Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Fun with Friends – Tumbleweed is Fixed

(Warren AFB, WY)  Hi 84 Lo 55 –  Last night we enjoyed a great dinner at the home of our good friends Marsha and Kerry. Jim and Kerry were stationed together at two different Air Force bases. It’s been 16 years since we’ve seen them. Kerry cooked some wonderful chicken enchiladas for dinner, and we talked the night away.
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They live just north of Cheyenne in the prairie. It’s gorgeous, with very few houses around them and cows just beyond their backyard fence.
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Kerry works on cars as a hobby, and when we were stationed at Pope AFB, NC he painted my 1976 Camaro. He did such a good job that I won a third place trophy in a car show. He still loves  Camaros, and this 1971 is his pride and joy.
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We saw a pretty sunset over the neighbor's house.
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We caught up on what they’ve been doing and we told them about our lives. When we got home we just went to bed. We had done yesterday's blog before we left, so that brings us to today.

We got up early to get the rig ready to take to Jolley Rogers RV in Cheyenne. We had a 8:30am appointment to have our doorside slide looked at. It stopped working and it makes a racket as the teeth of the gears are skipping on the drive shaft.
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I rode with Jim in the truck today, which I don’t normally do when we travel. I can’t get over how rough and noisy it is. I’m glad I get to drive my car behind him.

We were sure we'd have to have parts replaced on the slide motor, which would have involved ordering them and towing the rig back another day. But we got great news! Dave, the tech who worked on it, said he was able to repair it without having to replace any parts. Apparently when we had the RV tech at our last campground tighten the slide motor mount bolts (they were very loose), it moved the motor back into place but the drive gear and shaft, which had adapted to the shifting position of the motor, remained out of alignment. That's why the problem went from bad to worse after he tightened the bolts. Anyway, Dave really knew his stuff and he saved us some time and money. He doesn't think the gear teeth are worn bad enough to cause any problems for quite awhile. All we know is it's working fine now, and we have our full living room back. Although our TV got smaller. :)

While we were at Jolley Rogers we picked up a few accessories to make our lives easier. Little things like a wall-mounted toothbrush holder, and another one of those square stuffed pillow things that you shove into the ceiling vent to keep the heat out. And Jim picked up a water wand thingy for flushing the water heater.

So we've survived another maintenance catastrophe (at least in my mind), and life is back to being good. Maybe now I can sleep all night. :)


8 comments:

Gail Houle said...

What luck! So glad it was a minor and easy fix.
Enjoy your 80's. I'll be thinking about you the next few days :)

GGuncle said...

i guess tumbleweed is a happy camper.now.

Mike and Terri said...

It's always nice getting good news when you're at the repair shop. Now you can stretch out, relax, and watch some TV and play on your laptops... and get some sleep tonight!

heyduke50 said...

glad to see the repairs went well...

KarenInTheWoods said...

wheeeheeee so glad it was an easy fix!!! good to have yourself all up to snuff and ready for more adventures.

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Karen and Steve
(Our Blog) RVing: Small House... BIG Backyard
http://kareninthewoods-kareninthewoods.blogspot.com

Speedy said...

Good job recognizing that you had a problem before it became one that cost an arm and a leg to fix. Some folks let things like that go too long and then end up with bigger problems.

Joe and Sherri

Paul and Marti Dahl said...

An honest RV repair place with a tech that fixed your RV with no parts?

Wait a minute, is this a fairy tale...? ;c)

Bob and Jo said...

Glad it was an adjustment

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