Thursday, January 12, 2012

A 79-cent solution

January 12, 2012—Seventy-one cents. That’s how much it cost to fix our water leak.

Before we went into McKinney to see Nancy and Steve yesterday, Jim took a look at the water pump and found the source of the problem: a broken end cap. When he removed it, he also discovered that the crack in the end cap had apparently been there for a while. Someone (most likely the previous owner) had tried to “fix” the problem by injecting silicone into the end cap. The solution had worked—maybe for years—but finally gave out.

We went to Lowe’s and found an end cap that fit. It took 71 cents and 30 seconds to fix the problem permanently. Sometimes you wonder …

The person who had “fixed” the leak was probably the same person who had “fixed” the headlight problem. If you recall, last summer when we were enroute to Yuma, Ariz., we found out the headlights did not work properly. Shortly after turning on them on, they suddenly went out. Obviously, we could not drive in the dark, so throughout our six-week trip last summer, we had to stop at sunset. Fortunately, it didn’t get dark until late, so the lack of headlights did not affect us much.

Somewhere on that trip (I think in Texas, when we discovered the problem), Jim had inquired about getting a new headlight switch. It was going to cost $250! He came up with another solution—he would rewire the headlights and install rocker switches he bought at an electronic store for $3 each. His solution cost about $12 and a couple hours of work.

When he had removed the faulty switch, guess what he found? Wires that had silicone holding them together.
I guess the previous owner of this bus was not a very knowledgeable handyman. Furthermore, he believed that silicone was the answer to everything. I wonder how many other “solutions” we will find as we continue on our travels?

At any rate, the water problem is fixed. Never has a shower felt so good.

Ah, the little things in life.

Until next time,

Your Reluctant RoVer,

Linda

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