richard5933

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.

SOOO many levels.

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.

The original stories covering this were about evaluating how to tweak nation-wide travel to make it safer, not to prohibit travel to/from Florida or any other state. It quickly devolved into a political story by those wishing to score points. I just did the recommended Google search and it seems that there is a lot of click bait being published intended to do nothing more than get eyes on their websites. They got the eyes on their stories and now it's grown legs of its own. Doesn't seem like there's a need to stress out over this.

That was one wild accident, and thank God she made it out in one piece.

This is the kind I've seen used by a few people and they certainly look to be the easiest to put on and to put away. I especially like that there is no need to put your arm into the wheel well.

The easiest ones to use that I've seen are just rectangular fabric with a reinforcing band across the top. They connect to the side of the coach with four snaps on the outside of the wheel opening and after install are even with the side of the coach and not against the tires. If I was to use tire covers these would be what I'd use for a couple of reasons. They don't require you to put your arms inside the wheel openings at all, and they provide an air space between the sun shield and the tire, meaning that any heat from the sun on the fabric won't transfer to the tires. When I've seen them used in campgrounds they seem to store easily as well.

Best is to have them at rest - no loads for half an hour or so before testing.

I remember back in the 70s many of the main roads in Dallas were still mounded up quite a few feet higher than the secondary roads. Most of the major streets were still just two lanes, not the six+ lane roads that are there now. When there was ice like you're describing, it was sometimes impossible to get out of our neighborhood since doing so required climbing quite a hill to get up onto the main roads - we were surrounded by Hillcrest, Preston, Belt Line, and Spring Valley in north Dallas, and all of them were like this. After decades of living in NY & NJ, my father thought he was an expert at winter driving. Sure enough, first time out in a winter storm and wouldn't you know he slid right off the road into the ditch trying to cross Preston Road. Guess he was so used to driving with studded snow tires that he didn't think twice about it, ice or no ice. Only this time he didn't have the studded tires any more. There's at least one thing we do differently up here in winter vs. in the south - Either four wheel drive, snow tires, or both. Lots of people try to get by with all-season radials, but like many all-season RVs they're not really good at all 4 seasons. Night and day difference having the proper tires and four wheel drive. My first winter up here I had my old 2wd Ford Ranger - even with a couple hundred pounds of sand in the bed it was horrible. One didn't even make it through the first winter before trading it in for a Jeep.

My father's territory had included Texas and the Southwest for years when he worked as a grunt in a stock brokerage house in NY. A firm was opening a new Dallas office and offered him a position - he jumped at the chance. Besides wanting out of NY, he saw a future which included trying to put four kids through college which was much more affordable in Texas. So in the summer of 1976 he came home one day and announced we were moving. And that was that.

I see there was quite the weather-related mayhem on I35W in Ft. Worth this week. I remember when we moved to Dallas in 1976 from the NY/NJ area. It was almost humorous how unprepared the city was for winter weather, having to use road graders to clear snow. Hope things have gotten better.

Thanks Wayne. I already have a really nice mesh WiFi network which provides great coverage to all the areas where the Ring devices are located. They problems with the doorbell are really simple and quite disappointing - the doorbell uses a lithium battery for power. The hard wire option doesn't actually power the unit, instead it merely works to keep the battery charged. As we all know, lithium batteries won't charge below a certain temperature, so having it hard wired really doesn't help in winter here. The battery will discharge quickly, sometimes in less than a day. Can't for the life of me figure out why they can't simply use the hard wired power supply to just run the door bell directly - the battery pack is large enough to house a simple converter. Maybe I'll have to engineer one myself. The problem with the floodcam is purely quality related - when temps drop to a certain point poorly constructed or low quality components can fail. It appears that's what's happened and the very cold temps simply lowered the ability of the camera to transmit and receive the WiFi signal very far.

Let's put it this way - it's been cold enough here that one of my Ring floodcams stopped working. After hours on the phone with Ring (real people, in Arizona) I finally got someone on the phone who knew what was going on. Apparently their devices, even the hardwired ones, will not be reliable below 10F. Great. Don't even get me started on trying to use one of their door bells in the cold, even one with a hardwired supply to keep the battery charged. I miss the old days when we just had a door knocker and a ding-dong bell over the front door. It wasn't fancy but it always worked.

An axe was standard issue emergency gear on vintage coaches like mine. Never thought about putting it back in the holder - maybe I should.

I know you did, but I don't see that in the current tire book from Hankook. Did I miss it?

Looks like Hankook does not have the exact size you need, if you want to stick to the identical dimensions. You can go slightly up with the 12R22.5 or slightly down with the 11R22.5, but neither are spot on. There are other options from other brands with the correct size. Load ratings are included in the Hankook book. They list the tires by the ply rating, and in the back of the book is a chart which converts the ply rating to the letter designation.

Western Clipper built buses - this thing looks like one of their buses which has been shrunk down by a few feet. Would be a fun project.

This is why buses all have roof exits in addition to the tilt-out/pop-out side windows. A friend of mine has some vintage bus conversions which he's put back in commercial service running party rentals, and the state made him put the roof escape hatches back in for this reason before signing off on the safety inspection.

Like I mentioned earlier, some fuel stops have a per-transaction fee in addition to the TSD fee. That transaction fee is passed onto the fuel stop, not TSD IIRC. Not all stores carrying a particular brand name are corporate stores, and it's my understanding that because of that they don't all have the same negotiated prices and fees.

I guess it's all what you get used to. To be honest, as much as I learned to function in the heat I never liked it. Twenty-five years in the south (mainly Texas, a few years in other states) was enough. I was thrilled to finally be in a state where there are four seasons, and I love being able to camp in the summer with the windows open and the a/c off. To me the summer heat (and spring and fall sometimes) was oppressive and I couldn't take off enough clothing to be comfortable. In the winter, even with the sub-zero temps, it's possible to work & play outside if you're properly dressed. A few years ago when we had two horses, I spent 11 hours out in the sub-zero weather clearing snow, tending to the horses, and then clearing more snow. And yes, it certainly can snow when it's that cold. Does that mean I always love the cold? Not at all. There are times in the middle of winter I get terribly frustrated in how long it takes to get ready to go outside, and this year has been particularly tough since much of what we'd enjoy doing is also closed due to Covid-19 so cabin fever is certainly setting in.