Wednesday, August 3, 2016

Fixing things on RV

So Sunday, I worked most of the day fixing things on the RV.  It started with the refrigerator roof vent cover. I knew when I bought it, that the vent cover needed to be replaced. I just searched on google and found what I needed. It only came in white and the stuff on my RV is grey, so I just spray painted it.
This was the old vent cover.
Yea, the trees in the front of the neighborhood keep getting caught in all the cracks.

After I took the vent cover off, I found out that the vent underneath was messed up too. Ugh.

This I cant fixed because its part of the roof.  And I cant pay to fix it right now, because Im having some other stuff done. So I decided to just patch it with the epoxy stuff.

Then I put the new vent cover back on. I didnt spray the top  of the new vent completely because no one will see that part. The white spots are where the screws go in and I covered them with this roofing caulk stuff. Its so the screws dont rust and water doesnt get in around the screws.

I also cleaned the 2 vent fans that open on the roof. One is from the kitchen and the other is from the bathroom. They draw moisture out, when needed. I didnt take pictures of those. They were really dirty.
Next I tackled the toilet. It has a rubber seal, that keeps a small amount of water in the bottom of the toilet. This helps keeps odors down in the black tank, so that you dont smell anything in the RV. My toilet hasnt been keeping that small amount of water in the bottom of the toilet.  I didnt notice any odors but I didnt want to wait for that to happen. I had tried to clean the rubber ring with this cleaning stuff. It helped for a couple of days but then it stopped holding water again. I was worried about doing this job , but I didnt want to pay to have it done. RV labor cost 105.00 an hour. Yikes.
This was after I had taken the plastic ring off around the bottom of the toilet. Then you remove that metal band you see just above the black area.  Then the plastic ring, under the metal ring comes off.  Then the toilet lifts off. Once you lift the toilet off, you get to the rubber rings.

The rubber ring is around that big white ball. That brown stuff is mineral deposits that form from the water.

Here is the new black rubber rings.  There are two of them. The thin one goes in first and then the thick one goes on top.
The hardest part was lifting the toilet back onto the rings without moving the rubber rings.  But I finally got it in place and got everything back together.  So far the toilet has been holding water, so that's good. (I didnt take anymore pictures)
Next we tackled the hot water heater. I needed my husbands help for this.
This is the outside access to the water  heater.  I have a suburban water heater. It has an anode rod in it that protects it from rusting inside. But the rod only works if you change it regularly. Like every year or so. That roundish metal screw, that is all rusted, needs to come it. On the end of the screw is the anode rod. No one has changed this one in a long time but lucky someone did change it at one point because they put plumbers tape around the threads. If they hadn't done that, we wouldn't have been able to get it out. It required a large socket wrench and a 1 1/16 socket. I had to go buy a socket because the biggest we had was 1 inch.  Well we finally got it off. This is what was left of the rod.

Nothing is left. All the magnesium was gone. Hopefully the inside of the tank is ok.  You cant see inside the tank. I put the flushing tool, that you hook onto the hose and you put inside the tank. Then flush out all the sediment that was inside the tank from the rod falling apart.

This is what a new rod looks like. You want to change it when it starts having multiple holes in it. You dont want it to fall apart, like mine did.  So we got that done.
We also got the inverter mounted back on the wall in one of the bays. It had some how fallen off.  But since that happened, the front electrical outlets , by the TV dont work. I cant figure out what is wrong. We checked all the fuses, breakers and GFIs.  Nothing is tripped. So that will have to be checked and fixed when I bring it to the RV place next week. I already have an appointment to replace the front , roof AC unit and  I needed new shocks.
We took the RV back to where I store it. After I had backed it in, with Lou's help, he called me to come look at something.

Yup, a leak in the radiator coolant reservoir.  Well, another thing for the RV place to fix.  I hope that is covered under my extended warranty.

1 comment:

Sara said...

You could have your own DIY tv show...."Fixin' RV's with Diana" ! LOL