Official Kickoff of Season #4 with Dead Metal
We kicked off Season 4 with our '84 Allegro, affectionately known as Dead Metal, with our annual pilgrimage to the Pocono Raceway. This year we got there early Friday morning for a full 3 days and 2 nights of dry camping. This year we got 4 spots. My brother-in-law brought his newly-acquired pop-up and a couple of friends. Our long-time friends and partners in crime used up another spot with portable shelters and tailgating supplies. The last spot was used for parking. We peaked at around 20 people at the site so it was nice to have the room this year.
I am the King of Procrastination so as trip-time approached, I hadn't done nearly the amount of work that I wanted to in preparation for the journey. But I did do the usual safety and systems checks. During those checks I discovered a broken shock mount on the left rear. By the looks of the underside of the rig, it had been banging around under there for a very long time.
Now, I hated driving the thing. I never felt like I have 100% control of it. I always have a death grip on the wheel the entire trip, which is tiring. Well I'd never have guessed a single, broken shock would cause it but after fixing it the thing is really nice to drive. Wind upsets it a bit, but I feel much better driving it now. I actually sat back and steered with one hand on the way home yesterday!
Since the ride to the Pocono Raceway is only about 1-1.5 hours I had shut off the fridge. Upon firing it back up on propane, the ignitor wouldn't stop clicking despite the fact it was lit. It does this occasionally but will stop after 15-20 minutes. But not this time. After a few hours of clicking I noticed the connector starting to melt on the ignitor wire. I fired up the generator and switched over to AC power. I messed around with the probe and the connection and tried again. This time it fired up and stopped clicking. It ran all 3 days without an issue. It maintained 35 degrees in the fridge and 10-15 degrees below 0 in the freezer - even with the non-RV types that don't understand that you can't sit there and stare into the fridge with the door open. The new chalkboard panels on the fridge doors were a hit, too.
I kept generator usage to a minimum and instead relied on a small inverter for music and cell phone charging. I also had the satellite receiver and TV on it. It was windy. My raggedy old awning hung in there but acted as a huge sail, so my little dish kept losing signal as the RV rocked. 3 of my 4 stabilizer jacks were broken, but that's another story.
Converting to all LEDs was a great decision. I could have gone all 3 days without running the generator if I needed to. After 2 full days the batteries were only down to 3/4. I ran the generator at that point because the females in our party needed to fire up their hair styling implements in preparation for attending the infield block party Saturday night.
I did find another leak above the kitchen sink that's obviously from one of the pedestals for the roof rack (again). I am constantly chasing leaks because of that thing. I have Dicor tape around that particular mount but apparently it's not cutting it.
The "new" 454 performed great and will pull it along faster than it should ever go. I'm having trouble at idle now, though. When sitting in gear with my foot on the brake the idle will eventually slow down to the point where it wants to stall. If I put it in neutral and rev it up it cleans itself up for a while before doing it again. Perhaps not coincidentally, I have a new whistle from the engine compartment. I suspect a vacuum leak.
The radiator I had to buy at the beginning of last season continues to do its thing. I was worried about it plugging with rust again (which is what doomed the original radiator) but so far so good. The coolant does not appear to have rust in it as it did before. (for those that don't know my whole story, the 454 is a Craigslist fine that had sat for a while with water in it - I flushed it the best I could but ultimately rusty sludge plugged my original radiator).
Last but not least, part of my angst in driving the thing is coming home. My driveway is very steep and it always scrapes going up (though not coming down - don't ask me why). This time I put 110 PSI in the rear bags and got it jacked up pretty high. In the video it looks like it got really close to scraping the street but it didn't:
https://video.nest.com/clip/e61ee876224947dabc336519e2c2952e.mp4
Then once I get up top I have a really tight turn around spot. I tuck it into the woods. If not for that stupid fence I think I could swing it in one turn:
https://video.nest.com/clip/1f97ea24421848d995ee74082424c412.mp4
You can hear my new engine whistle in both vids. Has to be a vacuum leak. I've only been in the house for a little over a year. I plan to make some modifications to the driveway next year, including taking out some trees (sorry tree huggers - they're in the way) and making the parking and turnaround areas much bigger.
So all in all it was a great trip and great weather for once. I have a long list of things that I'd like to do before next trip, but will likely get to less than half of them as per usual.
