Update on New Paint

When we last posted pictures on the new front cap paint, the job was not complete, so we offer a few shots of before, during and after below.

Before: note the cracked and discolored Sun sticker.   The clear coat was breaking down all along the top of the front cap, you can just see it in the picture above and to the frame left of the upper marker lights.

The Sun sticker was by far the worst part of the front cap.  It looked horrible and was very difficult for Johan to remove.

Below are a few more shots of During the repaint process.  Johan left and Mario right wet sanded the entire front cap by hand, checking smoothness with their hands as they went.

Wet sanding complete.

Washing was next.

Washing complete.

Mario sprays primer on the heavier sanded areas and spots.

Mario begins painting with the darkest colors.  He sprayed the black and dark brown the first day of painting.

The paint dried quickly and the masking was applied next.

Johan assists the masking process by filling in the field of a swirl.

End of day one of painting.  We were wondering how this was all going to turn out!

Day two, Mario sprays the lighter gold colors, and employs a beach umbrella to shade the fresh paint from the sun.

Getting ready for clear coat, more masking goes on.  The entire front half of the trailer was bagged in plastic.

Mario begins removing the design masking to prepare for spraying the clear coat

End of day two.  Looks much better, but we see a few smudges on and near the brown swirl at frame left.

Day three, Mario said he would fix the smudges, and below he does just that using small temporary masking.

Now the clear coat goes on.  Mario applied three full coats over the entire front cap, top to bottom.  He explained through Jasmine that the clear coat has to be applied at just the right time; the previous coat can't dry too much.  As a result, Mario sprayed continuously until all three coats were applied.  Up and down the ladder he went.  We guarantee that took lots of strength and endurance!  Johan and Mario Jr hold the shade umbrellas below.

All finished and the rest of the masking starts to come off.  Gari is up top and is helping to remove and manage the masking.

Fully finished After photo below.  We are very pleased with Mario's work and recommend him without hesitation.

A Walk in the Clouds

We have been wintering in Yuma, AZ for the last six years.  During that time we have stayed on five different rental lots with three different couples who are all now part of our family and vice versa.  There is a saying out here that goes something like this, 'If you're lucky enough to be in the desert, then you're lucky enough.' 

One of the dreams that we have shared while in Yuma is to summit Jester's Peak.  Last week, we struck out on a hike and we came as close as we have come to realizing that dream yet.  Below is our view of Jester's Peak from our RV parking spot.

At the top of Jester's Peak is an American Flag.  The flag does have a solar powered light and when it is working we see a tiny speck of light at the peak during the dark hours of the night.

We started out in the morning on that day and walked from our RV lot toward the Jester's Peak Trailhead.  We were fresh and the morning air was cool.  Gari surveys the path forward.

Below we look back toward the Yuma Foothills neighborhood where our RV is parked.  The spot of the photo below is at the end of the ORV road.  From there the way forward is a foot trail that connects to a different ORV road.

Gari at the end of the road spot.  The foot trail is at frame right of Gari.  We were about 1.7 miles from the RV at this point and this is where the incline begins to turn upward.

Below Gari inspects the Jester's Trailhead bulletin board.

The message about Jester's Trail found on the bulletin board.

Looking back toward the west and Yuma Foothills from the trailhead.  This is also the end of this road into the Gila Mountains, and from there we are back onto a foot trail, which is Jester's Trail.  We are now about 2.5 miles from our RV.

The start of Jester's Peak Trail.  It starts off easy enough...

Below, Gari looks back to the trailhead bulletin board.

The terrain become steeper and at this spot the sun has not reached our east side of the slope yet this morning.

Looking westward below we can see the shadow cast by the tall cliff behind.

Onward and back toward the sunlight.

Going up in elevation now; another switchback ahead.

We take a short break at a small pass.  It was windy up there.

Mountains behind mountains looking toward the northeast.

Looking down. The Foothills neighborhood looks like a patch in the desert.  You can make out the two golf courses, which are the green areas within the housing.

The trail gets serious here...

Better get the hero shot!

We called this spot the end of the hike that day and enjoyed a snack...

...with the flag peak insight.  We figured that we fell short today about 2,000 ft of the entire dream.

The picnic site also provided a nice view of the Foothills before we turned back for home.  From this higher vantage point we can see the solar farm to the west beyond the Foothills neighborhood.  For now, the Jester Peak Dream lives on!

2021 Is Here

Writing this post on January 8th, it already feels like February or March!  Lots going on so far, and this post will hit a few highlights with us here in Yuma.  What are you up to?

That's us on our spot in the Yuma Foothills of the Gila Mountain Range.  We arrived just before New Year's Day on December 28th.

Romeo and Penelope all set up.  We have been getting a Low Coolant message intermittently when starting up Romeo the first time in the mornings, especially when it was cold out up in Idaho.  That has been going on for close to a year now, with the occurrences increasing.  The message would always go off after things warmed up for a few minutes.  We have kept an eye on the coolant level and it appeared full; more on that in a second.  We actually got the coolant message while we were pulling down to Yuma a week ago.  That was a first.  We had Romeo serviced in Idaho just before we pulled to Arizona in November.  We reported the low coolant message situation to the dealer and they said that they topped off the radiator coolant.  We got the Low Coolant message the next day I think.  Today we purchased a gallon of antifreeze/coolant from the Yuma dealer to ensure we got the correct coolant.  We ended up pouring half of the gallon into the radiator overflow reservoir before the level hit the Max Fill line... so maybe the coolant WAS low!  We find it hard to believe that 1/2 gallon of antifreeze went away since November.  We have read on the forums that the 6.7L Ram Cummins engine does have a disappearing coolant issue... We will keep an eye on the messages and levels better now.  We still have 1/2 gallon of coolant to use.  The situation with the coolant overflow reservoir is that the Max and Min fill markings are confusing, and when the coolant appears to be very close to the fill lines, it can be missing 1/2 gallon as we discovered today.  Our finding is that looking down into the fill spout of the overflow reservoir told the truth of where the coolant level really was.  It's not easy to see in there either. a step ladder was necessary in order to get right view.

The first full moon of the year has already occurred, and it rises over the Gila Mountains below as seen looking through the masonry arch.

One of our first RV projects this year in Yuma is a slide seal repair.  The seal shown below is the double wiper seal on the aft vertical opening of the bedroom slide.  The rubber in that section of this seal has degenerated into a gooey mess and is coming apart more each time we run slides in and out.  The opening is still sealed because it is a double wiper seal, but it is obviously time to replace this seal.

The picture below is a cross section of the seal (looking straight up from the seal bottom) that we used to identify the correct replacement part(s).  It turns out our slide seals are a two part seal.  The double wiper seal turned out to be an AP Products #018-2030-168, Double EKD Base w/2-3/8" wiper, 2" x 3-3/16" x 14'.  Wall thickness: 1.625” - 2.375”
Black.  The second part to the seal is also an AP Products part #018-312-EKD, D Seal for EKD Base,
1" x 15/16" x 35', Black.  The double wiper seal is ridiculously expensive at about $17 per foot!  The D seal is much more reasonable at about $0.45 per foot.  We learned that replacing all the slide seals would be a $3,000 job plus!  This shot below was taken from under the aft opening of the Gally slide; the same seal as the Bedroom, but is much easier to see where it hangs down unobstructed at the trailer skirting.  You can see a previous repair we did to this Galley slide floor at the left side of the picture.  We masked off a rectangular area and applied several coats of Flex Seal, that area appears as that wavy rectangle at the left side.  I mention this because we DO NOT recommend Flex Seal for this type of repair.  The Flex Seal is coming of in pieces each time we run slides in and out.

The picture below is a before photo of our front cap.  The Eagle, Sun and manufacturer name and model are all stickers.  The Eagle and lettering all look fine, but the Sun sticker has discolored and cracked very badly and looks horrible.  We have been noticing clear coat damage growing on the front cap up at the top and have been talking about getting some paint rework done for a few years now.  We either haven't made time for it or haven't had the right situation until now...

We saw some nice work on our friends John and Sharon's 5th wheel trailer.  They gave us the contact information for Mario's Mobile Body Shop and Wash service.  Mario and his wife Jasmine arrived one day this week and we discussed the work and reached an agreement that first visit.  We liked them right away and we knew Mario does very nice work based on what we had already seen.  Below he wanted to take a couple of doors that included all four paint colors to match the existing paint colors.  Rather than use the original paint color mix, he said that this way the new paint would match the existing paint better if fade had occurred over the years.  Jasmine is holding the water heater cover as Mario removes the small door that covers the hydraulic jack control panel.  Off they went and said they would be back next week and finish the job in about 3 days.

Surprise, Mario finished his last project a couple days earlier than anticipated and popped in to begin some preparation work.  Below Steve discusses planning with Jasmine as Mario and helper Johan work the cap.  Mario is up high operating the orbital sander and attacking the clear coat failure area.  Johan works on removing all the stickers from the cap which includes the New Horizons manufacturer name, the Majestic model name, the Eagle outline sticker and the cracked, discolored Sun sticker.  We have decided that none of that will go back on, we will just go with the swirl pattern alone.

More progress...

Gari has her own questions for Jasmine. 

Johan continues to work on the Sun sticker.  That thing is a mess; it is coming off in small pieces.  The rest of the stickers are already off and came off much more easily.  The Sun sticker was looking very bad for the last year plus.

First day of prep work completed.  All the stickers removed.

Isolation shot of the cap area.

Next project, replacing a shifter cable on Gari's bicycle.

The shift kit is a Shimano set up.

The picture below shows the shredded cable housing.

It turned out the rear cable housing was shredded too.

It turns out we did this the hard way... The picture below is of the bottom of the shift lever housing.  We removed three small screws and the larger lag bolt in the center and opened up the shifter lever housing, thinking this was the only way to get the new cable into the housing.  Big. Mistake.

That's a view inside the shift housing.  Yep there were springs in there, more than one.  It wasn't the way to do it, but fortunately we got everything put back in it's correct location after an hour of trying and repeatedly failing.  We took a test ride of 8-10 miles and all seems to be well and back in working order.