Lunch with fellow Bloggers

At home in Holiday / Tarpon Springs area

If you travel and Blog, you will eventually run into fellow bloggers.  This is our third or fourth meet up with Tony and Karen of Rolling in an RV - Wheelchair Traveling.  I knew they were in Florida, and hoped they might make it our way.  But the other day I noticed they had already headed up the east coast from Orlando where they had date with a mouse and his many friends.  So I commented to Karen, and she commented and emailed back that they were actually in Miami, and would be passing through our area on Tuesday.  Well, we had a dinner date for Tuesday, and Wednesday lunch worked for them too…and Karen wanted to try our favorite Greek restaurant, the Original Mama Maria’s.  Suggested that they try one of their Greek Combo Platters, and I think they liked it.  Also had them try the Avgolemono Soup since neither of them had ever had it before…well, together they finished a cup of the soup.  Avgolemono is also known as Lemon Rice Soup, typically made from chicken broth, eggs and lemon juice, with chicken and rice or orzo.  Not on our low-carb diet, we had to pass…again…oh that is so hard to do!  Nearly 3 hours later, we were saying goodbye, and they were taking leftovers for dinner for later where they stop somewhere along US 19 tonight as they head on.

I know I have done it before, but I just HAVE to give Karen’s blog a big plug.  YES, it is focused on living in a RV, traveling, while being confined to a Wheelchair.  However, the many maps and resources she has compiled and offers free on her blog are outstanding.  I remember way back when, some six or seven years ago, making a comment to Karen either through email, or as a comment on her blog, about how impressed I am, as a Librarian, to the amount or resources she has compiled…and all I can say is that years later, it is even better!  From places to camp for free or close to free, to small, out-of-the way county museums, points of interest, to festivals large and small, and much, much more.  Headed to Wyoming, just click on her Wyoming map, look for the areas you are headed, and she will have something to see, do or place to stay for you.  They have been traveling for 25 years now…she has been in a wheelchair for over 24 of those years…and her website will tell you how it all happened.

Have continued safe travels friends…see you along the road again soon, somewhere…. (sorry the picture did not turn out very well…I have not used the camera for awhile now, and did not have it on auto setting, so it got washed out real bad…thank goodness for Photoshop I was able to clean it up a bit.)

Meanwhile…we completed another doctor appointment today for Marcia, one more to go along with some tests in March.  Marcia ordered a new pair of glasses to help her while at the computer too.  I still need to fix the small leak I talked about last time, on my to do list for next week.  Six weeks today and we are back on the road ourselves.

Dirty Deed is Done, AND IT WAS …

At home in Holiday/Tarpon Springs area

Well, there is the rebuilt Vacuum Generator Motor Assembly.  It was a dirty job…but not as “BAD” as I had anticipated (smell and fluid wise), but it was difficult due to the tight squeeze (lack of space to work in) and the heavy calcium build up (yuck!).  After getting it apart, I had difficulty getting the main bolt off which connects the motor and the billow.  I had to buy those two tools on the table above…seems like every RV job adds to my tool collection (unless it is done at Arny’s because he has 3 of EVERYTHING!)  And yes Arny, that  is a 3/4 open end on one side, and closed ratchet on the other.    Once home, I had it all apart lickety-split.

The picture to the left is purposefully small…but if you click on it it is larger, but why anyone would want to do that is beyond me.  The only reason I included it was to show the brown calcium build-up that I had to deal with.  There are FOUR duck bills, and they were AWFUL!  I don’t know how anything was passing through the old duckbills…and they were all hard to pull out due to the calcium build up around them.  It took a lot of lime-away type of cleaner to get the calcium out of the cylinder chamber and out of the pipe areas. I also found that to replace the duck bills in the future, I will have to remove the entire Motor Assembly (all that in the first picture)..but I won’t have to take the motor assembly apart, just remove it….this is probably why the duck bills have not been done for who knows how long.)

Here is the other side of the assembly, and you can see the billows, and that large bolt holding it to the motor.  When you try to turn the bolt to take it off, the whole motor turns…which is why I needed that clamp thingy to hold the shaft on the other side of the billow....which worked, the bolt loosened right up.  As this motor turns, the billow goes up and down.  Up brings fluid (and solids) from the vacuum tank…solids are broken up as they pass through the duckbills, and as the motor pushes the billows down, it pushes the mixture through to the black tank.  The duckbills will close on the intake side as the billows goes down, and on the exit side as the billows come up, hence, allowing the mixture to move only in one direction.  After a minute or two, it builds up a vacuum in the vacuum tank…and when you flush, a lot of mixture pushes right through the cylinder chamber to the black tank, the rest of it is pumped as the billows go up and down.

All of these pictures were taken with my cell phone, except the duck bill (above) and the picture below, both of which I got off the Internet.  Above is my arm…the hazards of working in a very tight space.  This was before re-installing it, and it even looks worse now.  Amazingly, the right arm hardly has a scratch. 

TWO ISSUES:  I showed the picture above, less the arrow, in a previous blog.  When I put the  motor assembly back together again, I did not get these clamps (red arrow) on correctly.  The beveled end actually faces down, not up.  When they are up, the billows will “seem” to be set correctly, but as soon as you move the motor and add compression, the billow will pop down, hitting the bottom of the cylinder.  The directions are vague on this, and I should have researched the Internet again right before I put those on.  But THANK GOODNESS I tested it before I put it back into the RV, and it was not that hard to take apart and put them in the right way…which holds the billows in place.  WOW, this new motor and billows are much quieter than the old ones.

The second issue is that I have a leak.  When I was at HomeDepot, the person in plumbing gave me the wrong washer for that white pipe shown in the first picture.  So tomorrow (or one of these days when I can bend over and reach into that small compartment) I will need to take the white pipe off, get it over to a nearby Ace Hardware, and get the right washer.  Not looking forward to that…but it needs to be done.

One GOOF:  As I was trying to unloosen the back left bolt holding the assembly in place on the vacuum tank...I dropped the wrench...which went down to the back side of the vacuum tank.  It was easy to get to once I had the pump assembly pulled out, and thank goodness I was able to use a ratchet on the other back bolt...but the ratchet would not work on this once due to the confined space.  By chance, I tried to turn the bolt with my bare hand...and it turned.  I think this is what messed up my left arm so much....