We were home, and this time would be for almost a couple of months this time.
So following Kenneth’s advice, I went ahead and installed a new bolt to fix the sway arm frame mount bushing. I would drive the rig for a bit to see if this would hold up or if the original thread was slightly stripped out. While we were gone we had some more packages come in.
We had ordered a multi-pack of RV compartment door latches, so I installed those around the RV.
It was going to be so nice not having to hold open the doors with my head while I accessed those compartments! 😄
While I was on the roof installing our “tarp lean-to” at Kenai lake, I had noticed a crack in one of the cargo storage pods. So I filled that and would give it a couple layers of Gaco.
Our local area Sandhill Cranes had decided our house was the place to be, so during this time they were around our house constantly. It was pretty awesome to wake up and get to interact with them all of the time.
It didn’t take long for my theory of the slightly stripped threading in the frame to show itself true. The new bolt I had installed popped out.
I went and purchased a set of new sway bar frame mount bushings and just a slightly bigger bolt for that hole. It did the trick!
Here is a pic of the old ones before I threw them away.
Something else we had discovered on our trip was that my Toyota logo license plate light replacement was failing.
A small portion of the surface mirror had been pushed in. Through the pushed back spot you could see a LED light strip that ran around the inside edge of the logo. With this opening, it water had gotten in and corroded that LED light strip and a portion of it was no longer working. I decided I was going to have to replace it, so I mounted the marker light that had been there before in it’s place and got a new logo on order.
Another unfortunate discover from our travels was this:
Yep, one of the windows in the front sleeper area had cracked. 😔 Luckily, the crack was only in the inner layer of glass, so after inspection we discovered that there was not way for water to get in from the outside. With the way the window was tinted you couldn’t even see if from the outside. This would be added to the repair list for later, but for now it would ride as is. 🙄
Shortly after, RJ brought over the Ithaca. During the time installing LED lights around the outside, I had found that one of the turn signal fixtures was extremely corroded. We ordered a new set of turn signal fixtures, so I spent a part of that morning teaching her how to and installing new front turn signals.
Thanks to Nick having helped me with the backup camera installation process I was going to pass it on. We also drilled and installed RJ’s backup camera. She had ordered the same one we had so the process was exactly the same. Strangely though the operating systems on our cameras were different, though only ordered a month apart… 🤔 This made for quite a difference in using them. That’s what you get when you deal with over seas manufacturing I suppose. 🤷♀️ Still super awesome to have backup cameras, and the hardware seemed great!
With that, RJ just needed to seal up the opening for the rear camera and mount the wiring throughout the camper. 😃 So the Ithaca once again sailed home.
Since I had bought Our Ohana, there had been a slight popping noise up in the front from the driver’s side. The popping had began to increase somewhat, and after our last breakdown I was determined to find out what was going on. Because we had just spent a chunk of money on our last journey I was trying to investigate this a bit more cost effectively.
Our Toyota Tundra was due for it’s timing belt replacement, so we had the work done at Sunny Services:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sunnys-Service/473206896140134
While there I decided to ask Robert his advice. He explained to me that I needed to jack the rig up so the suspension was able to hang…
… and to look for play in the ball joints and suspension. That day I had gone online and watched some videos on the “play” I would be looking for.
Once it was hanging I needed to use a bar and move the tire up and down, and see how much play was in the ball joints.
When I went to do it I didn’t have a big enough of a bar, I attempted it with my splitting maul, but it just wasn’t long enough…
Luckily our kind neighbors had the perfect bar they said I could borrow. We went to retrieve the proper bar, and returned to our curious crane family checking out what we were up to.
Once the cranes finally wandered on, and now that I had the proper tool for the job…
… I went about exploring all I could to hopefully uncover my popping issue. I was also hoping by solving this problem I could help alleviate the slight lean that The Ohana had towards the driver’s side.
After adjusting positions and trying to get as much movement as I could from each ball joint, I didn’t feel like they were the issue.
Of course, remember I am just a novice when it comes to mechanics. I did find that the bushing on the sway arm end link was definitely crushed though.
It seemed that I had seen what I was going to see that day. So I lowered our girl back down to solid earth, and was immediately taken aback of how much higher the driver’s side wheel well was sitting. It didn’t stay that way once I began to drive her. It did tell me something wasn’t right down there though, and my mission was to find out exactly what. That will wait for another day though.
Our travels were over for awhile, so it was time to adjust our mentality and get used to being back in Homer for the time being. Ultimately the goal was to get our minds prepared for the upcoming long haul of winter; and the cold, cloistered, small town blues that come along with that.
So for now, we would try to drink in as much precious Vitamin D as possible and keep getting moving forward and try to enjoy our little town as much as possible.
Hoping you all a wonderful week, and talk to you next time!
Geoff Murphy 10/22/2020