At this point we had just rolled into September, and I received a new Toyota emblem light.
On this light I decided I was going Lexel the fixture in an attempt of preventing any chance of water getting in and corroding the lights. At first to do this process I tried to remove the back of the light fixture with no luck, so I opted to fill the front of the fixture.
Here’s was it mid way while I was working on cleaning it up and smoothing the Lexel out.
Sadly enough, after the Lexel had set, and when I wired the whole light in I found that I had a bad wiring connection. I traced it to the light itself, and ended up having to figure out how to get the back off of the light. There I found in my first attempt to remove the back, I had severed one of the wires. And unfortunately this was right at the source where it ran inside the LED light strip.
I played around with reviving it to no avail, and eventually put a new light on order. I still had the Lexeled front cover I could install on the new light, and I had figured out how to effectively get the back off for next time. So the light would wait a little longer.
Next, I purchased new sway bar end links. I bought a Moog set, and got on to the simple process of removing the old ones…
…Or so I thought. In the end I had to bust out “Ye Ol’ Grinding Wheel” and end up cutting the first one out.
On the second one I did my best a well, but ultimately cut it. 😤
At least when it came down to the installation, it went smooth!
Around this time we ended up with an unexpected visitor.
He was outside munching our fireweed, and we were enjoying checking him out when he decided to go into “Full On Bull Moose Butt-head Mode”.
A mother moose and her little one had walked by, so this guy decided to start chasing them and then trying to use my solar lights to show off and scrape his rack on.
Both were not cool with me, so I grabbed a handful of nice sized rocks and walloped him until he left.
Problem solved! Male moose suck…
So now that we were able to access our yard again, we were back to improving our baby. I still had a few of the luggage compartment clips left over, so I decided to put them to use on the inside.
We had built a pretty neat little magnet clip for door to the storage box seat we had built. When I built it though, I had attached the magnet with super glue- which was now consistently failing. ☹️ (In fact, a lot of the work I had done utilizing super glue was failing, telling me that I should probably steer clear of using it on as many things as I had been.)
Anyway, a compartment clip ended up working perfectly in it’s place! We also installed one to hold open our closet door. 😀
Unfortunately, even after putting in the new sway bar end links, I was still getting a popping noise from the front end driver’s side.
When I was talking to Robert @ Sunny Services about it, he told me to just bring it on by for a minute. I went home and swapped out the truck for the RV and hurried back.
There, they jacked up the rig really quick and helped me inspect the front end suspension. He noticed that the upper ball joints were going out. With my novice level of expertise, I hadn’t been able to identify it.
He said his shop couldn’t facilitate The Ohana, but he did give me some tips before he sent me on my way. He said I should just replace the whole control arms, which would come with new ball joints and bushing installed. We agreed Moog would be a good brand to go with. He looked up the list price the local shops would give me, and determined if I was willing to get the arms online that I could probably get them for at least half the price they were asking. Last but not least he let me know his program listed the job as being a 6 hour job. He walked me through what it would take to swap them, but when it came to backing off the torsion bars that were attached to the arms he warned my I could lose some fingers if I wasn’t careful! So after I brought that up to Laura- she declared, “The shop it is!”
Thus began the Tale Of Two Arms!
Since they had done a good job before, we wanted to trying the Midas again in Wasilla. I called up and requested 2 email quotes; 1 if they provided the arms and 1 if I bought them.
A few days later I received my 2 quotes, but they seemed a little bit off. One was quoting me the job done a $154.50 an hour, and the other was quoting me $188.60 an hour! 😲
I did notice the quote had come from a Midas department from the Lower 48, so I figured I would contact the shop directly to find out what was going on. After explaining all the details to them they said that it didn’t sound right, they would check through the quote, and get right back to me…
… and I never heard back from them. 😟
While I was waiting to hear back from Midas, I began the quest of getting the control arms. Shop prices put both control arms around $750. After failed attempts to get them ordered through sites like Amazon and Walmart, I ended up being able to get them through a company called CariD.
It ended up being a pretty neat experience.
Originally I ordered one through CariD and one through Amazon. Well, Amazon did what it does best to Alaskans; accepted my order so it could say it was honoring my Prime membership, waited a week, and then cancelled it claiming the item was “damaged in shipping.” No offer to ship a new one, just a cancellation of my order and a refund Amazon claimed I had requested. 😠
Meanwhile, when I had placed my order with CariD I had used a customer service chat representative to confirm shipping costs and place the order. The control arm in the picture below still costed me an additional $50 in shipping. So I had obtained one for $143 instead of the $375 shop price.
After I placed my order they asked my to review the customer service rep, and allowed me to choose a cool perk for them; like employee of the month, or office DJ, and a few other choices. I gave him a good review and I unexpectedly received a gift card.
Less than week later his manager emailed me and asked if I would be willing to give the employee a review on the companies Facebook page. He had done a good job so I was more than happy, and they sent me another gift card!
So after a week had passed Amazon pulled the “Prime bait and switch”, and I was about to call up and complain when I just decided to switch gears.
The control arm for the other side of the vehicle had been quite a bit more expensive at CariD, but I decided to put it in my cart and apply my newly obtained gift cards. By the time I was done I was able to get the part for less than on Amazon (including shipping) for just over $120. So in the end I had gotten both arms for around $263; knocking that part price of $750 down by $487!
Now at this point I was still receiving radio silence from Midas, so I decided to check with Redline Automotive to see if they would be available to do the job. After all, as much as we had a good experience at Midas before, we would rather have the job done locally and give Redline the business.
Our neighborhood friendly neighborhood Redline mechanic said no problem! His quote came in dramatically cheaper than Midas, and they could get us in before our trip in October!
So with the control arms on the way, and Our Ohana scheduled all was good to go!
When we had ordered the backup camera and opened up the box, it came with a bonus “gift”. The card advertising the gift boasted 4 options.
One was a 12 volt car vacuum, but unfortunately it didn’t come with any attachments. You see, I had been wanting to buy a vacuum to get the hard to reach places inside the Kalcifer- so when I saw this my wheels started turning.
Another option was a $20 gift card from Amazon, and in the end this is what we went for. We were able to buy this vacuum with a full set of bag and attachments and only ended up having to pay $2 out of our own pocket! 😁
As September rolled on the temperature was beginning to drop drastically. The cold was coming on early this year, so we decided to begin the process early of one of the things we historically had disliked doing the most; winterizing our RV.
Except we shouldn’t have to feel that way anymore, right?
Sure, we can’t use any water related functions for the season, but we could still use everything else. No longer did we have to feel like we were putting our RV away for over half the year, because with a wood stove and 4 wheel drive we could still travel and camp!
Nonetheless, we went through the steps. We removed all of the “kept on board” food supplies, caulking and Gaco that could be ruined by freezing.
Then emptied all of the tanks and lines of water so we could put RV coolant in its place.
Also, I had spoken to our friend David Nelson and found out that week was the last week A Bus Named Sue would be open for the season, so we made a plan to stop on by!
We went a little crazy and bought a bit more food than normal as a send off to our friends first year in his new venture. It was a nice time and a nice way to say farewell to our season of sunshine and warmth.
So as summer faded away and fall creeped along, just like that September passed.
Geoff Murphy 10/29/2020