The Boat / Motor home trip

[Dot]

Let the trip begin
Staring Brian aka Homeless Captain and Master of the House boat
Terry driving one of the 2 vehicles he has to get mobile
Margaret driving the motor home that Terry isn't .
Gentleman and woman
START YOUR ENGINES.
Story to be told by any of those participating ....
Day One .......

[Riverlander]

This sounds as though it could get a little entertaining. Heading north or south?

[Dot]

This sounds as though it could get a little entertaining. Heading north or south?

Up the river without a paddle I think

[jon_d]

Ahh good, another installment of "Life's little adventures"

[Greynomad]

This sounds as though it could get a little entertaining. Heading north or south?

Up the river without a paddle I think

In a barbed wire canoe…

[Riverlander]

I hope they have internet coverage tonight as I am itching to find out the first installment. I believe the yabbies are running if they are up the creek.

[BruceS]

Weather looks better for Sat or Sun departure. Less wind & a bit warmer.

[T1 Terry]

Seems the plan is for Brian and Bruce to head off some time Sat or Sunday for the trip up the river ... apparently 5 hrs "steaming" up the river, 30 mins by road

As usual, neither of the motorhomes self repaired while they were parked up, still had the same problems as they had when we last used them.
On the Hino:
The rear window has been removed to plate the areas the metal bugs ate due to the frame where the rear window seal mounted becoming non existent and allowing the rain to soak all the chipboard the Japanese used to line the flat surfaces and glue lino on top.
Naturally, this opened up the "let's change everything" box in Margaret's head, so the air condtioner head unit is no longer above the bed head, the rear window is now made up out of fibreglass panels made redundant after the solar and battery job on Barry's big bus, the inside is now a sheet of the illusions finish ply we used to line the bus bedroom walls, a shelf added to increase the width of the shelf under the rear window and a little post and rail fence added ... looks pretty good actually. I'll get Margaret to take some photos and I'll add them to this post later.
For my part, I decided to ook into replacing the existing ducted air con evaporator with the head unit from the split system air conditioner that was located above the bed .... that one is still a work in progress
Replaced the leaking brake fluid lines from the fluid tank to the m/cyl, both halves of the hydraulic brake m/cyl and the clutch m/cyl share the same tank. It has only been raining brake fluid over the pedals and soaking into the carpet for the last 10 yrs, so a last minute repair was always on the cards
Just need to take the seats out and the brake fluid soaked carpet out now and that end should be sorted .... well after I reassemble the dash that had to come out to access the hoses.

The Mazda:
Well, after the 40 days and 40 night of rain a while back, the low cell voltage alarm didn't scream loud enough to indicate there was a problem resulting in one group of 4 paralleled cells suffering a reverse current flow, instant death after over 10 yrs faithful service.
Had to remember how I built the battery into the under stair section, so I could reverse engineers it to get them out Built a battery up via the mix and match method using what ever cells still seemed to hold voltage that were the right size to match the other 12 cells that were still good.
Because the house battery is also the start battery, poor Mazda hasn't actually run its motor for quite a few yrs, but a quick bleed of the fuel system and away it went but all the power steering fluid seems to have vacated the system so I still have to figure out how to jack up the frant axle so I can spin the steering lock to lock a few times to shift the air out into the tank and the oil into its place.

The of course came the task of moving all the fleet that is parked around the Mazda. Assembled a 12v battery out of 4 cells from the Prius extended range battery, put them on the charger for an hr and ..... roughly the 3rd rotation of the motor, it fired up and ran as smooth as it did the last time it ran about 4 yrs ago, it got towed to the present location behind the Mazda so it has been quite some time since it last drove under its own power. Gotta hand it to to the Fords, not even the Mazda would fire up without additional maintenance. Pumped up the flat tyre and drove it down in front of the flat top truck ... they can exchange tales about being left to rot after so many kms of faithful service.
Next it was the Blade that had to be moved .... the lead acid aux battery has gone to its maker, so yet another battery to build .... all so I can extract the Mazda from its current resting place.

Fortunately it's only Friday, we still have one or two days to get them all running, registered and heading up the river to the slip so we have some where to stay while Brian's boat is out of the water. Plan to make it a short working holiday to get Brian's boat surveyed for insurance, fix the slop in the steering linkage, fix a few tank modifications and wire up a direction indicator so Brian knows which way the outboard is facing to make maneuvering in tight spots easier ... better than the drive by sound method employed now

T1 Terry

[supersparky]

T1, just to save a bit of time and effort why don't you get a few pieces of 200 or 300 square bits of plate of some description. Like the old wheel alignment things , just so you can lock to lock without digging a ditch.
Good luck with the rest of the proposed works. When its all done, have fun, and a bit of a break.

[Dot]

We also request progress pictures please.