Getting the rig road ready...

I spent the better part of yesterday afternoon working on the old Dolphin while in storage. We have a pretty good trip planned for most of the Christmas / New Year's holiday. There will be a lot of driving involved.

So, in order to prepare and feel safe about actually making this trip, there were some things that needed to be taken care of.

My father in law, who is currently an unemployed mechanic was the perfect candidate to take with me out there. We loaded up his truck with the essentials we might need and headed off to storage to begin the transformation.

The Dolphin got her first oil change since the drive home from Idaho. I have been trying to find time to take care of this but had just been too busy. It is now done and I feel much better about driving her now. While we were at it, we did the oil and filter in the generator as well.

A couple of months ago, I had to do a pretty hard stop for a light while we were headed out of town. I learned a couple of things at that light. One, always go ahead and start slowing down for a light, even if it is green. Two, I don't care about pissing anyone off out there while I am driving. They are driving much smaller, lighter vehicles. If they are unhappy about having to slow down for a green light, they can go around. Three...if you have to stop like that, it pretty much ruins the brakes for the remainder of the trip. The past month driving it has been kinda scary.

So, that being said, we emptied out the old, black, nasty brake fluid and exchanged it for some nice, clean, new brake fluid. Then we bled all the wheels and hopefully fixed the problem that was created by the old stuff. They felt great yesterday while still in the parking lot. I am hoping that fixed the issue.

Then we moved on to what I was expecting to be the simplest repair of all. It ended up being the hardest and the most expensive. Go figure. The filler hose for the fuel tank had begun leaking on our way home from Idaho. During filling, gasoline would pour from the holes in the hose and spill all over the ground. Filling on the lowest setting would keep it from happening, but it added a LOT of minutes on to fill time. The hose was $35 PER FOOT and I needed the entire 3 foot length. Ouch. Muscling this thing into position was much more of chore than I had ever anticipated. Luckily, Paul was able to get under the coach and put his weight behind it to get it on. I would say we spent a good hour just doing that repair.

The final fix, while not in the order of how we actually did them, was more of a trivial repair since it wasn't safety related at all. We had noticed an exhaust leak before we bought the Dolphin. I knew it would eventually get on my nerves and I would have to fix it. That time had come. I bought a new exhaust manifold gasket and got settled in for what was going to be a major repair. However, as is RARELY the case for me, it turned out to be a leak in a much easier to repair location. The riser tube for the EGR valve had a nice cut in it and that is what was causing all the ruckus. Unfortunately, the new tube is an "order only" item so we ended up using some ingenuity and a bit of JB Weld to remedy the problem for the trip. We'll fix it properly when we get back home, but the order time on the part is seven days. Oh well.

So, all that being done, I think the old girl will be much more road worthy for the upcoming trip.