We spent 10 days in Red Bay at the Tiffin Service Center. They had replaced my rails (the radius that meets the roof to the side wall) in April and the DS rear had come loose and lifted up. I had noticed this while in Hungry Horse, MT and was going back to Tiffin when we came back to this area. I also had several little things to do, i.e. DS day/night shade had come loose from the ceiling and the burner on the stove would not stay lite. I also had a couple of questions about systems and my understanding of what they were doing.
Tiffin is quite busy, basically all the time. They have about 100 sites and they are almost always full with several in the overflow dry camping locations, especially this time of year. It doesn't take long to get into a full hook up site, it's just a process.
We arrived on a Tuesday about noon. While coming through town I met two MHs with toads leaving. I was optimistic about getting a full site and we just walked in to site 57. It was looking up. Got things rolling and got into the express bay on Monday of the next week. It is just a process of waiting for your number to come up and then the process will begin.
Carolyn had a problem with a drawer slide and that was a quick fix - out of the track. The shade was put back with an additional clip. Things were looking up. The stove problem (I thought was a thermocouple gone bad) was just the knob. It has a little metal piece on the flat section of the knob and the plastic had split enough that allowed the metal piece to turn within the space and not make good contact. Great.
Then came the Aqua-hot. For a long time if not since we've had the MH we have not had hot water without the diesel burner being on. Reading other peoples blogs and comments on the forums I thought the electric side of our Aqua-hot was bad. The technician came out and we worked through the problem (two days). I hate to say the problem was the breaker on the inside panel was flipped, again Great even though my problem.
While working through this problem one morning the diesel side of the Aqua-hot did not fire. Long story short, it was the control unit for that part within the Aqua-hot. Note, not my fault. :)
While working through the diesel side problem we took cup showers for two mornings. Now I didn't have a problem with this as I did this a lot while in the Army. Carolyn had not had to do this, but with a little instruction she had no problems. :)
While worrying with the Aqua-hot, I was going to have the rails repaired. They are now putting a rivet down both sides of the rail replacement, spaced about every 4". This hopefully should prevent any further problems.
My fuel gauge had never worked properly. No matter how much I put in it would never read much above 3/4 of a tank. Now the question was; was I full, 150 gallons? or when registering empty did I have another 30-40 gallons left? That is a question I did not want to test. The fix was to cut the vent lines to the tank fill, which had a loop in them, and make them straight and then go and fill up. I had filled up just out of town, but I was able to put about 15-20 gallons more. Still registered the same. The solution was to change out the fuel sending unit. It required emptying the tank into two big drums and then change out the unit. The old unit had fuel getting into the wires and the wire was just a hair different in angle. Upon refill, we were full. In fact after we left I was afraid it was stuck because it wouldn't move, but after 100 miles or so it did show a little drop.
The good part of the whole trip was that I got to use my newly purchased (Aug) extended warranty. Now I no it was a decent purchase, everything got fixed, and I now know a little more about this complicated piece of machinery. There is much more to learn, although I'd like to wait a little to learn it. :):)
We headed to Hoover RV Park, Hoover, AL and stayed a week having several appointments. It was a laid back parking lot with a lot of good walking area. It is at the Ball Stadium and is patrolled day and night.
We now sit just outside of Asheville, NC. The leaves are turning and it just saw 60 today. Great fall weather. There will be more to come, I promise.
Life is good.
