Trip To Alaska
Trip To Alaska
These pages will have the "North to Alaska" trip posted here and will be updated each time I stop overnight at a Wi-Fi equipped RV campground.
February 01, 2006. Pulled the 5th wheel trailer out of storage and
brought it home. I will be spending the next 6 months or so in my "land condo"
so a few maintenance items needed taking care of.
The brake drums were pulled and brakes checked and adjusted. All OK. Checked
electric brakes for condition of magnets and linkages. This was also a good
opportunity to blow out the brake dust with compressed air. Wheel bearings given
a new coat of grease.
A few big bucks were spent on the following items.
A new awning was installed. Rather easy to install actually but it did requires
a couple of others to help slide it in.
New Power Supply
Charge Wizard Switch and LED Indication
Four new tires, a new house water pump and a new 45 amp power supply were installed to make the trip a better experience. The original power supply was useless for charging the trailer batteries as it only put out a constant 13.2 VDC. When I checked this old power supply with my recording Fluke meter I found the "stable" voltage to be anything but! It wavered between 12.5 and 13.4 VDC.
Old Power Source AC-DC Converter
No wonder I could never keep my house batteries fully charged! This was removed and sent to the "old electronic pile" of stuff that I may find a use for in another space in time.
I purchased
one of the newer power supplies (pictures above) that came with a power wizard switch and
indicating LED. It pumps out 14.4 VDC for charging, has a lower 13.4 VDC normal
setting and a 13.2 VDC float voltage when the batteries are fully charged.
Tested and confirmed, that was a good decision! Voltage does not waver at all.
Highly recommended and available on eBay from many sources.
Gave the gas water heater and gas refrigerator a good dose of high pressure air
to get the spiders out.
Installing the new water pump was NOT easy at all. The primary problem was "lack of space". The new pump would not fit in the same location as the old one. A bit of head scratching and I came up with a wall mount and it is far superior than the old one. Ah, plenty of water for the shower now. Although not "silent" it sure beats the old one in the noise department. I like the very slow speed startup too.
For a trip like this, electricity, water and heat/air conditioning are a must. For power, I have a Honda EU3000i bolted into my truck. Bolted, because the previous Generac, although very noisy, was stolen right out of the truck in the Caesars Casino parking lot. A security guard watched it go...
The roof mounted A/C, a common 13500 Coleman unit, never wanted to start on 20 amp service so a Supco SP6 "Hard Start" capacitor has been installed. That fixed that problem! Even the EU3000i had trouble kicking the A/C on at altitudes above 6000 feet but the capacitor took care of that problem too. Yes I know that eventually in 20 years it will cause my A/C compressor to blow. So what? If the 5th wheel is still in one piece by then I will have got my money's worth out of it!
That about covers day 1 of the repair and maintenance side of the trailer. Tomorrow we will continue on with a few other bits and pieces. Stay tuned~ :-)
February 04, 2006.
Well, we did a few more things. Installed a high flow but more importantly, a quiet water pump for long luxurious showers. (ha!) Anybody who spends more than a weekend in a trailer not hooked to a water supply understands that issue! A ShurFlo "Extreme Series" Smart Sensor 4.0 pump. Most impressive after finally figuring out how to make it fit in my Fiver behind the coach. If you are tired of being waken in the night by the hammering old style water pump then just get one of these.
A tip, after installing this new pump it seems to need 10 minutes or so to figure out how to operate in the slow and quiet mode. At first I was disappointed with both the performance and noise of this pump but once all the air in the plumbing was purged the pump works like a dream
Left picture is the new pump installation and the right picture is the old removed pump. The surge reservoir shown in the left picture was installed some years ago in hopes of making the pump quieter. It didn't but it did help the frequent cycling problem.
March 29, 2006.
Finally got started and heading North to Alaska. Leaving two weeks later than planned due to poor planning... :-)