So we returned home, ready to get our baby fixed and back on the road. Our goal was to take another shot at our trip and leave at the beginning of July. This gave us about 10 days until we wanted to do our next takeoff. So we got to it!
First thing was first, we had decent weather and we needed to get the holes in the roof repaired. I had Laura put pressure underneath the silicone covered screws with our paint scraper so I could back the screws out.
Upon removing the plywood we determined that this was definitely the source of our leak… 😬
And so began the task of patching the holes with liquid tape and then double coat of Gaco over that, in the roof itself as well as treating the plywood in the same fashion.
That evening, while that was drying and Laura was making dinner, I decided I was on to dirtier business… the unpleasant kind… the dark kind… the black water tank kind…
Well, at least the first of many steps anyway.
I had collected my gloves and some rags, figuring since we had emptied the tank it would be a simple pull the vycor tape from over the dent, maybe a couple of drips, and then I could let things air out a bit. I could have the tank airing out and be back inside and cleaned up by the time dinner was ready. Man was I wrong!
🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂
I slightly began to pull the tape and immediately learned that the bottom of our tank was not empty!!!! TP & BS (that’s as far as I’m going with that 🛑✋) began pouring out, and I immediately pushed the tape back up into place. I knew Laura was within earshot in the kitchen so I called out to her, and luckily she heard me. I waited for her to get me a 5 gallon bucket, more rags, and the hose & sprayer while I held the tape in place. Once everything was ready I ripped open the bandaid and let it flow! 🤢 I used the hose to help wash out the content as it went into the bucket, and luckily before the bucket was full it was done coming out. What was supposed to have been a simple open up and air operation turned into an hour of panic and disgust while we consistently washed and hosed down everything with bleach. 🤮
Shaky, sincerely violated, and hungry we finally went inside to clean off one last time and get some food.
So this pleasant surprise would lead me researching why there was still much left over in the tank. I theorize Tim had not properly cleaned out the tank before we bought it, and I felt ashamed I had never cleaned the tank in Serenity properly before either. 😔
There is a lot of things you can do, but one of the most important things you can do to help battle buildup in your tank is buy a spray attachment to blast down in your toilet, they aren’t too expensive and they make a world of a difference.
This will also help cut way down on tank odor too. After any big trip (or periodically if your full timing) run a hose into your bathroom, and blast out the inside of the tank with the wand. We now try to do it on our last tank dump before returning home- and we do right at the dump station while we still have the sewer dump hose hooked up as long as nobody is waiting in line behind us. Since we started doing this, our tank has been much more pleasant to deal with.
But anyhoo… we left the tank to air out for the night.
While we had been out of town, we had received a few packages. One package we were extremely excited about was The Ohana’s new emblem! Like how Serenity had had the Dolphin mirror on the back, we wanted something special for our new girl. We researched and ordered a beautiful metal sea turtle! We began playing around with where it was going to live.
To weather-proof our new turtle we ended up giving it a nice hammered pewter spray job and a few clear coats.
When it was ready we took some pieces of Gaco tape and attached them to the back and added a nice amount of caulking to the back of the turtle.
Josie paced around our feet anxiously in anticipation for the hanging of the turtle.
And then it was up! I ended up installing a couple of mirror clips on the turtle to hold it up in place so the caulking could set. The next day I pull the clips, fill the holes they left, and then caulk around the edges of the turtle.
The next morning I was on to less pleasant business again. We both agreed the tank had dried out long enough, and it was time to start repairing it.
In hopes of helping level out the dent so the fiberglass would adhere better I filled the space with plumbers putty.
Then we were on to the glassing.
And there the fiberglass sat to cure. I moved on to other projects hoping it would do the job…
…Like the next step of sealing in our turtle emblem!
During this time we had been putting the proper layers of gaco on the roof and the plywood- and it was about ready to once again go skybound!
This time the plan was to Gaco tape around the edges and try to seal the plywood into the roof completely.
While we let the first layer of Liquid tape dry over the Gaco tape I noticed a problem with the fiberglass patch. While it had stopped showing signs of water when it was open, I was still getting moisture seeping into my patch, and therefore the glass wasn’t holding in that area. We drove The Ohana up onto some large blocks to help try and get the water to run more towards the rear of the tank and out. That is how we left things to sit overnight.
The next morning I wasn’t in the mood to start with the black water tank, so I climbed up top to check on our plywood; and confirmed what I had feared. With how unlevel the roof was our plywood was floating really high in one corner, and after do some shifting around testing on it I determined it was too much movement.
I had originally theorized that I could just shim it, but with the amount of space underneath it wouldn’t be a guarantee that the shims would stay in place without sinking a screw into them. Ironically after we had just spent days patching and getting away from screw holes.
I was scratching my head when a possible good solution struck me like a bolt of lightning- spray foam! I had used it in the nose, light and strong if not chiseled at once put into place, it would do a great job filling and conforming to the awkward space underneath the plywood!
So with a plan in place; we got down to spraying some foam. It was simple as poking little holes in the Gaco tape of the perimeter where the space was, and sticking the little spray foam straw in and pulling the trigger.
So we left the first can of foam to set, and decided we could buy a few more cans if it ended up needing it.
So I was back on to the other thing… 😒
I ripped off my fiberglass patch and cleaned up the area- getting rid of the plumbers putty.
Then I decided I wanted make absolutely sure this time the tanks were dry. So I opened up the blade valves and propped up my leaf blower.
I ran the leaf blower for 2 batteries worth before I decided it had worked.
So while the soothing cry of the leaf blower filled the air, we tackled a few other small projects that were on our list.
When we had re-mounted the rear diamond plate box, the U Bolt around the trailer hitch was pretty corroded. I couldn’t find one in the right size locally so I ordered one online- and it took forever to arrive. Well since we finally had it we could swap in the new bolt.
The other “ordering online” saga that had been going on was magnets. I had found some neodymium magnets online that were countersunk to allow a screw head to flush mount them. Also the magnets were coated in a black Epoxy- in which I hoped would help them be weather-resistant.
The plan was to use them to hold open the outside storage compartment doors, as well as more importantly the camper entry door.
I was super excited when they arrived, to only find they had shipped me non epoxy coated magnets.
I sent them back, and received the same thing. I sent them back again, and received the same thing, again. 😒
So…. I sent them back and took a refund, deciding I would find them elsewhere. I could not! I could only find them on Amazon, and only from that seller. So I reluctantly tried again…
… and received the right ones on try number 4!
You want to know the irony of it all? It wasn’t worth holding out for the epoxy. Through contact the epoxy scratched right off, and in the end I would end up coating the magnet in Gaco… 🤷 Still happy with the countersunk magnets though.
To clear the window frame we ended up using a coat hook to reach the magnet attached to the coach door. This was also so we can use this for a clothesline tie-off in the future. 😊
I only ended up using the magnet on the camper door in the end due to needing more clearance to capture the doors on the outside. I decided for those we would eventually get RV compartment clips. Overall, we were very happy that our camper door finally could hold itself open.
That evening I applied the fiberglass patch, and to make dang sure it wasn’t going to leak- I glassed in 6 layers! 😆
We left the day with a quick check on our spray foam, and decided it could use at least another can the next day.
That night Laura and I decided to take a moment and chill, light up a fire, and enjoy a slow minute of summer. To light that fire I decided to use a very special piece of wood- the original shower base from Serenity. It was officially our last piece of her, and a pleasant goodbye to yesterday.
We even received a visit from our Sandhill Crane family, and the colt had already grown much bigger!
The next day we awoke to the tank officially being patched! The fiberglass was dry- and after a water test confirmed to be holding water!
With the gray water tank being dry- I took advantage of the situation and replaced the leaky blade valve on that side.
We purchased and sprayed more foam, and after letting all set ended up with some really interesting sculptures.
Laura liked them so much she kept one, and it’s sitting on my office shelf right now! 🤣
With the platform nice and sturdy we could get back to getting it all Gaco painted.
A couple of coats of bedliner on the patch and the tank was back in operating condition!
So with the tank fixed, I had few other small plumbing projects I wanted to tackle before our big trip. There was this cheesy drain spout for draining the fresh water tank, but the problem was it barely lined up with the drain hole in the floor, as well as requiring a pretty big hole in the floor.
Also the water drained straight onto the frame, so I attached a vinyl hose to the spout to help water down and past the frame.
The problem was that the whole valve spun when you turned it, because it was cheap drain valve. This caused the vinyl hose to spin with it- so I couldn’t spray foam in the hole around it to seal it. We would have to find a good PEX valve to take care of the problem. Which as always- ended up being an expensive and hard to find part in our little town of Homer… but after a new valve and a small piece of PEX pipe we would be able to insulate the hole and drain our tank easily out to the ground. 🙂
The other plumbing issue we wanted to take care of was the shower drain. We had noticed a tiny leak when we had tried our shower experiment on the road. As I climbed underneath and took it apart I noticed a couple of things…
1) The top of the drain pipe coming out of the shower was broken clean off, and had been taped in place.
2) The shower actually drained into the grey water tank! This was super exciting news! Why you ask? Well… in our Dolphin (Serenity) this was not the layout- the shower drained into the black water tank. I had read online of stories where people had to put cedar shower flooring planks to raise their feet off the shower floor- that way if they over showered and flooded the black water tank they could see signs in the shower floor before they were standing in it. 😵 Though we weren’t excited about this fact- we were prepared to navigate it. It turned out in the Odyssey models they drained them into the gray tank- which was super awesome!
So I was on the quest to build a new P-Trap, because the old one was solidly glued together. I was bound and determined to get the shower fixed so we could take a second shot at our big trip. It turns out the new systems would not match up to the old one- so I will save you the days of questing in and outside of Homer to only find I had to find a way to rebuild the old one or replace the whole thing.
So we fast forward to right before the end of the month. While we were cruising around town to go get the parts, we ran into a whole new problem…
The Ohana was running strangely… and I theorized a spark plug was possibly out and she thus wasn’t firing a cylinder. Now don’t get me wrong- just because I picked up on that doesn’t mean I’m mechanically savvy or anything- I just had a hunch. We drove straight to O’Reilly Auto Parts, and I borrowed their diagnostic tool. I had never used one before, but with a few pointers on how to over the counter I was able to figure it out. The diagnostic tool confirmed that I was getting a misfire in cylinder 4. 😧
So I bought and installed a new spark plug. Still no luck… damn! 😨
So I decided to double check with someone who knew what they were looking for- we drove a block over to Sunny Services to talk to Robert. (Yeah- he’s the man!)
He hooked up his fancy (and wireless) diagnostic tool and confirmed it was cylinder 4. We did a compression check and confirmed it was the harness. He gave us a recommendation on the one to get- and Laura and I were headed back to O’Reillys to buy it and install it! I had a bit of a hard time getting the old harness out… 😬
When we were finished we happily started it up and went to head across town. The engine ran even worse… 😤 So we went right back to Robert.
But eventually we got it. Afterwards we made sure, MADE SURE, to hook up the new harness exactly the same.
He was busy, and we did not want to be a nuisance. He said if we left it he would take a look at it; and hopefully it wasn’t something horrible. We left the Ohana there for the night…
… And spent the evening worried there may be a serious problem. One productive thing was accomplished in our evening though…
With the Ohana finally moved I did a chore I swore to Laura would be done ASAP. Remember the spot in the driveway we had “super bleached”. Well, during my fiberglassing project the resin had also dripped down into that very spot- creating a fiberglassed nasty patch in our driveway. It was time for me to extract and dispose of it.
The next morning we called in as soon as we were up. Robert happily answered the phone and then proceeded to tell me what happened; I had wired the harness wrong… 🤦
Of course I did… 🤦
Laura and I were thoroughly convinced we had MADE SURE we had wired it exactly the same… but the proof was in the putting. So relieved we headed over to Sunnys- and I was fully prepared I was going to get a ribbing from hell from Robert. 😅
As soon as we arrived he handed me this; And reminded me especially made it for me off of this really cool tool called Google… 🤣
He also let me know to put that in my blog! I patiently took my licks, knowing Robert meant it all in fun, just SUPER grateful everything was okay. So as promised Robert; I put that in my blog… 🙄😆
Many, Many Thank You-s Robert!
So we were on the move again! We were now at the last day of June, and I had picked up parts in attempt to re-build the old P-Trap.
It was alot of effort, and it ultimately failed. We resolved our trip may have to begin a few day late, and the next morning we drove over to the hardware store to re-build the shower drain. I ended up having to essentially chisel out the old shower drain; it was very corroded and had been there a long time.
After a bit of battling though the old drain was out.
So it was time to put in the new one!
Once we had cut and pieced in our new P trap- we were headed home to glue it together.
While the glue dried I had another chore that Nick Tucker had told me to make sure and do before our big trip; and oil change!
While the new oil was drizzling its way out of the oil jug, I confirmed my pipe glue had set; so Laura and I water tested the new trap.
She was water tight! So with that I spray foamed in the opening around the drain from below.
I used the rest of the can to foam in some gaps from inside around the furnace venting,
And around the new fresh water tank drain and any other small openings I could find from down below.
Once all the foam had set I carved it back and painted it all with a few coats of bed liner. I thought the way it had trailed down my arm looked pretty cool- so I snapped a pic. (Honestly should have been wearing gloves!) 🧤
So with one day into July- we had accomplished our chore list;
1.) Fix the leak and repair the roof support plywood.
2.) Fix the black water tank.
3.) Fix any other leaks involved with the bathroom.
And we accomplished quite a few other small things that were needed! So we were hot to hit the road! We planned our escape from town for the next day- July 2nd!
Geoff Murphy 8/17/2020