Random pictures. Whining and crying below.
 |
| Driving to different locations every day allows me to see the coolest stuff on my commute. |
 |
| My trainer has taught me Jedi levels of finding shade. I'm going to fill up here while the gas is cheap |
 |
| I've been hitting the RV stores to fix up my rig. I've been nosing around the lots. You can get a pretty nice trailer under 10k lbs. If I get another motorhome, I lose repair flexibility, fuel economy, and 4WD. If I get a towable, I'll have to lose the Mazda. Losing the fuel economy would cost me more than the trailer payment. |
I got my Operator Qualifications for Arkansas and Oklahoma. To the best of my knowledge, I'll be running around in these two states for the foreseeable future. In my last post, I indicated that I spent another week at Camp Disgusting. My next destination was about 300 miles away. That's a pretty long day in the saddle with my rig.
I prefer to have at least a day to get settled in, so I know that I would be making the trip on Saturday. I spent Friday evening prepping the truck. I lost the air conditioning on the last trip, and narrowed it down to an issue with the plug to the compressor clutch. I could have hacked a zip tie to hold it in place, but I didn't want it engaging intermittently. I considered hacking the wiring harness to bodge it together, but I would prefer a cleaner fix for longevity. I decided to just pull the plug and tie it out of the way.
I went inside to cool off. After about 20 minutes, the air conditioner shut off. I then received a text indicating power failure. I walked outside and asked a neighbor if he lost power as well. He looked confused, and came over to check my breaker.
I reached into the truck to grab my tic tracer. I found that I had power to the extension cord, but not in my main power cord. As I went to unplug it, I burned my hand.
I plugged into a burned outlet back in Canton Mississippi, and it ended up burning my plug. It lasted for a month before giving out. Unfortunately, it took the female end of my extension cord with it.
I quickly decided I would cut the female end off, and use the extension cord as my main power cable. At least this way, I would have a waterproof molded plug end. It won't fit neatly into the side of the camper now, but it's the best I could do given the circumstances. Moving the cord to the correct side of the rig, and switching it to something like this was on my to-do list anyway.
As I started to track down where the cable connected, my heart sank. I found out one of the previous owners had hacked in a shitty generator switch using a 20A three-way switch and about a foot of 12 gauge Romex. (It's a 30A system running through 20A wiring.)
Strangely enough, I was taxing the system heavily earlier in the day, using the air conditioner and the griddle. It waited a few hours before failing. Thankfully, it failed at the plug, rather than starting a fire behind a wooden cover panel under the sink. Despite the bullshit, I'm genuinely grateful it failed this way.
My plans to leave in the morning got put on hold. It was just getting dark in the middle of swamp-ass Mississippi, and every nearby store was closed. This was now my emergency.
I opened the windows, and threw all the refrigerated food into the freezer.
 |
| Not very waterproof |
 |
| 30 amp extension cords aren't cheap |
 |
| The screws on the side were discolored. I couldn't just un-see it. It had to be fixed before I put power back to it. |
 |
| Seriously? This is what I found when I pulled the "generator" wire. It was just hanging loose in the mystery void I spoke about in the last post. What other secrets await? |
 |
| It took a while to get this panel out. I needed access to a wire clamp behind it. I was giving serious consideration to removing the sink. I ended up Tetris-ing it out. I cracked it going back in, but it still keeps the power cable coiled up. |
 |
| You can see the clamp I needed to remove. I decided to remove this meaningless junction box with the short chunk of 12 gauge wire. Cutting that short little chunk of Romex under the box, blind, with dull cutters, and at arms length, was an exquisite pain in the ass. |
 |
| I decided that I wasn't ever going to do this again. I now have the ability to pull the entire box out, and work on it in the light. The black cable going out is what's left of the extension cord. |
 |
| Best $13 tool ever. |
