Sunday, October 25, 2009

More motorhome service, and the Hawkeyes win again

Remember yesterday, it was late in the day when the UPS guy brought the filter, and it began to rain.  So today was sunny and 60.  So that was the big
maintenance day here.  Its all laid out on the endgate of the pickup.         

 

Every thing is covered with undercoating under here.  Yuck!  There it is the little one in front of the silver transmission pan.  That pan is the big capacity pan, to hold lots of that $15 a quart synthetic fluid.  LOL.
 
 
So I replaced the little guy with the new one.  The magnet inside is just a big washer, and it was covered with dark gray filings.  Or maybe dust, if it hadn't been covered in red fluid.   You just wipe it all off with a rag and put it back on.



Didn't get much fluid out of it, only about 8 ounces.  But the old filter is still soaked in it.  Used about a pint to fill it back to the full cold line.





You can sure see why the filter needs changed, there was a bunch of crud caught in the fluid that came out of it.




I worked all day on the motorhome, changing out the rear end grease, and installing new synthetic 75W-90.  I am told that the synthetic will last for 75K miles, unlike the conventional that will last 30K.  As goopy and messy a job as it is to change the stuff, I couldn't imagine why someone would not opt for the synthetic.

Then I started on the Onan genset for an oil change and filter.  It only holds three quarts, and I thougt that would be easy.  Was I ever wrong.

You open a little trap door on the bottom of the big green box, and reach up into the generator.  I did get the compression finger filter wrench on the end of it, but could not get a grip to turn it.

I tried everything I had to remove it and went to the Autozone twice purchasing yet another wrench with no luck.  So all thirteen bolts came out of the front of the green box.  Once the front panel was off, I thought surely it would come off now.  But no, it was still too tight.

I was loosing the sunlight of the day, and it began to sprinkle, when I tried one last strap wrench that was way in the bottom of my tool box.  You use a half inch drive breaker bar on that one.  Its extreem, but it moved it.  I had to scramble to finish the change out as it was now raining and it was almost 6PM.

I drove over to storage with the coach, and came back in the car.

6PM marked the start of the Iowa Hawkeye game, which I could not get here in KC.  But they blog from the stadium on the internet, which gave me play by play.   Even if I did have to sit here and read it from the screen.  At the end, they said there were over 1,400 of us on the blog at the same time, and their system was beginning to freeze.

Iowa won the game with 2 seconds left on the final play of the game.  A touchdown pass for 7 yards with no time left on the clock.  I thought we had lost for sure.  But no, this year's team seems to reach within themselves and find the way.  They are now 8-0 for the first time in school history.

I have now seen the highlight of the final touchdown on the ESPN gameday reports, and it looks much like a miracle play, Michigan State was stunned.

Retired Rod

2 comments:

  1. I was watching a great USC/Oregon game tonight when they showed the last second Iowa TD - wow! I immediately thought of you and wondered if you were watching and if you were o.k.(LOL) - what a finish! As for all the oil changes and stuff in your blog, I think I'll stick to nice clean stuff like putting my hands inside a computer to change memory, HD, dvd-roms and stuff.

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  2. While you were laboriously changing an oil filter to-day I was laboriously changing a light bulb in a lamp. Equally challenging tasks for the people involved I would say:))

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