RE: 1993 Beaver Patriot (Savannah) ??
We looked at a 93 Charleston 30-footer, but the dealer was asking 2.4x the NADA price and wouldn't negotiate. We ended up with our signature '02 Georgetown for less than that clown wanted for a 93 DP.
RE: Advice for bypassing Skagit River Bridge?
The "other bridge", joining Burlington Boulevard to Riverside Drive used to be a very narrow, two-lane steel truss bridge of similar design to the one that just collapsed. Since the streets it joined were both 4-lanes, it was a bad bottle-neck. It was replaced about 10 years ago by a concrete 4-lane bridge.
The bad thing about the "close-by" detour using that bridge is that those streets are already badly congested by local traffic. Adding 70,000 more vehicles a day (many of them 18-wheelers) will make a real mess.
We went into M-V yesterday from Anacortes. It took about 15 minutes longer than usual. WADOT has a number of detours on its website. The biggest snag is that, so far, they haven't re-programmed the priority algorithms in the traffic-light controllers. There was a 3-mile back-up at the junction of Best Road and SR 20 for northbound traffic. A 3-vehicle back-up used to be cause for comment!
Headed south from Bellingham, I'd be tempted to head over to Old 99 at Nulle Road and go south to Cook Road (just after the wood trestle bridge over the railroad track) then east on Cook Road to Sedro-Woolley with a short stretch of SR 20 east to get to Highway 9. Headed south, you have a couple of options to get back to I-5.
The first you come to is the roundabout at Big Rock, where College Way meets Highway 9. Unfortunately, the last few blocks of College Way is where the close-by detour goes back on I-5, so it would be backed up a long way. You could take a left turn onto Riverside Drive and go through downtown Mount Vernon and get back onto I-5 at Kincaid Street or go south of town on 2nd Avenue and get back on I-5 at the Cedardale Orchard on-ramp.
The second option is to go south on highway 9 to old-town Arlington, then take the SR back to I-5 just north of the Smokey Point rest area. That's the narrow, twisty stretch of highway 9 mentioned by an earlier post.
It's not just the TV guys that get things wrong. Associated Press put out a story, that made some of the British newspapers, stating that the bridge "connected Seattle to Canada". The would be a VERY long bridge!
Actually, the Seattle TV stations have done a fairly good job getting the facts straight and ABC has a resident reporter in Seattle (Neal Karlinsky) and his report on the evening news was fairly accurate.
RE: Washing clothes at a campground.
.When we first bought our house, we left our washer and dryer for the buyers of our old one. We bought a combo washer/dryer called a "Eurotech". This was back in 1999. The current Splendide is a dead ringer for that POS Eurotech.
One of its big sales pitch advantages was the "high speed spin", at 1200 rpm. It shook so bad from starting with all the wet clothes at the 6 o'clock position in the drum that it shook pictures off the wall in the adjacent bedroom and popped out wallboard nails in the laundry room. We gave up on it and traded it back to the dealer for a conventional top loader and matching dryer. If the Splendide is anything like that Eurotech, I wouldn't touch it with a barge-pole.
We haven't bothered with a washing machine in the RV. We do laundry in the CG facilities about every third day, staying an extra night if necessary.
RE: Farewell
Congratulations. As an ex-pat Brit and a long-time resident in the Pacific NW, I couldn't stand Florida's summer weather. Our summers here get all the way up to 75 degrees with humidity around 30%. That's enough for this "weather wimp". We lived in Tidewater VA for three years, and the summers there were the most miserable atmospheric experience of my life. Our winters rarely get below freezing for more than overnight. Of course we get a lot of "800 broken, 1500 overcast, 0.25 miles visibility, rain and fog" between early October and mid-February. Those wealthier than us flee to Mexico, Hawaii or similar places and leave their houses susceptible to burglars and other undesirables!
Best wishes for your "permanent" retirement. Hope you love Florida as much as we love Anacortes.
RE: Weber Q grill dimensions
I got the Q-220 as a gift. It's about 3/4" too tall to go in the cargo bays of my rig with the lid on, so I just pop off the two hinge pins and stow the lid and the base separately. Takes about 30 seconds, including putting the pins back in the holes after separating the lid and base. IMO it's worth it for the extra BTU/min of the 200 series.
RE: Carrying Aux propane tank
I decided not to try a T-connection in the house LP system for the Weber Q grill. I bought a "squatty" 10-pound tank that has the same base ring as the 20-pounder. I got a "base stabilizer ring" from CW and bolted it to the floor in one of my stowbins. I drilled a few holes underneath for venting (like the bins are so perfectly sealed!) I keep about 5 ponds of propane in it so it's not too hard to lift.
It snaps into the base ring very snugly and I've always had to work at the job to get it out when I want to use the grill.
RE: DW won't drive
Unfortunately, my wife isn't tall enough to drive our Georgetown. The seats are too high off the floor (no height adjustment), they don't go far enough forwards, the pedal cluster doesn't move and the steering column isn't telescopic.
If I had the cash and the time, I'd go look for a retired Gillig transit coach and get the Recaro driver's seat and the double-jointed telescopic steering column to put in our rig. I'd also get the Ford power-adjusting pedal cluster from the Taurus or the F-series truck.
Our "get home" emergency system is a one-way airplane ticket for a son-in-law to fly out and drive us back.
RE: Refrig light
When the bulb in my frig light failed, I decided to get an LED version. It didn't occur to me that the "D" stands for diode. I installed it and it didn't come on.
I called the store and they said "put it in the other way round". I did so and the light came on.
RE: Misleading avertising/ignorant sales people
I'm afraid that there's a difference between "ignorant" and "fraudulent" that is often missed. We have a 32' gasser that we bought with no preconceptions about towing capability. The original owners didn't have a toad in the 9 years they owned it and, for the moment, neither do we.
It has a 5K hitch, and initially we thought we'd be able to tow our '03 Kia Sedona, which has a "curb weight" of 4800 pounds. The cost of adapting the Kia to flat towing was prohibitive (more than the damn thing is worth!), and a dolly that could support a 4800 lb. FWD vehicle is certainly going to weigh a lot more than the 200 pounds remaining on the hitch capacity. For the moment we're remaining toadless.
I'm still looking at ideas. It's "generally accepted" that Saturns can be flat towed without any mods. Can anyone confirm that the blanket statement also applies to the bigger L model? The LW wagon with the 3-liter V6 would make a damn good family (me, DW and two Labs) vehicle and, if it can be flat towed as delivered, it would be ideal, provided I can convince DW that buying a used car whose manufacturer has gone out of business isn't a dumb idea.
Comments appreciated.
BTW, I initially spelled "curb" how I'd always spelled it ("kerb"), but spell checker got all ticked off. I'm an ex-pat Brit, and after 45 years in the US, I get more confused now than when we first came over, by differences in our "common" language. Is "curb" the way it should be spelled? After all, "curb" means to limit something.
RE: I was going to de-winterize...
This part of Washington State (the usually wet side) will be bright and sunny for about a week, with temps approaching 80F over the weekend. I'll be de-winterizing today and getting ready to leave for the Oregon coast shortly.
RE: 460 exhaust manifolds
When we had our old rig with a 460, the chief mechanic at a local Ford place said "the reason the stock 460, with the Ford manifolds, blows exhaust gaskets is that it shouldn't have any. It should have the manifolds bolted directly to the heads with the type of fasteners specified by Ford. This is critical for proper heat transfer which is messed up by putting gaskets in".
He did relent on one specific type, from JC Whitney, that was annealed solid copper and came with specialised fasteners with locking heads.
RE: Tire question from a Newbee
It's a bit complicated, particularly with a tag-axle rig, but you really should weigh the rig when loaded for travelling. Get both front and rear weights separately and, if possible, pull off the scale forwards so that just the tag axle is weighed. It's a reasonable assumption that the weights side to side are close to equal, but you might just want to check at the scale by doing all left-side wheels on the scale, then all right side.
Once you know what weight each axle is supporting, you can get a weight per tire/recommended inflation pressure chart and inflate them appropriately.
As far as tire gauges go, I'd recommend one like I have. It's a Radio Shack digital gauge and is powered by the sir itself - no batteries required. I think Sears has the same model.
Welcome to the world of RV travelling.
RE: 460 exhaust manifolds
We ordered a set of Thorleys for our 85 460 when I was having the trouble with the Ford manifolds. When they arrived, we found the distance from the exhaust ports to the bottom pipe was about 4" too short and didn't go underneath the chassis cross member.
Thorley insisted they were the right p/n and wouldn't take them back. Eventually, the shop sold them to someone for a 460-powered car. Maybe Thorley is a bit more customer oriented these days. I sure wasn't impressed.
I had the Ford parts trued and re-installed. I sold the old clunker the following season.
RE: 1998 ford class A chassis Fuel injection???
IIRC, Ford went EFI in '91 or '92. My old '85 Class C 460 had a carburator (a French noun that means "leave well enough alone") and enough anti-smog gear to power a small town. Was I ever glad to get rid of that turkey!
RE: Propane to small grill
I've seen a few posts that suggest that the regulator for the MH isn't sensitive enough to control a small grill. One poster said he couldn't get his Weber Q220 down below 600 degrees!
I bought a "squatty" 10-pound tank that has the same size base ring as the more typical 20 pounders, and a Camping World base-retaining ring. I bolted the base ring in a cargo bay and carry the 10-pound tank in there. I don't fill tha tank, but have it filled to about 2/3 each time.
RE: Generator wont start
What brand of generator? If it's an Onan with a carburator, there's a drain screw that lets you drain the float-bowl for storage. That will tell you whether the pump is providing fuel. On my Onan, there's a diaphragm type fuel pump mounted on the RV's frame just below the shock-mounted platform the generator is mounted on.
BTW, mine won't run either - still puzzling over it. It starts, running very rich, then quits after a couple of seconds. I have the feeling that the float isn't floating any more, as the prime doesn't stop until I let go of the switch.
If it will stop raining for a few hours, I might be able to get back to work on it!
RE: 460 exhaust manifolds
When I was struggling with my old POS, I came across a set of special bolts and gaskets in the JC Whitney catalog. By the time I spotted them we'd aready had the repairs done and decided to sell.
RE: Memories
Grizz:
Does your "handle" mean you went to the University of Montana? We have a grand-daughter going there, doing a degree in wildlife management.
RE: 460 exhaust manifolds
A few years ago, we had a 26' Class C with a 460. Being complete uninformed idiots, we didn't know what we were getting into. We hadn't found this forum or irv2.com.
Within a few weeks we started to get manifold leaks. We took it to a local shop which was run by a former Ford dealer shop manager. He recommended headers, so we ordered a set from Thorley. They were totally wrong for our rig - we'd have had to bore a 3" hole in the transmission cross-member to get them to fit. Thorley insisted they were the right parts and refused to re-stock them. The shop chose to take them into stock at no charge to me.
We then spent the best part of $1300 to get the manifolds resurfaced an reinstalled. The mechanic said that gaskets should not be used, unless they were the soft copper gaskets from JC Whitney.
We had the manifolds re-installed without gaskets ahd they seemed to be OK. We were so pissed off by the quality and configuratiion of the rig, we sold it, at a significant loss, just to be rid of the POS.
After 7 years without an RV, we finally bought our current 32' Georgetown, an F53 with a V-10 and we're very happy with it. It gets 30% better gas mileage than the 26-footer, rides more gently, climbs the mountain passes much more athletically and is overall so much better.
