richard5933

Do you know how old these batteries are?

The Toll Tag lanes aren't HOV lanes - are they? My impression when we were there last was that they were just toll lanes plopped in the middle of an otherwise toll-free highway for those willing to pay for faster transit.

There have been some rather cryptic posts recently from a few new accounts. In some ways some posts sound like they were machine generated, but it's really hard to know nowadays.

I do the same thing for these as I do the stink bugs - try and find every possible entry point and block it. After that a small battery-powered vac is your friend. Just remember to empty it immediately or you'll find a stinky mess.

Are you looking for a traditional lantern or something more modern which will light up an area? Lots of new options out there, so you'll need to narrow this down a bit so we can focus our recommendations towards your plan.

What brand are you getting? We bought ours directly from TireMinder at the rally in Gillette a couple of years ago, and my interactions with their customer service department since then have been great. These just screw onto the valve stems so no dealer is needed to install them. Or are you talking about something mounted inside the tires? In that case, you need to find a tire dealer in your area that you trust.

Can't explain it - it's obviously not the experience I've had. Mine ride much better than the Goodyear I had on our previous coach. So the bad tires were on the other guy's rig and not yours? Perhaps Tireman9 can chime in, but I suppose every company has had a bad run of tires at some time but that doesn't necessarily mean all their tires are bad.

That's a really broad paintbrush you're using there. I understand that you may have had a bad experience, but that doesn't mean the entire product line is bad. Lots of reasons for sidewall problems. My previous tires were Firestone FS400 and they were almost 10 years old when they were removed and had barely a hairline crack anywhere. My current tires are Firestone FS561 and I'm even happier with them than the FS400s.

Do you know how to measure voltage with a multimeter? Simple test instrument you can get at Walmart for under $20. If they are leaking from the caps, likely they were over filled or are over charging. You can check over filled by removing the caps and looking. The over charging part you check with a multimeter. If it's too high it will cause the water in the batteries to boil over.

Are you talking about the EFS card which is obtained through TSD? For that one, you have to contact TSD directly. EFS is just the processing company.

Where are they leaking? From the caps or from the cases somewhere else? If they are leaking from the caps, first thing I'd do is check to see if they are overfilled or overcharging. They should not be filled to the top of the filler neck, as this will cause leaking from the caps, and if they are being charged at too high a voltage you'll also have similar things happen. Have you confirmed the voltage they're charging at? If they are leaking from elsewhere in the case or lids, disconnect them immediately and carefully remove them from the coach while wearing rubber gloves. Batteries should never leak from the case. Ever. A leaking battery can cause lots of damage very quickly.

Glad that you're having continued success. These can be an annoyance, but usually pretty easy to solve. Eventually the rubber will get hard enough or old enough that you won't be able to stop the drips, so keep these hoses on your watch list next year. If you have any other reason to drain the coolant, that would be a prime time to change out any that are looking worse for the wear.

Welcome from Wisconsin!

Not sure that this is really outside possible for many people. I met a couple camping in a very nice Oliver TT last fall. They made a full set of covers for the trailer and accessories from Sunbrella fabric. She did the entire thing on her little 3/4 size vintage Singer she carries with her for doing her quilt work. From my conversations with her, it was clear that she's not the only one traveling with a sewing machine who could easily handle making a set of wheel covers. If someone doesn't sew, doesn't have a sewing machine, or doesn't want to do this themselves, then obviously they won't. Doesn't mean it's not a very practical project for someone else.

Guess it all depends on the sewing machine. At one time I bought & sold vintage sewing machines, restoring them along the way. There are lots of these old machines out there (Singer 15, for example) which could handle the task easily if the operator took his/her time. I sewed the folding top for our horse buggy with one of those when we were still driving a pair of horses for fun. On a newer plastic machine? Probably not, especially a low-cost entry-level machine picked up at a box store. Those have trouble putting a hem on a pair of blue jeans. My point wasn't as much to say that this is a project that everyone would want to do on their own as much as to say that it's not a complicated project and could easily be done by someone who wanted, provided like you said they had an appropriate machine.

I've seen similar fabric for sale online. Shouldn't be that difficult to make a set of these if you're handy on the sewing machine.

For anyone thinking of getting on the road during the winter storm down south, this might be handy. https://cdllife.com/2021/heres-a-list-of-major-chain-truck-stop-closures-power-outages/

You might have both an electric pre-heat which runs off your 120v system, and a pre-heat built into your Aqua Hot system which can probably be run on either 120v or 12v, depending on how it's set up. This would give you options on pre-heating the engine depending on whether or not you're plugged into shore power. You don't need to run either unless you're planning to start the engine, and you have no need to start the engine unless you're planning to move the coach.

Do you know how old the battery was that died?

Looks like the clamps to me. Good news is that you already have the constant tension clamps on there, so once you give them a little extra turn they should hold steady. Give them a wipe with a towel to try and dry things off and check again in the morning.

Add a little something to that hot chocolate and then you've got something. Hope you are all holding out with this little taste of real winter. It's tough up here even with all the preparation - can't imagine just having it thrust on you so suddenly or without preparation.

Most any NAPA store will also have dip strips you can use to check the coolant protection level as well as various additives for some coolant types. From what it sounds like, you've got some drips from your coolant lines. For us up here in the great frozen north, this can be somewhat normal - especially for older rigs. Not sure how old your coach is (you might want to add this to your signature) so I can't say for certain if this is what's happening. As the rubber in the coolant lines gets older, it gets harder and it also tends to get compressed between the clamps and the metal flange it's mounted to. As the metal flange shrinks from the cold, the rubber doesn't have enough elasticity to fill the newly formed gap when the flange got ever-so-slightly smaller. On my 46-year-old coach I go through this every winter. As temps drop to below freezing I'll start to get a few drips from my older coolant lines. It usually takes only a quarter turn or so on the hose clamps to take care of the problem. Sometimes a bit more. The hoses that take more than a quarter turn are put on the list to be replaced during the coming spring. It can also help if you install constant-tension clamps on your coolant lines. These are a particular type of hose clamp which has a spring tensioner in the clamping device, and as things shrink up in the cold the clamp tries to continue tightening to prevent these little annoyance leaks. All that said, if your coolant is not protecting your system at the current temps it's always possible that something more serious has happened. Get our your strongest flashlight and try and find where the leak is coming from. If it's from your engine block you will need to investigate further before restarting. If it's from any of the lines, chase it back to find the leaking clamp and give it a turn. Sometimes these little leaks can be quite devious and difficult to find, as the little drops will wind their way around multiple parts before making themselves visible. Just remember, if the engine is not being run drips always go downhill, not up.

Yeah - I can see that being applied to specific places with flood, fire, etc. But from what transpired this past spring I'd suggest that something has changed in the practicality of things as well as the politics of things. From what I can see, all the states which were considering closing the borders between states ended up opting for something less than a total closure. I could make a guess why they backed off, but it's really hard to know for certain sitting where we all sit what conversations took place behind closed doors in various statehouses.

When closing borders was first discussed last spring it was quickly realized that the constitution doesn't generally permit state borders to be closed. That's why the states thinking about this quickly switched to enacting quarantines and Covid checkpoints instead. Now that the numbers are dropping for new infections I do not think that we'll see much serious discussion about this in the coming months. Possibly what we'll start seeing more of is testing and/or vaccination required before getting on a plane though, as airlines get antsy to once again fill every seat on their planes and cram people tightly together. The closest parallel to full time RV owners is the people in the UK who live in their narrow boats. I follow a few on their vlogs, and they've gone through a couple of full closures in the UK recently. They've managed okay, with rules that permit movement for the basics like emptying their holding tank, filling their fuel & water, getting groceries, etc. It looks like it's been a workable solution for them which could be implemented in any state here if it was necessary. Hopefully it won't be.

Not blaming you or accusing you of anything. What I meant by it becoming a political story was the reaction being published by various politicians throwing accusations about something being done for nefarious purposes to 'get' them. When I looked through the timeline leading up to the stories about this issue, it was apparent to me that what started as a story about various safety measures being considered for domestic air travel quickly morphed into accusations in the political world about things being done to to punish political opponents. I'm not privy to any information which isn't widely available, but to my understanding this is just another story which has blown up on social media into something it's not. I just checked again, and there are multiple fact-checking organizations which are confirming that the administration has no plans to close Florida's borders to/from other states. If everyone remembers, there were various stories during the early days of the pandemic about various states looking to restrict travel in/out of their state, including Florida. If I remember correctly, Florida and a few other states had checkpoints on some of the highways entering the state last spring, presumably to inform incoming travelers of quarantine rules and other restrictions. This quickly morphed on Facebook and other social media into a story about Florida closing its borders and restricting entry.