RV Cheaper!

and the water fell on the floor!

It was finally time to continue on our “Severance Tour”, we drove the Jeep to Texas to visit Carmen & family and then get the RV back on the road. We literally went under the Riggs Road overpass, the last exit out of the Phoenix metro area and the check engine light came on! We’ve had this Jeep in shake down mode with plenty of freeway drives so I was truly “shocked and dismayed” with the timing.

I stopped at an AutoZone in Casa Grande and they put a code reader on and showed random misfire on cylinders 4, 5 and 6. I know at this point I can make it to Texas just fine since the engine is running smooth as silk and “random” misfires are very minor. I bought a set of spark plugs, cap, rotor and new spark plug wires and figured I’ll install once we get to Carmen’s but, have them on hand just in case. At this point I’m feeling deja-vu from our trip home after buying the RV. But we will press on like we did back then…

We spent the weekend visiting with Carmen’s family and planned on hitting the road again after they went back to work/school. We had started the fridge over the weekend and started getting ready to pack & go Monday morning. Alice called out to me that the water wasn’t working so I opened the basement where the water pump is and it was running fine. As I’m walking back to the door I see a stream of water coming out from under the RV. Upon closer inspection I found out some pipes in the basement were cracked at the low points. We texted Carmen that we were going to keep them company a while longer.

Carmen and Bryce had a cold spell after we left in February and “strongly suggested” running the furnace and they would go fill propone if needed. I recall how fast we went through propane on the trailer and I knew they’ve been super busy. I didn’t want to have them having to drive the beast to fill propane every couple days and resisted using the furnace. I did agree to their second suggestion to use an electric space heater so they didn’t have to mess with driving the RV to town.

So our trip is delayed until I fix the pipes, little did I know how many hidden pipes were split. Each time I fixed the leaks I found, the next higher split in the system would spew water under the RV. The water, not moving ahead reminded me of Lynyrd Skynyrd since the RV couldn’t even get three steps so that song was going through my mind during repairs. It ended up taking almost a week to fix the mess I created. Some sections of CPVC pipe were long and there was no way to snake stiff replacement pipe through an assembled RV. I had to use PEX in some areas and use adapters between CPVC and PEX joints.

Just proves, listen to your children and take their advice!

Several fittings had multiple cracks from the water freezing, I’ll be creating a brand new bypass manifold
Mother nature is so artistic when it comes to snow flakes and ice…
Removing the small panels at the back of the compartments revealed more pipes frozen.
When I removed this inner panel, I discovered we have a heated basement.
This is the pile after I finished replacing all of the split pipes. I can’t imagine how much this labor for repair this major would have cost, yikes!
Had to build a new Heater Bypass and Winterizing manifold, I added a pipe union since the old connector was impossible to disconnect. Luckily I got the two fittings spaced right but the elbow has room with the extra length.
One end is the bypass manifold I recreated and the other end is the fresh water tank. But the PEX hose had to go by the drivers side city hookups
Added a PEX adapter to the tank connection and made sure the pipe slope down for winterizing.
With all of the inner panels out, I could get to the pipes and see how the warm air from the furnace circulates into the entire basement. Propane is much cheaper than frozen pipes!
The red is hot and the blue is cold, was interesting to see how the factory minimized the amount and distance they ran pipe. But it was still a lot to replace!
Drivers side at the first bend head to city hookups.
Hooking up the bathroom required removal of wheel well and raising the RV up as until rear wheels were off the ground to reach the connections.
I had to add additional screws to hold the wheel well in since the old holes became weak after 20 years on the road
Once the repairs were done, we hooked up the Jeep, said our goodbyes and hit the road. I didn’t get the transfer case into neutral so we did leave a little skid mark during roll check. I also managed to replace the plugs, cap, rotor and spark plug wires on the Jeep. what a week!

 

 

 

 

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