We arrived in Red Bay on Monday morning about 8:00AM, having spent the night on a Walmart parking lot in Fulton, MS, about 30 miles away.
By 9:00AM, we had secured a full-hookup RV site at Bruce Deaton’s Paint Shop, and had an appointment with the local A/C expert to fix a whining noise on my rear roof a/c. I had also visited the Tiffin Service Center office to request a repair to my Leveling system. Both of these items failed in the weeks before we left for Red Bay.
The a/c Tech diagnosed an electric motor with bad bearings, and came back around 3:00PM with a replacement and changed it out. One job down!!
Scheduled work includes paint/body work (scheduled to begin on Oct 23), thanks to the ‘signature’ that hurricane Harvey put on the Bus, having a new set of Michelin tires mounted along with a four-wheel alignment on the Bus this Thursday, and having a new set (4) of Lifeline AGM sealed RV deep cycle batteries installed on the coach on Thursday of next week.
In the meantime, we are picking up parts for friends and planning our 2018 travel plans. In early January, we are preparing an itinerary for a 2 month trip to the Quartzsite, AZ area. Otherwise, we are just resting and “vacationing” in the Red Bay area!
Early on Tuesday, we picked up a new Sharp Microwave/Convection oven for our friend’s, Mark & Sue Didelot, Phaeton motorhome. Thiers failed, and this is a direct replacement that seems to no longer available on the open market, which will make for an easy replacement
We have also picked up four of this years’ Tiffin T-shirt featuring a dog that lives at the factory that is popular with owners. I also got a request to pick up a new t-shirt at the Allegro Club office, as shown below:
I am also collecting spare parts for the Bus including some LED lights for the ceiling fixtures.
On Wednesday morning, the Tiffin Service Center Chassis shop phoned and told us to bring the Bus to Bay 41 at the Chassis shop to diagnose and replace/repair one of our leveling jacks. We were there within 20 minutes and drove right in.
The problem turned out to be a bad motor on a rear jack!! $900 later, we were on our way back to our campsite at Bruce Deaton’s Paint Shop! I had to buy a new complete jack, but I kept the old jack and intend to get a new motor for it!!
On Thursday morning, we left early to drive to Sheffield, AL to Simmon’s Tire for a new set of tires for the Bus. I started looking for new Michelin tires, like the Bus came with, and they weren’t available, and a call to Michelin let me know that they were not scheduled for a production run for the rest of 2017!!
I called around places in Texas, and nobody had them, so I called Simmons, since they do tire and alignment work for Tiffin, and the owner, Mike Simmons, said he thought he could find a set. He called a week later, and said he had found 12 tires, and would hold 6 for me. He assured me that they were 2017 tires, and when I got there, I found all of them having been manufactured during the 25th week of 2017. I had made the appointment for October 19 in September, and it all worked out. The Bus now has new “shoes’, and it got a four-wheel alignment.
The 2517 tire mark indicates they were manufactured during the 25th week of 2017! That is about as new as you can hope for!!
On our way to Branson, I turned into a Walmart parking lot to buy some groceries, and the front tire on the CRV scraped the curb and the valve stem with the TPMS sensor managed to break off the valve stem at the threads. An immediate flat tire!!
EXPLANATION: The referenced TPMS sensor mentioned above is for the remote after-market system that is installed in the Bus from which I can monitor all tires, six on the Bus and the four on the CRV. The CRV also comes with an OEM TPMS that is monitored via the dash. The sensor for the OEM is located inside the tire on the valve stem also.
The Honda shop near Branson, had a new OEM valve stem with the Honda sensor, but their computer could not connect with my CRV’s computer. I think their sensor is bad, so we left with the tire repaired, but a constant indicator on the dash panel when driving the CRV.
On Friday, we drove to the Honda dealer in Tupelo, MS to get the TPMS situation resolved, but found that their complete automotive computer was down!! So, we grabbed some groceries from Sam’s Club and Walmart, and headed back to Red Bay!! We will try again next week while the Bus is in the paint shop.
On Saturday, we were looking for someplace to go to get out and about. We found a Fall Festival in Booneville, MS, so we took off to check it out. For a small town, it was fairly large, and we enjoyed getting out. We bought some home-made peanut brittle, some fried PEACH pies, and a large jar of local honey:
Hopefully, Deaton’s Paint shop, although they are really busy right now, will get us in a bay sometime on Monday, and get the repairs done so we can leave at the end of next week. If not, we will have to monitor our plans.
We’ll see what Week #2 in Red Bay will bring !
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