Saturday, March 19, 2011

MOTOR HOME MAINTENANCE

Thursday, March 17 – Headed out on my morning bike ride, bright and early, only to have Marsha come flagging me down in the car. The RV Mobile Lube truck was here....EARLY....for my oil change appointment.

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I had read about this company in Odel & Laurie's Blog, Semi True Tales of Our Life on the Road. They were happy with this service and so was I. The gentleman did what I felt was a wonderful job....changing my oil, filters, lubing the chassis, checking air pressure, checking oil in my wheel hubs, changing the generator oil and generator filters. He was here about two hours and did an outstanding job. They have offices/trucks in Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio....check them out here: http://www.rvmobilelube.com

Dumping oil
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His truck was well equipped.
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Adding oil.
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Greasing rear end.
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Paul then did some work around the motor home, and Marsha started dying pine needles for her next pine needle basket. I wonder what shape and size she has plans for now????

Marsha purchased liquid clothes dye…dark brown. First, she had to soak the pine needles in warm water for ten minutes. She mixed it and placed some wet needles in a tin pan. Be sure to wear gloves and old clothes!
needle-in-pan

Something heavy needs to hold the needles down in the dye. She put some water in another tin pan and laid it on top. She left them this way for about 30 min.
pan

She then rinsed them in cold water and laid them on a cookie sheet to dry.
drying

Before and after….they did turn a dark brown. She was thrilled.
color-compare

Friday, March 18 – Paul has another project! We've never been especially happy with the appearance of the MH front end. It has a protective coating of plastic manufactured by 3M that has proven unsatisfactory by MH owners. As a matter of fact, the product application has been discontinued by Tiffin. They now use Diamond Shield, which many owners praise but many are unhappy, as well. The problem with the 3M product is it is soft and therefore gets stone nicked and stains easily by the bugs splattered while driving. It is impossible to clean. Furthermore, after several years, mold begins to form between the shield and the paint.

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The only solution is to remove it! The fear, of course, is while peeling it off, you may damage the paint......YIKES! That is what's kept Paul from attempting the removal procedure. After talking with a fellow Rver, parked next door, Paul has decided to give it a try. If the paint is damaged, I guess we'll get it painted.

Everything went AWESOME with the plastic film removal.

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Only one little goof-up, the rest looks like new.

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The word Phaeton was glued over top of the coating. It was very easy to remove.
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Paul is soooooo happy with the results.

This is the same spot as in the second picture above. Pretty amazing change.
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Before
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After
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Once the protective coating was removed, there was some glue residue. We purchased 3M Adhesive Remover which worked amazingly. It just melted that residue away.

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He then polished the front.

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Like new.
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Hopefully it will hold up to the abuse of bugs and stones being thrown up from the road. Eventually, Paul figures the front end will need painting.....hopefully a few years down the road.

We're heading to the Houston Rodeo tonight with our two daughters. We will report on that event in our next blog.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!

4 comments:

  1. I want to go!!! I want to go to the rodeo....:( but we are to far away this time. Paul sure is handy isn't he.
    Duane

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  2. Wow, the front of the motor home looks fantastic. I would have been scared to death to try to remove that. Glad it came out so well. We had some paint work done on our Phaeton in 'downtown' Red Bay by Bruce Deaton - excellent, excellent job.

    Finally a use for pine needles - what will they turn into?

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  3. Wow, you guys really work hard! I'm so glad you get good payoffs from it.

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  4. What an undertaking but it looks like Paul did a fantastic job!

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