All this adds up to days of work for the diesel mechanic at Winslow Ford and nervous anticipation of the check I am going to have to write when this is all over. In the mean time about all we can do is twiddle our thumbs. The rent car we have has a 100 mi./day limit and there is nothing within that range that we have not already seen or done. We're just going to watch the five channels of TV we can pull in with our over-the-air antenna.
Let me tell you, Interstate 40 and the railroad that parallels it as they pass through Winslow are very busy 24 hours a day. Between the wind, traffic and trains, getting a good nights rest was hard to come by. To top it off, I forgot to screw the sewer hose storage cap back on. It was dangling from its lanyard and the wind was having its way with it, banging it against the bottom of the coach. Oh, well, I got up with the sun and went outside to lock down that noisy cap. I opened the door and found us to be sitting in the middle of a lake!
Oh man, somebody's got a leak. Poor guy. I stepped down and tip-toed my way out to a dry pathway to the back-side of the rig and that is when I realized that there was no water anywhere else except under my rig. Oh no, now what? In just a couple minutes I was able to find that water was running from my fresh water tank drain hose. That would be okay except that I do not keep water in the tank and the drain valve was closed. I went inside to read the level gauges for the tanks and much to my surprise I found the fresh water tank at 100%. After a little more sleuthing I found that the 3-way water supply valve had failed. Normally the fresh water tank fill is a separate connection from the house supply but New Horizons designed the plumbing so that there is a single connection and the fresh water tank or house supply can be selected with a flip of a valve. This valve was set to the house supply but was also leaking through to the on-board tank. Over the course of the night it had completely filled the 100 gallon tank and ran out the overflow and put at least another 100 gallons on the ground.
I immediately called the factory to find out who the manufacturer of the valve was and started hunting a replacement. As luck would have it there was not a single place in the little berg of Winslow that carried that valve. I got on the phone with the mobile RV service I used in Albuquerque to see if they had one on hand they could send me. They did not have one, but they could get one to me in a couple days. Okay, we are probably going to be here that long, lets do it.
Now we can not leave the water on. One of us has to go out and turn on the water to flush & wash hands, draw water for cooking, or get a drink and then shut it off again. That got old really fast so we gathered up and struck out for Flagstaff, never mind the mileage limit.
Flagstaff was about 76 miles away and we got there plenty early to look around for some RV service companies that might have the valve. Lucky for us, the very first one we visited had the valve and since it was within a block of the mall we got in some mall time before heading to a Pizzeria we knew about from last year. The place is called Oregano's and they make an awesome Chicago-style deep dish pizza.
When we left Winslow it was 81 degrees, when we arrived in Flagstaff it was 58 degrees. And now that the sun is about to go down it is in the 40's with a prediction of snow overnight. We got ourselves together and headed back to Winslow where it was nice and warm.
While it was a comfortable night temperature wise, it was still noisy and the need to replace the water valve was gnawing at me. So I was up and outside as soon as it was daylight. Ninety percent of every tool we have is in a box in the back of the truck, which is at Winslow Ford, but we do keep a small bag of basic hand tools in the basement. This time all I needed was a small Philips screw driver and a pair of pliers and they were in the bag. I was in business.
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| The offending valve. |
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