Another productive day

Went into the town of Arnprior today and to their DMV office. One person in line in front of us, and we were in and out of there in less than 10 minutes. Paid $10 to replace my lost drivers license.

But the other thing I wanted to do there is get a license plate renewal sticker for Sherman that is good until February of 2014 and I thought that might be a problem. Our current sticker expires in February 2012, but we will be in Mexico. We can definitely get a sticker that expires February 2013, but we still plan on being in Mexico then, possibly until May of 2013. The lady said that it can be done, but it involves making a special request that has to be approved. She said that it is easier to wait until we are within a six month window of the current expiry and that's not until after August 7th so we'll return next week.

Then we went to the hardware store and got some keys cut. We've never had a complete set of spare keys for the motorhome, which is just stupid. Why has it taken us over three years to get this done? No idea. Anyhow, it's done now and we also got one of those magnetic key cases that you hide until you may someday need it. By that time we'll probably forget where we hid it!

Doing a little bit of repair and maintenance work to Sherman every day. Besides removing the TV to make more storage space, we are also removing the microwave. We hardly ever use it, mostly because we're hardly ever hooked up to electricity. We can use it with the inverter and batteries, but hardly ever do. Besides, it's big and heavy and the space it occupies will make another great cabinet.

No more microwave!

Ruth took everything out of the fridge and gave it a major cleaning. While she was doing that, I did some research on our generator problem. I'm pretty sure I mentioned this at some point, but our generator stopped working about a year and a half ago. Again, we hardly ever use it because our solar panels and batteries setup works for our needs. What was happening was that you could start it, but it would only stay running if you held the start button on. And the output voltage was wacky. At the time, everything I looked at pointed towards a new voltage regulator which costs about $250. Because we don't use it anyhow, we couldn't justify spending the money.

But, I found online the 138 page service and troubleshooting manual for the Kohler 5CKM21 Genset. It gave a pretty detailed description of what could be the problem when this symptom occurs. It said that it could be low oil pressure, or the low oil pressure sensor. I tested it though and it appeared to be working properly. Then, it said that if output voltage isn't correct it could be the cause. I knew it wasn't right, so followed that up. It turns out there's a 5 amp fuse for the voltage regulator. But the fuse checked out okay. There's another 5 amp fuse for a de-icing unit on the carburetor. Just for fun, I switched the fuses and the fuse holder around. To my surprise, the generator fired up and kept running! Turned out to be a bad connection in the fuse holder! Very happy with that outcome!

There is only two reasons we need the generator. One example is when we were in Nova Scotia and it was cold and overcast for days on end. We didn't have enough sun for the batteries and we had to use the furnace . The furnace uses propane, but also needs a lot of electricity for the fan. We could have used the generator at the time. Also, we would use the generator when it's very hot to put the air conditioner on when we leave Whiskey behind. It doesn't happen often, but it would be nice to have the option available to us. Anyhow, I've fixed it and am very pleased with myself!

Another beautiful day here with blue sky and sunshine.