Overdue for an Update!!???

I haven’t updated since we are at Red Bay (Tiffin Service Center) in late October.  Several friends have ‘gently’ commented, and then this week, my buddy, Mark, updated his blog with a title “Overdue for an Update!!!”, and that made me feel bad for being so lax!!  He also commented in his blog…..’Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! I know it’s been a while since I updated! It seems when we get back to our home town we just have so much to do, but not much of it worth writing about. :)’.   Boy, that is so true!  When we get home from a trip, we usually have a lot of cleaning, repairing, and putting the Bus back into storage, and also, having to catch up on the house and lawn items.  First, we are busy….. then I am bored that we are not on the road!! 

Additionally, our traveling friends, Connie and Manuel, who are not full-timers like Mark and Sue, do an excellent job of keeping their blog up to date.  Manuel seems to keep them on the road, and Connie is meticulous about updating the blog….. in fact she is very prolific!!  This year, I am going to try hard to do better!!

Now for the updating………..

We got all of our repairs done to our satisfaction, and headed home in early November.

Here are some pictures of the main project, the replacement of the floor under our wet bay tanks, which had a rotting problem due to poor sealing.  Tiffin made the repairs at no costs to us.  The first pictures gives an indication of the problem, by showing how low the tanks had dropped….. putting a strain on the piping going to the tanks.  The picture shows the expanding foam and a small wood spacer to hold the tank in place.  The tanks had dropped a little over 2 inches!

Unlike many repairs, the techs working on my Bus made the repairs by completely removing all of the tanks vs jacking up and securing the tanks while replacing the floor.  I challenged this, but they convinced me that it was best.  It gave them a chance to visually inspect the piping and other plumbing, and when they cut the PVC piping, they put it back together with flexible rubber hoses to prevent stress on the plumbing systems and the tanks.   I was pleased with the finished product.

Here are a few more pictures…..

The bay with tanks removed (note the small section of ‘sealed surface’ on the far end):

Patsy looking at our “floor” that was being removed!!:

The guys cleaning the support steel before installing the new floor section:

The new completely sealed floor ready for installation:

The new floor going in:

The new floor install place from the driver’s side:

….. and from the passenger side:

Tanks back in place on the passenger side:

…. and on the driver’s side, before the white panel is installed:

While we waited for our turn to get the repairs, I watched the fix on other coaches, and documented the process on the Tiffin RV owners Network (TRVN).  If you are interested, go here.  I hope this link will work for people who are not registered on TRVN!!

We also saw a small modification on another Bus while we were there, so we had it put in on our kitchen counter.  It prevents silverware, flashlights, and other things that we found in the space underneath the drawers from accidently getting there!!

This is a picture of the stop on the front of the countertop that is “factory installed”:

This shows the ‘slot’ where stuff falls and a top view of the new rear countertop stop:

This view shows a better view of the height of the new stop:

I have a few more updates, and I will write them up as separate posts!

One more picture that I have to add, to agitate my buddy, Mark, here is a picture of the ladies in the parts store at the Red Bay campground.   As I pulled out of my site, and parked in one of the roads to hookup the toad, I heard someone holler “Are you leaving?”.   I looked around to see one of the ladies outside the door with her hands over her eyes, crying to show how upset she was that I was leaving!!!  As I looked closer, the other lady was at the window doing the same thing.  I guess they just hated to see me leave!!!

Eat your heart out, Mark!!

Patsy and I want to wish all that read this blog a very Happy and healthy New Year!!