Spring May Be Lagging Behind, But We Are Ready To Be Springing Ahead ☀️

So the end of February was very similar…

…To the beginning of March. Sweeping off rigs, shoveling snow, and sprinkling in the occasional plowing was mostly what we did outside. The weekly warm up and town lap was the majority of our interaction we had with Our Ohana. 🥶

That’s why we haven’t had much to report in; it has been cold, snowy, and winter has desperately continued to hold on as long as possible. Even today, at the very end of March this is what it looks like outside our window… 😢

But in hopes of Spring approaching, at the very beginning of March we decided it was time to start making forward progress again on The Ohana. We decided to schedule her in for a checkup at Redline Automotive so Dimitri and I could make a game plan to get the last things on rig buttoned up so she was running sharp. As much as I wanted to get other things done on our rig this summer; until she was mechanically sound, the fun projects were going to have to wait.

After the inspection I had my list of things to order:
Brake pads, Rotors, A Lift Kit, and A New Parking Brake Cable.

It took a few weeks to coordinate it all, but once all of it was in, I scheduled up with Redline to get the work done.

So on the 21st of March we drove her over.

When I had scheduled the appointment with Redline, Dimitri had recommended I talk to the business in the bay next door to his. They did Marine Electronic setups, and at that particular moment had a really sweet bus out in the parking lot they were doing some work on.

Well, when we pulled in to drop The Ohana off at Redline- one of the employees for Breakwater Marine Electric happened to be out there.

I asked him if they didn’t mind if I brought it our rig in the near future to talk over with them. He explained they had learned a lot on the bus project, and that they were going to avoid RV setups in the future- but they would be happy to help me with advice. 😀 That’s exactly what we needed- someone to talk to about our future plans. So with that we had another thing to look forward to!

A few days later it was time to pick up The Ohana. A few of the parts I had ordered did not match up as listed, but luckily I was able to return them. But with this visit she had a new parking brake cable, along with front brakes and rotors. One of the most unfortunate things I had to return was the lift kit- it turned out the camper had been welded to the frame- so there was no chance of lifting up. Thus- I was going to have to find another way to fix the front driver’s side tire rubbing on the pinch weld under the cab. 😒

A few days later, out of the blue, I received a return call from one our favorite people- Mike Devaney! I had been trying to coordinate a meetup with him to help us fix our camper entry steps. As we had went in to fall last year a few of the welds on our stair system had broken loose. You can see below where the mounting plate had separated from the piano hinge.

Since I had a Master Of Metal willing to help us I decided to ask Mike his opinion on the rubbing pinch weld situation as well.

Could I cut it back further without hurting anything?

The diagnosis was yes! So when the weather warmed up I would get down there and cut to my hearts content- and finally fix my annoying tire rubbing issue.

As for the piano hinge- Mike observed that we used too small of one. So I drove out to The Kachemak Gear Shed and picked up the widest one they had in stock. Not even a few hours later I was cutting the failing piano hinge loose and buffing all the surfaces to get them ready for welding.

Soon we were clamping down our newer, bigger, and better hinge.

Then, as I always love getting to do, I got to watch the Master go to work! It didn’t take long.

Welding is such a beautiful art to watch.

As Mike finished his part of the project it was time for me to get down to buffing down welds and smoothing down surfaces.

After a few trips to The Ohana to make sure everything was fitting flush, our project was done!

As always- I want to give a huge shout out to Mike Devaney for being one of the most hard working and kind people I’ve had the honor of working beside. Mike & Tom are always busier than all get-out, but if you ever need quality welding done; please keep D&D Welding in mind. You couldn’t hire better people. 😊

So that is my current report for now. I have a few more mechanical projects to get done on our baby this summer.

1) We will be getting a new exhaust system on her. 2) I am going to be stripping down and going through the cab as well, where I hope to identify if my speedometer cable problem is an “in the dash board issue” or not.
3) I’ll be cutting back that pinch weld in hopes of finally putting an end to my tire rubbing issue.

Wow… when you put it that way that doesn’t seem to be too much. 😅

With any luck we might be able to get to some of the fun stuff after all.

To be completely honesty though, we are opening up a bunch of other projects in our lives. We have been working through the interior of our home and this summer will be doing the exterior as well. We hope by the time we are ready for our big trip next summer, our home will be ready to become a rental. So between our home and our Ohana, along with another possible side project that I will keep you updated on this summer we are going to be REALLY busy.

Soon it will becoming light outside almost all the time here again. It is really easy to go into project frenzy mode and forget about the rest of our lives for the duration of the summer time.

It will be an interesting challenge balancing both so many projects and keeping our other life priorities in the picture at the same time. 🤔

That’s okay- we are always down for a good challenge! 😉 We are looking forward to getting so much life progress done soon, and getting to share it with all of you. 😁

So till next time I hope you all have a wonderful April! We will hopefully have an update for you soon! 🤙💖

Geoff Murphy 4/1/2021