Welcome to Red Dog Adventures

Today is the big day. The repair shop finished up the steering box about noon and I paid out. We had to take the old steering box to the big UPS shipping center so it could be shipped back to Weller in order to get our $200 core charge refunded. By the time we returned it was about 1pm. Time to test drive. Immediately I realized a problem. Steering was VERY difficult. I debated if it was even safe to test drive around the block to assess the problem. I decided I could make it and about 100 yards down the road suddenly it fixed itself (most of the way). I made it back to the shop and checked the fluid and determined the air had not been fully bled from the system and was now about 1/2 gallon low on fluid. This was after I helped bleed the system with the shop and had verified fluid levels were actually a little too high. I re-filled the system and worked the steering to further bleed it on the lot. After 30 minutes or so I was ready for another test drive. This time the steering had no issues. I rechecked the fluids, and we hooked up the car. We were super eager to leave. We headed out Hwy 71/Hwy 290 with a plan of stopping in Sonora TX. Because of our rush we didn’t empty the holding tanks and now we discovered bad sewer smell. Crud. Due to the smell we made a very short detour to Perdenales Falls Texas State Park to use their dump station. It was a nice quiet park with partial hook up sites available. We considered staying but it would add another day getting to Big Bend so we pressed on. We got to Sonora about 6:45 just after dark. Mike the manager of the RV park actually met us in town, led us to our parking spot, and even helped hook up the RV. The park was just a parking lot but was quiet and we relished the full hook-ups for the first time since leaving home. It was wonderful to be away from the repair shop.

No good pictures today, just our route.

Today is Sunday so no work on the coach.  I was actually surprised and pleased they worked Saturday.   Unfortunately with the coach in the bay we don’t get satellite.  This afternoon is Super Bowl and we have no Satellite.  What to do?  We headed to Chili’s early for snacks and drinks to watch the game.     We actually had a really nice evening with exceptional attention by the wait staff.

 

We got up extra early this morning so we would be ready to move the coach into the working bay as soon as Fleet workers arrived. It took a while for Fleet to get vehicles rearranged and they started work at about 0830. By 1145 they had the new gearbox loosely in place but they had ruined the nuts with a torch getting them off. They can’t get new 7/8 locking nuts until Monday morning so our hopes of departing today are dashed. It is probably good I didn’t try the repair myself on the road after seeing how hard it was for the shop to get the old gearbox out.

Donna and I went to Texas Roadhouse for lunch and then decided to checkout Bastrop Texas State Park, a short 30 miles east on Hwy 71. Bastrop had nice facilities and nice trails. It was probably a very pretty park prior to 2011 when decimated by the worst and most damaging Texas wildfire in history. This park connects with Buescher Texas State Park. This park has a small pretty lake, lots of hiking and wasn’t quite as hard hit by the fire. Sorry, I didn’t grab any pics at these parks.  We also headed back to McKinney Falls (yet again) so Maverick could have some fun trail time.

We are still staying in our coach waiting until Monday so they can finish the steering gearbox job. All of the hard parts should be behind us so we “should” be free by noon Monday. We will probably head direct for Big Bend since we no longer have time to go to Corpus Christi as originally planned.

Ran around and did errands all day. Spoke with Fleet this morning to let them know I had all of the parts for the gearbox and to see when they expected to start. They were startled that I had actually procured the parts and indicated it was their policy to NOT install owner supplied parts. They understood my predicament and said they would check with their boss about helping us anyway. The rest of the day we ran errands. We ate lunch at Serranos and it was pretty good mexican food with a passable Margarita. After lunch I took Donna to urgent care because her cough and chest congestion has flared back up. We are scared not to address it after my brother Rick’s experience with Sepsis and with all of the chatter in the news about the flu. While Donna was at urgent care I went to Tractor Supply and got the required bolts for the gearbox swap and checked multiple places for tools I would need if I were to try the gearbox repair on my own. I hadn’t heard back from Fleet and was getting worried I would be on my own. I was just getting ready to buy the first tool at Harbor Freight when Fleet called and said they would install my parts. They would start first thing in the morning (Sat). The doc said Donna had severe allergies from the extra high levels of Cedar in the Austin area.

Sorry, no pictures today.   Tractor Supply wasn’t that interesting anyway 🙂

Today started with a call to Weller Truck Parts. I spoke with John in the Weller steering department in MI. I explained to John I needed parts as soon as possible since I was broke down in Austin. John checked stock and the parts were available in Irving Texas. He asked me to expect a call from the Irving Texas store. Weller in MI has developed the steering gearbox swap database and work with RVers to make sure we get the right parts for a Sheppard to TRW swap. They also give special pricing to the RVers swapping steering boxes. Donna, Mav, and I went to Macs for our morning Diet Coke and before we got there Weller Irving called. They said they had everything ready for us. We chose to make the drive to Irving and back to make sure the parts would be available as soon as Fleet Maintenance was ready for us. We took off at 9:30am and got back to the Coach about 6:30pm. Having the parts in hand now enables me to tackle this project myself if Fleet drags this out. We are VERY anxious to get on the road.  I “can” do this myself but would really prefer professionals do the job.  My fear is Fleet will keep delaying.  The good news is as soon as they bring the Coach in they now have everything they need for the swap/repair. Weller has been very supportive and knowledgeable.

Tomorrow is the “how close are we to getting in for repair?” conversation. Based on that we will decide if I do this myself. The challenges doing this myself include:

• 500 lbf torque bolts – requires big cheater bars or expensive torque multiplier tool
• Handling a gearbox that weighs 80 lbs
• Drilling a 2″ hole in a steel plate 1/2″ thick that also requires a right-angle drill
• Somewhere between $100 and $400 worth of tools I will probably never use again.
• Finding a location I can use to perform major maintenance.

Maverick was very disappointed with today’s activities. He has been accustomed to walks on trails with waterfalls. We did end the day with a very brief sunset walk at Ladybird Lake.

 

Today we decided to go back to McKinney Falls. We decided to go back mainly so we could use their showers. In our current Fleet Maintenance location we aren’t hooked up to sewer so managing our gray and black tank levels is important. We discovered there is a dump station in the Fleet lot, however, maneuvering the coach to the dump station and back is non-trivial in this crowed lot. Instead of hassling that we decided the showers at the park were a better deal. The park is only about 10 minutes away and Maverick loves the trails.
First thing, we repeated the falls hike we enjoyed before. This time however we took the “Shelter Rock” loop which is pretty cool and also hiked further to the lower falls. We discovered that on our last visit we came close but not quite to the actual lower falls. I’m glad we revisited that area and got to enjoy the lower falls.

 

After the Hike we used the campground showers. They were really nice with a heater in the shower area. Good hot water and dressing bench.
Once we were all cleaned up we departed the park and headed to lunch at Javi’s Tex Mex.  Javi’s was a very good meal and quite affordable.
After lunch we made a Wal-Mart run and brought refrigerated goods back to the Coach.  Then on to Lady Bird lake. At the lake we setup our chairs and read books, walked Mav and just enjoyed a beautiful day.

Today we went to Metro Park on the Colorado river across from downtown. It was really nice and had an off-leash park for Maverick.  Later we went to Lockhart Texas, famous for BBQ. We decided to check out the Lockhart Texas State Park, we now have our Texas State Park year long pass after all. At the state park we hiked the Commanche loop. Its a small park and the trail area was deserted.  Maverick had an amazing good time (off leash) and Donna and I really enjoyed the hike. Afterward we ate at Blacks BBQ. It was very good. The meat was delicious, but I didn’t care for the preparation of the beans.  Donna really enjoyed the Pecan Pie Cobbler.  We then walked the very picturesque Lockhart square. We noted that this weekend there is a car show planned so we will likely be back. On a side note: we took Texas State Highway 130 to Lockhart. We discovered it has the US highest speed limit at 85 MPH. Wow! No idea why here.

I am currently working to source a new steering gear box for the coach. Yes, this would normally be the responsibility of the repair shop. After reviewing the iRV2 internet forums the overwhelming recommendation is not to replace my steering box with an identical part but rather to “upgrade” to a better TRW unit. In order to get this shop to do this correctly I need to help get the correct parts and procedures. Ugh.  A major truck supplier (Welller) the forums work with has confirmed the parts I need and hopefully tomorrow I can get them on their way.  The way a “big truck” facility works is you get on the lot and wait your turn.  In this case 4-5 days.  Then they confirm what I already know, the steering box is bad. THEN they order parts and repair the coach when the parts arrive. I hope to acquire the retrofit parts in advance so when we get pulled in I already have the parts. Yes this is all a little dicey.

Day two of our big adventure and it sounds awesome, right?
Well………

Last night I noticed quite a bit of power steering fluid under the front of the coach as we pulled in.  This morning I verified the fluid is coming from the Steering Box around the PITMAN arm shaft.  I checked the power steering fluid level and there was nothing on the dip stick, even though I checked it was full before we left (never a drip before).  Uh Oh..    We took the Jeep to Autozone and got more Dexron III to top off the fluid and planned a 8 mile trip to Fleet Maintenance in Austin.   When I pulled into Fleet I had a hefty puddle and a trail you could follow, presumably all of the way back to the falls.   We are definitely losing too much to attempt any highway trip.
So…….
Here we are “camping” in the industrial Fleet Maintenance lot waiting to be looked at in 4-5 days.  Yes, this is typical of “big-rig” repair shops.   They do supply electric and water RV hook-ups here for no additional cost.  I have spent over 8 hours on the internet today investigating power steering on my rig.  The overwhelming recommendation in forums is to dump my existing Sheppard steering box in favor for a much better TRW box.    I’m guessing about $2000 for that privilege.   It could take a week to get parts and who knows how long for this shop to get to this 6 hour job.
We have temporarily canceled Corpus and Big Bend until we know we are travel ready.    If only it had failed at home I might actually have completed the repair myself.   On the road we don’t really have a choice.  Of course if this happened on the road to Alaska it could have been way worse.   Just so you know I do have an emergency towing service I pay for.
While I probably paint a pretty sad picture we remain pretty happy and optimistic.     Issues like this can happen at any time and we anticipated a long trip like this would have bumps along the way.  Now we’ve got a week or so to explore all around Austin. Today we ate at the Trip Advisor #1 Pizza place, Home Slice. It was good but not exceptional. Feels very much like a college place.  I think BBQ in Lockhart TX is on the agenda for tomorrow.

The Fleet Maintenance camping experience isn’t great.   While we do have 30amp electric and water hook-up, we need to conserve water because we don’t have sewer and moving the rig around to use a dump station is not easy.   Unfortunately a large air compressor runs about every hour near us and we are in the Austin airport flight path.  The noise alone makes this less than ideal. Also walking Maverick after dark is a little scary in this setting.  On a side note, it is REALLY nice to have mobile internet and Satellite TV no matter where you are 🙂

As some of you may know a year ago we had planned a June trip to St Thomas and we planned to end our RV trip to coincide with that.  The resort called and said they had to cancel because they still couldn’t open in June due to damage from the 2017 Hurricane. We realized this opened the opportunity for us to continue on to Alaska “IF” we weren’t too tired of RV’ing and everything remained good on the home front. So you may hear me refer to a pending Alaska trip this summer.  More to come….

 

I finally did it. I retired after 35 1/2 years from Raytheon (legacy Texas Instruments). Scary and exciting all at once. Donna and I have been planning extended RV travel for over two years. In January 2016 I posted a write-up of our Galveston RV dry run where we rented a Class A and tried it out for a week. Skip forward to today. We have spent the last year upgrading/renovating a 2002 Holiday Rambler Endeavor 40 ft diesel Class A. We are very proud and I plan on writing up a description shortly. I am planning on emailing monthly updates about where we have been, where we are going, and our experiences. The goal is to have a short write-up to keep friends and family up to date. So many have expressed interest in keeping in touch and seeing how its going. I officially retired January 2, 2018. Unfortunately I spent from Thanksgiving until I retire dealing with family issues. My dad fell ill over Thanksgiving and eventually passed away on 12 December 2017. I miss him terribly. Over Christmas my brother was seriously ill and spent days in ICU before recovering. As a result January 2 was really the very beginning of our new retired life.

January has been a busy month saying goodbye, taking care of deferred projects, and getting the RV ready for the long adventure. Donna and I departed McKinney on Sunday 28 January for our “great adventure”.  Our plan…. stop at McKinney Falls Tx State Park on our way to Corpus Christi and Big Bend.  Reservations at Corpus and Big Bend parks are made.  We are SOOO excited that over 2 years of preparation and planning is finally in motion.  Yesterday and last night in McKinney Falls was super nice.  Weather is PERFECT.  The park is really nice and very busy.  The falls weren’t flowing a lot but the hike and terrain was really beautiful.
Here are a few pics of Red Dog and I enjoying the park.  Donna is the one taking the pics.  The park isn’t really large but has a very nice 3 mile trail around the park and 3 or 4 other trails leading from campgrounds to upper and lower falls.  There are a lot of really cool stone features created by flowing water and the falls are pretty neat.  If there was more water flowing it could be spectacular.  The campground was great with lots of room between sites, heavily wooded, and very clean.   The campground was full and there were many day visitors.  The trails were mostly paved or groomed, wide, and flat making it very popular with all ages.  It’s a super nice location only 5 miles east of downtown Austin.
By the way, we went ahead and purchased a year pass to Texas State Parks for $70. It covers entrance fees for Donna and I for a year. That way we can sample all of the parks without even thinking about entrance fees.