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RE: Shut off switch for "B" batteries
Your batteries should be OK for 3 to 4 months of storage with the switches off. Just to be on the safe side, I would suggest periodically checking their voltage to determine their state of charge. For longer periods of storage I normally recharge the batteries once or twice over the course of the winter.
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Shearwater
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10/09/08 07:36am |
Class B - Camping Van Conversions
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RE: Water in the Campgrounds
None of the commonly used water filters (Brita for example) sterilize the water and protect you from becoming ill. They do remove sediment and some may improve the taste of the water..
You can remove bacteria and cysts from water with hand pumped filters available from backpacking shops. These do not, however, remove viruses. For that you need some form of chemical sterilization.
Bottled water tastes OK and comes in a convenient package. However, I have never seen any bottled water that claims to be sterile.
People can and do become ill from contaminated water but this is quite rare in this country.
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Shearwater
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10/03/08 06:55am |
General RVing Issues
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RE: Tire recommendation for Sprinter? (16 inch)
Jim,
I'll try to be as nerdy as possible. It shouldn't be too hard. I followed your earlier posts on tires with a lot of interest because I have also noticed some wandering on our van with the OE Michelins. I would have simply gotten a set of the Yokohamas if I could but they do not make any tires that fit Sprinters.
Perhaps I will go with the Firestones.
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Shearwater
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09/25/08 12:01pm |
Class B - Camping Van Conversions
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RE: Tire recommendation for Sprinter? (16 inch)
I spoke to Conner at TireRack and got a completley different take than what has been posted so far. Before you read on, please note that I am not intentionally trying to step on anyone's toes. I'm just forwarding what I was told.
Michelin XPS Rib - A basic long haul rib tire suitable for drivers who put on thousands and thousands of miles, but don't care about anything other than tread wear. Poor traction in non-optimal situations, and lots of road noise.
Michelin LTX M/S - Not as good as the LTX A/S. I believe he said it has more road noise than the A/S.
B.F. Goodrich Commercial T/A - Not avaliable in 225/75 R16. (At least from Tire Rack)
Firestone Transforce HT, E Load Range - The best tire avaliable in that size, and only $121 each.
Comments? Has anyone tried the Firestones?
Well that is certainly interesting - I am glad you made the call. The ratings that I found on their web site were from customer surveys and are quite different from that.
The customers rated the XPS ribs 1st, the LTX M/S 6th, the Firestones 11th, and the LTX A/S 28th out of 66 tires in the light truck category. These ratings are for all light truck tires and are not limited to load range E and I suppose that might explain the differences. Otherwise, I am more confused than normal.
Incidentally their review of the XPS ribs says "they are not intended to be driven on snow or ice."
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Shearwater
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09/25/08 07:04am |
Class B - Camping Van Conversions
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RE: Travasak
We have the queen size Travasak for our van and love it - it makes setting up and breaking down the bed very easy. However, it is not a perfect product. The criticisms mentioned by the other posters are largely true.
The heavier "winter" side isn't much thicker than the summer side. If temperatures inside the van drop below 50 F you need an additional layer of insulation to stay warm.
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Shearwater
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09/24/08 07:51am |
General RVing Issues
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RE: Tire recommendation for Sprinter? (16 inch)
I am also looking for replacement tires and I am looking forward to seeing more posts on this subject. There don't seem to be very many tires in that size that have a load range E rating.
So far, I have just been looking at tire ratings on the tirerack.com website. The customer ratings reported for the LTX A/S original equipment tires are just average. The Michelin LTX M/S tires are rated much higher. The highest ratings go to the XPS ribs that were recommended by Dick B. Those tires, however, are rated as summer tires only.
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Shearwater
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09/22/08 06:34am |
Class B - Camping Van Conversions
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RE: Gas Generator vs. Propane
I took this data from Sportsmobiles website. They install gas, propane and diesel generators.
At full load, a gas generator uses 0.4 gal per hour, a propane generator uses 0.6 gal per hour, and a diesel uses 0.25 gal/hr. This should give you some indication as to which generator to favor.
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Shearwater
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09/16/08 04:12pm |
Class B - Camping Van Conversions
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RE: Filon wall delamination repair
It is too bad you can't use epoxy because the West system epoxy mentioned above would be ideal for your problem.
Polyester resins might have the right physical properties for the job but you would have to test them with the materials in your camper - polyesters do not bind to all the materials that epoxy does and I don't know whether they are compatible with styrofoam.
Polyurethane glues like 3M's 5200 and 4200 series are great adhesives but probably too viscous for your application. Gorilla glue (a polyurethane) might be sufficiently non-viscous but it foams badly upon setting and would be a real mess. Perhaps there are other polyurethanes out there that might meet your needs.
Perhaps the best place to ask your questions would be in a good marine store that has people that are experienced with boat repairs.
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Shearwater
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09/14/08 03:44pm |
Truck Campers
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RE: Trip to Glacier, Yellowstone, and Teton
We did a very similar trip last year at about the same time. We had no problems finding sites in the National Park campgrounds at Glacier or Grand Tetons. Yellowstone was a bit more crowded but we still found a good site. Be prepared for cold weather at this time of year.
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Shearwater
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09/07/08 04:26pm |
Truck Campers
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RE: Oil change Class C Motor Home Sprinter Chassis
Our '06 Sprinter van came with the Assyst system which tells you when to do maintenance. We did our first oil change at 14,000 miles and our second at 30,000 miles as directed by their little computer. I suspect that the computer simply records engine revolutions rather than miles driven so that you need to do maintenance at lower mileage if you drive mostly in the lower gears.
Perhaps oil changes at 7000 miles are more frequent than necessary.
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Shearwater
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09/06/08 06:51am |
Class C Motorhomes
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RE: Drawers or cupboards?
We have 4 drawers in our van and they are great for storing the numerous small items that we need - things like kitchen utensils and such. The rest of the storage space is in shelves of several varieties which are great for bulkier items. Storage is best when there are some of each.
We also have a closet which can easily be converted to shelves and we have used it both ways.
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Shearwater
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09/06/08 06:38am |
Class B - Camping Van Conversions
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RE: Sprinter B warranty question...
For 2006 models the base warranty was 3year/36,000 miles. There was also a drive train warranty for 100,000 miles that covered the engine and transmission. I don't believe that you need to have Dodge do the maintenance work in order to maintain that warranty but you might have to prove that proper maintenance was, in fact, performed.
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Shearwater
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09/06/08 06:29am |
Class B - Camping Van Conversions
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RE: Why don't camper manufacturers use rot resistant wood?
Cedar is cheap, light, and very rot resistant.
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Shearwater
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08/21/08 12:40pm |
Truck Campers
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RE: Small portable boat for family paddling around (PortaBote?)
evidently that all in one electric motor is a Torqueedo, they sell a replacement battery for $600. all I could find quickly was that it was a LIMA 29.6Volt, 9.4 lb shipping weight, 300 Wh. I assume that is 300 watt hours, how does that compare to wet cell 120 amp hours? If they can get a whole days use and plenty of power out of 9.4 lbs that certainly would be a plus on a small boat/canoe.
bumpy
Your 120 amp-hr wet cell would give you 720 watt-hrs if discharged to 50 % capacity. They claim 350 watt-hrs for their battery. However, I don't know whether their battery would be damaged by running to full discharge as wet cells are.
Supposedly, the smaller model Torqueedo is equivalent to a 2 HP outboard and the larger model is equivalent to a 6 HP outboard.
In terms of weight and convenience, the 25 lb Torqueedo (including battery) has it all over the wet cell but the cost is roughly 10 times higher. Another option is the 2 HP Honda outboard which weighs 27 lb and costs about $800.
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Shearwater
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08/19/08 08:30am |
General RVing Issues
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RE: Small portable boat for family paddling around (PortaBote?)
A portabote should do what you want. Its hull shape is a shallow V which makes it much easier to row or paddle in a straight line. Avoid flat bottom boats.
FYI there are now lightweight electric motors with built in high tech batteries that look pretty good but are very pricy - ca. $1500. Check www.defender.com or www.westmarine.com.
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Shearwater
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08/18/08 06:41am |
General RVing Issues
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RE: Turbo resonator failure report
while our 2006 LTV was at the service dept, we had them check and were told we have the plastic resonator. Dealer says not to worry, it has a 100,000 warranty, and all he can get to replace is another plastic one anyway IF and when we need one. Since we are leaving in a couple of weeks for the LTV rally, I do feel at least concerned. I don't want to be stuck up somewhere far from help. Should we get another plastic one to carry along, or am I (as DH says) worrying unnecessarily?
You are not worrying unnecessarily. Ours failed on a Sunday afternoon in a fairly remote area of Montana that was hundreds of miles from the nearest Sprinter-authorized Dodge dealer. Fortunately, I had purchased the aluminum replacement but foolishly had not installed it. I suggest that you don't bother with the plastic replacement - just buy the aluminum one and have it installed before you go.
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Shearwater
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08/13/08 02:33pm |
Class B - Camping Van Conversions
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RE: Objects Are Closer Than They Appear
My van (Sprinter) came with both regular and wide angle mirrors on both sides. I find them all to be useful but I certainly wouldn't want only a wide angle mirror on the passenger side.
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Shearwater
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07/13/08 06:53am |
Class B - Camping Van Conversions
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RE: Possible solution to smoking cigarettes
I didn't want to quit either - I loved cigarettes. Then I was diagnosed with an abdominal aortic aneurysm together with skyrocketing high blood pressure. I quit so that I would have a decent chance of surviving the surgeries. I used the patch rather than Zyban/Welbutrin and it worked out fine.
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Shearwater
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07/10/08 05:58am |
Around the Campfire
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RE: Hobbies and other interests
Photography
Birdwatching/nature in general
Boating - sailboats, canoes, kayaks
Woodworking
Travel + camping obviously
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Shearwater
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07/05/08 11:11am |
Class B - Camping Van Conversions
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RE: Can fuel be made from something other than oil?
This is a very interesting approach with some real advantages but one very large disadvantage. The disadvantage is the cost of constructing and maintaining the numbers of reactors required - reactors occupying 1/10 the area of New Mexico would represent a huge startup cost.
Otherwise the system sounds ideal. Since the products can be used for fuel directly, we could skip the costly processes of converting corn (or biomass) to sugars, fermenting the sugars to ethanol, and purifying the ethanol by distillation. Distillation requires large amounts of energy. Also, using biomass for ethanol production is much more difficult than corn - starch from corn or other crops is much, much easier to process than cellulose from switchgrassor other biomaterials. In addition, while weeds can be grown in poor soils, they will grow a lot faster in good cropland and I suspect that is where they would be grown.
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Shearwater
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07/04/08 09:49am |
Around the Campfire
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