's manual wasn't very clear about where the water / diesel fuel was going to come out of, when the drain valve was opened. Now I know. I closed the drain valve and moved on to the next step. I removed the engine / turbo cover, and found the fuel filter housing. I removed what I thought was the top retaining ring. The filter wouldn't come out of the housing. Hmph ... what I thought was the retaining ring was actually the air bleed valve. Fine. I removed the correct retaining ring. I pulled the filter out of the housing. WHAT ? It wasn't the same as the new one I bought at Checker Auto Parts in Wickenburg. DAMN ! They sold me the wrong filter ! I couldn't find a fuel filter listing in the Fram filter reference book at Checker Auto Parts, so I went to the front counter. A clerk checked in a computer, then sold me this particular fuel filter for my truck. It's not the correct filter <SIGH>. I reinstalled the old fuel filter, and put everything back together. There's a Checker Auto Parts here in Yuma. I'll have to go there on Monday and exchange this wrong filter for the correct one. Assuming that there won't be a problem exchanging a part purchased in another city.

While I was doing all that, Joanne began to work on using bug and tar remover to remove road grime off the back of the trailer. She worked on it all day, finishing late in the afternoon with an application of a spray wax on the rear of the trailer. Gee ... an entire day to do just the rear of the trailer. That road grime and acid rain oxidizes and bakes on real hard in the desert sun.

We took a break for lunch, then I began to work on the moulding we bought for the bedroom. I removed the old vinyl moulding that ran along the top of the wall, over the slide, where the wall meets the ceiling. I measured carefully, cut, filed, and cleaned the moulding. I decided to install it temporarily, using 6 small squares of Velcro. The moulding completely fills the space between the ceiling and the top of the slide. I'm concerned that if the slide moves at all upward as it begins to retract into the travel position, the moulding will impede its ability to retract. If so, I'll have to trim the moulding down a bit along its entire length, or buy a narrower moulding to use. By using Velcro to install the moulding against the wall, if the slide moves upwards at all as it begins to retract, the moulding should simply pull off the wall. If after a few cycles of retraction and extension, there is no problem between the top of the slide and the moulding, I'll remove the Velcro and reinstall the moulding permanently.

I decided that was enough work for today. I read for awhile, then took a long nap. I had earned it. When I woke, we took Bo for an obedience walk, then set up Teddy's tent beside the trailer. Every time we've opened the door in the last few days, Teddy dashes outside and flops around on the driveway. He seems to really like the climate here, so we set up his tent to allow him to be outdoors. We went to the clubhouse and bought a newspaper. I sat outside reading the newspaper until the sun set. I came indoors, did today's accounting, and started this journal entry.

I set up the barbecue, and barbecued a steak for supper. I haven't barbecued much lately, mostly because it gets dark so early. But today's warm temperature and sunshine inspired me. We had supper, then watched a bit of TV. It wasour plan to finish off the evening with a dip in the park's hot tub, beside the swimming pool. As I was getting ready to go to the hot tub, at 9:15, Joanne decided that she was too tired, and it was too cold ( temperature ion the high 40's ). What a wimp ! I went to the hot tub by myself, only to discover that it was closed for the night. Darn ! Maybe I'll go tomorrow afternoon, while the sun is still shining and it's warm outside.

DSK