HHR Gets New Tires

Home in Holiday / Tarpon Springs area, FL

We put tires on our motorhome back in 2015…lucky a Michelin Tires recall paid for six out of the seven tires at Discount Tire Store near El Paso.  Since then, we have had to stop at Discount Tire a few times due to stem problems because of our Tire Sensors…I have since gone to metal stems, and although I paid for the metal stems through Napa Auto, Discount Tire put them on for free.  So with our HHR needing new tires, I sure wanted to find a Discount Tire (called America’s Tire Store out on the West Coast).  Our nearest one is in Lakeland Florida, a LONG 60-65 mile distance from where we live.  LONG because it is not all Interstate, and can take two hours to get there depending on traffic.

I made an appointment for 11:30, and left the condo just about 9:30.  I have gone to Lakeland taking highway 54 to I-275 south to I-4 east and over to Lakeland…but Discount Tire was on the extreme north side of Lakeland, so I opted to stay on highway 54 through to highway 98…and that was a mistake.  Once you get onto the other side of I-275, highway 54 becomes county road 54, and things slow down a bunch until you get to highway 98.  I pulled in right at 11:29…I hate to be late, and that was too close.

 

The Discount Tire Store website says that the HHR takes a 215/50-R17 tire, and I picked out one for about $60…which after installation and 3 year replacement, came to $400.  Once I got there, and they pulled me in as soon as I was done at the register, we found out that what I really needed was a 16” tire due to the wheel size I have on the HHR.  So the new tire size, with what they had on hand, cost about $6 more per tire…so I went with that.  I should have looked at the tires I had on it and not relying on their website...lesson learned.

For the past year we have been having problems with the HHR’s internal tire sensor system.  While I was getting the tires replaced, I decided to replace all four sensors since three of the four were bad or acting up.  This problem was detected because the yellow tire deflated icon would light up every time the car is started, and the notification window would say “low tire” and/or “tire sensor”.  Well, I provided the four sensors (from Amazon), and Discount Tire put them in for free as part of the installation process.  By 12:31 I was back on the road and called Marcia to let her know I had lost a good friend.  “WHO????” she asks.  “My yellow tire sensor light…it is gone…all gone!”  It is nice being able to see what each tire is inflated to again, that's for sure!  By the way, I took I-4 to I-275 to highway 54 to get home…it only took a bit over 90 minutes including getting gas and a diet Pepsi.  I told them that I can't wait until they open a Discount Tire Store in our area.

Back in August 2015, I had to replace this little Solenoid, a 12 Volt Continuous Duty Solenoid which allows the motorhome engine to charge up the house batteries.  In real cold weather, like in the 40’s or below, it has not been working very well…so I replaced this $20 solenoid again.  Since I wrote a detail about it back in August 2015, it was easy to know what I needed to order, and how to replace it.  Click this link if you want to know more about replacing this solenoid.

Speaking of weather…the next seven days are going to have cold nights, and daytime temps under 70 each day…for Florida that is cold…to me it is WONDERFUL!  Looks like another good reason to make more soup!

NOTE:  My last post was about problems with Open Live Writer, and those problems still exist.  This post was written using the method talked about in that last post, and I have heard from a few people who used my method and it worked for them too.

Electrical Fix, Next Trip Is…

I have showed this picture above before…it is the heart of my electrical problems…this is he place where the Florida Rat had made a nest, but the rat is unrelated to our problem.

    

To recap what I previously posted, this gizmo to the left is the Intellitec Battery Disconnect Relay, while the one on the right is a 12 Volt Continuous Duty Solenoid, which allows for the interaction between the house batteries and the engine battery.

I replaced the solenoid today with this Cole Hersee 12V Insulated SPST Continuous Duty Solenoid that Amazon delivered Thursday.  Temps were still over 100 on Friday, but a comfortable mid-80’s today…so today was a much better day to do the work in.  Here are my steps:

1)  Disconnect Engine Battery.  Got a voltage meter read on it before and after the disconnect, and after.  Battery was reading 12.6 either way.

2)  Disconnect House Batteries.  Got a voltage reading on them combined and separated…one at 12.86, the other at 12.91.  Combined they were at 12.89.

3)  Did a reading of the Solenoid and there was no juice coming to it.  So I disconnected the wires, making a mental note of what goes where…knowing I ALREADY had a picture just in case…and then removed the old Solenoid.

4)  Installed the new Solenoid, hooked up wires, made sure all wires were tight.   Then hooked up the house batteries.  Then hooked up the engine batteries.  Then tested…..AND…..

Ever have one of those days….everything just seems to be going along just fine, and CRASH!   Well, that’s how my day felt when I tested it…and it still did not work.  Engine running, no charge on house batteries.  Engine off, electricty plugged in, no charge to engine battery.  Time to bring in the big guns….HEY ARNY!!!!!

To make a long story shorter….Arny wants me to look for connection problems, ground wires especially.  While I look, I decide to wiggle the various fuses along the right side.  See those ones in the middle of this fuse bank…the ones which look metallic?  Well, I wiggle the one on top and I hear the Solenoid engage with a very loud CLICK  CLICK  CLICK.  I push it in further, it clicks, and run my tests….all works.

So I run over to the nearest Napa store, and I pick up two, a 5 amp and a 10 amp, Circuit Breaker Fuse.  WHY 2?  Because what I take out is a 10 amp, but it calls for a 5 amp.  The one right below it is a 20 amp, but it calls for a 10 amp. 

If you look at the picture above, along the bottom it says 15A Max, and it has a blue fuse in it, which is a 15 amp fuse.  The next one is a bit hidden, but it says 10A Max, but the gold metallic thing says 20A when I take it out.  The Silver one is hidden, but it says 5A Max, and it had a 10 amp in it…it was the loose one, the one which I needed to replace.

Looking again at the replacements you can see that the metal attachment legs have three parts to it.  The “Universal” to them is that you break off the length to fit what you need.  On the one that we replaced, the person who “broke off the legs” was not careful, and it broke off below the mark…making it too short…so it wiggled (vibrated) out real easy.  Hopefully this will end our problem.  And just to be sure….I have a 5 amp and a 10 amp coming in from Amazon as spares, and I saved the 20 amp that I replaced with the 10 amp because there is a 20 amp in this fuse box at the very top…and it is in a 25 amp max location, so it is definitely good.  These Circuit Breaker Fuses act like a fuse in that they will break the circuit if to much of a load (amps) are put on them.  The difference is, with a fuse, you have to replace it.  With a Circuit Breaker Fuse, it will reset itself once it cools down and will allow for the circuit to connect again.

So now we are ready to test it out on our next little trip….which will be to the Santa Cruz, Pinnacles National Park, and PROBABLY Big Sur areas.  I have reservations at Sunset Beach for Monday-Thursday, September 21st-24th.  Then we will go to the less crowded Pinnacles National Park for the weekend, then PROBABLY go to Big Sur for the Monday-Thursday of the following week.  These popular State Parks are busy on the weekends, but you can get into them on the weekdays this time of year.  Pinnacles National Park is just not busy at all…being one of our new National Parks, they will struggle to get people there for awhile…but the plus is that they have ELECTRICITY at many of their RV sites for under $30 per night (half that for seniors with the senior card).  Another draw….they have California Condors there!   These rare birds nearly went extinct (down to around 20 birds), but now boast a population of nearly 500 birds.  As ugly as they might look, I want to get a picture of them.  Also, this time of year is good whale watching time…and we can’t pass up a visit to the Monterey Aquarium, which I have been to a number of times, but Marcia has never seen yet.  We also hope to find time to visit a cousin or two that live in the area.  And why “PROBABLY” with Big Sur?  Well, we might just want to go back to Sunset Beach again…or try one of the other beach camps in the area.

But first thing first…and on Monday, mom has her surgery.  Mucinous Carcinoma represents approximately 1% to 2% of all breast cancers. The main differentiating features are mucus production and cells that are poorly defined. It also has a favorable prognosis in most cases.  This is the type of Breast Cancer mom has.  So of all the breast cancers out there, she has the one which is the better one to have…not that anyone is standing in lines hoping to catch it.  All Breast Cancers are bad…all Cancers are bad…there are just some which are better to have than others.  This is the case with mom’s.  My next post will probably be “post surgery”, so prayers and precious thoughts for mom from here on out would be appreciated.

The Triple Whammy

Can you even imagine what it is like to be sitting along the beach, 72 degree weather…and two weeks later be sitting in the Sacramento Valley with temps up in the 100’s?  Well, that is our triple whammy…temps in the 3 digits.  But alas, things are looking better…

…two more hot days, then the possibility of tens days with temps under 90.

I mentioned that we had two small issues to fix…first, the lower part of tis mirror had become loose.  I took it off before the wind while driving blew it off.  That was an easy fix, Arny said he used a tape that would not come off.

Second, we had the electrical problem that we had before.  It worked fine until we left Port Angeles…then I noticed that we were not getting a charge from the engine when we were driving.  So today I did some research into these two gizmos, because one of them is most likely the culprit. 

    

The bottom one had the words “Ignition Proof Coach Chasis”, with a label which read, “01-00055-010 / 17704 /  BD Relay”. Quickly I found that this is part of the Intellitec Battery Disconnect Relay, which is what normally is called, “Storage Shut Off Switch” for when you want to kill the drain on the batteries when you go into storage. (Which gives you more time, but let’s face it, you store it for more than a few weeks and you batteries are going to be DEAD)

Which leaves this little thing….no writing on it, but a little research and found out that this is a “12 Volt Continuous Duty Solenoid”, which are easy to find, and found one on Amazon for under $20 which will be here Friday.  I am 90+% sure this is the culprit.  I figure that when we had loose wires eight weeks ago when this first went out, that the sparking and arching which took place as the loose wires did make contact just sore this thing out.  If I tap on it, it will make the recharge light flicker…so the solenoid is probably just wore out.

Yesterday I spent the day grooming the dogs. With this hot weather, I think they will both enjoy the loss of fur.  I can tell that Bubba is already feeling better, but so is Skruffy.

   

The hummingbird is still protecting “his” bird feeder…only letting his mate use it, chasing away all the others.

This blue Scrub Jay is a bit younger than the others.  The older ones are very mean, chasing away the doves, even going after the squirrels sometimes.  This younger one is also picked on…but that is how it will learn the trade I reckon.  Since Saturday we have seen two non-native birds which I have not gotten my camera lens on yet.  One is a Parakeet…the other looks like a small Parrot, perhaps a type of Love Bird. They don’t come around very often, and seem to hang out with the finches…but I hope to get a picture of them soon.

We have a number of birthdays in our family in August.  My brother Roger, Sisters Sandy and Patti, and brother-in-law Arny…the only Patti having celebrated hers already, and the other three take place in the next four days.  So HAPPY BIRTHDAY all of you!