One Little Victory at a Time

Yesterday Jan and Paul took Bella to G&S and showed the owner the damage that had been done when someone clipped the back end, damaging two locks and basement doors.  Gary was very gracious; there was no question about fixing it especially since he found the place where it had been damaged and the missing pieces laying on the ground.  He sent Jan and Bella up to Diamond RV to get a price for replacement doors.

Surprise... (well, not totally)... since Damon is out of business, the parts are no longer available and the doors would need to be custom made at about $130 each and the color would be bright white; Bella is an aged beige.  So instead of that, Gary is having his autobody guy repair the doors; Gary himself ordered new hinges and locks.  Meanwhile, Bella has plastic over the open basement compartments while we wait for a call that the parts are ready; it should only take a day or two.

While at Diamond RV, Jan asked them about replacing the propane tank.  Two service guys looked under Bella and both decided they were reading the same hard-to-read numbers.  The tank has been special-ordered and should arrive within a week.  Then, hopefully, they can install the tank before we want to go camping the following weekend.

When Bella returns to have her propane tank installed, the service guys will put a load test on the batteries which seem pretty much kaput.  They're in a really difficult place to get at -- we have to remove the mattress and unscrew the 5/8" plywood base in order to get at the battery compartment.  I guess that's the price we pay for "compact RV".   We may be buying new deep cell batteries, too.  Also, not totally surprising.

Passed Inspection, But...

Last Friday, Jan got brave and took Bella down for re-inspection.  Thanks to Paul's hard work in the dark after he came home each night, she passed inspection!  Whew!!  One challenge down!

But.... on Saturday morning, when Jan went out to Bella she noticed it seemed like someone had tried to break into Bella's 'basement'.  Two locks were pushed in, the hinges were damaged and the paint was scraped.  [The basement is the storage area(s) under the 'house' part... the areas accessed from outside.]  On closer look, it was apparent that someone had side-swiped Bella, not broken in.  Since the only place she'd been was to the inspection station, it was likely that it happened there!  There was also yellow paint scrapings on the damaged areas.  Jan called the inspection place and left a message on their answering machine.

Poor Bella!  Just when we're trying to make her beautiful!

In the meantime, Jan had also made some calls about the propane tank and found that Diamond RV could replace the tank for about $1,000.  As we said, we knew we'd have to sink some money into her.

Monday's calendar was filling up - re-visit the inspection station, and go to Diamond RV to have the propane tank looked at so they could get the part numbers.

Outfitting and Maintaining

There are two aspects of Bella that have become important:  Outfitting and Maintaining.  Jan is in charge of Outfitting.  Paul is in charge of Maintaining.

Outfitting has been fun!!  Jan has been spending lots of time looking at Pinterest and reading blogs written by serious RV fanatics!  She's found lots of nifty ideas and is slowly incorporating some of them into Bella.

The first thing Jan did was shop for fabric to recover the full-size mattress in the back of Bella.   We want to use that space as a "lounge" during the day, and pillow-ticking just didn't do it.  She found some great classy chocolate brown upholstery fabric with blue and gold accents, and some matching pillows.  The cover turned out great, but we don't have any pictures of it in place yet.

                                                                                                              

Jan's been scouring Big Lots, Walmart, and Target for storage bins, shelves, racks, etc. in order to maximize the storage we have.  The biggest challenge is how to store the dishes and pots and pans.  The kitchen doesn't have much actual storage space in it, though it has great appliances.  The refrigerator is 5 cubic feet, which is really large and we have a three-burner, full oven range and microwave.  At some point we may replace the shallow porcelain double sink, but for the time being it's fine.

   

Jan's purse (for scale) inside the fridge.

       


We have lots of overhead storage in the "dining area" and in the bedroom, but not much in the kitchen.

Stove on the left (black thing) and bed (mattress) on the right.  This is the pantry!

Inspection Challenge

On the way home, it became apparent that not all of Bella's brake lights were working.  Paul also learned that Bella needs a while to build up a full head of steam; her get-up-and-go has got-up-and-went.  She's a heavy thing and hasn't got a lot of power.  Going up steep inclines is going to be a challenge; we'll end up in the slow lane the whole way!  LOL

We found out that we could get her inspected at a local heavy truck repair place in Hatfield, so on Monday Jan had to jump in the cab, and drive her for the first time!  It was a little scary, but the sun was shining and she only had to go a mile down the road.  Thankfully, the mechanics at G&S backed Bella in and out of the inspection bay because Jan didn't think she was quite up to that!

Bella failed!  (No real surprise.)  Her brake lights, a running light, and the back up lights didn't work.  But worse, the horn didn't work at all!  Thankfully, the emissions inspection was fine.  :)

Over the next couple nights, Paul troubleshooted (troubleshot?) the problems and was able to fix each one of them.  We now have two multi-packs of lightbulbs for the exterior lights, so hopefully that will hold us for a while.

In the meantime, Jan noticed that the onboard (built-in on the bottom of the truck chassis) propane tank was really, really rusty and started researching online.  It seems there is no required inspection for on-board propane tanks unless you live in Canada and then it's only every 10 years!  It also seems that such tanks can be replaced, but it's a bit costly -- hundreds of dollars.  We knew we were going to have to sink some money into Bella, though, so this is not unexpected.  Time for Jan to do more research and find a place to do it.

This is the propane tank -- totally rusted.  Even the metal plate with the part number is hard to read!

A New Member of the Family

On September 6, 2013 we added a new "member" to the family.  Her name is Bella.  Sometimes, though, her name is The Beast.  It depends.  She's a little old - built in March, 1994 and a little Italianate with gold braided cord on her window dressings -- thus the Italian name.  She also has flashy glow-in-the-headlight striping that's purple and blue -- and a little faded.  An old dame.

Bella is a 1994 Damon Ultrasport LE, a 22' Class C motorhome, though a 22' RV barely qualifies as a "motor"home.  She's built on a Chevy 350 Chassis and comes with some standard 1994-style equipment such as crank-up windows and non-power brakes -- no ABS on this baby!  She's a little heavy in the chassis, built solidly.  She has plush padding and  mirrors on many of her surfaces and was probably quite the looker, and expensive, in her day, but like all old dames, she's a little faded.

We enjoyed our RV trip in Oregon so much that we decided this was the way to enjoy the outdoors with our two grandchildren, Evan and Evangeline.  We might even invite their parents along!  Bella has room enough for 5 or 6 people if the kids sleep two to a bunk, or if one of them sleeps on the floor like Nate used to do when he was little.

We found Bella on consignment at an RV dealer in Hammonasett, CT via craigslist.  She was a good deal; we knew we'd have to do a fair bit of work to get her in good shape, but we like do-it-yourself projects and learning as we go along.  There will certainly be a lot to learn on this baby.

Our first challenge was just simply figuring out how to get her from CT to MA.  It took several trips -- First, Jan had to go to the bank to get a certified check.  Then Paul had to drive to CT to seal the deal and get the title and bill of sale.  Then he had to drive back to MA to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get her registered and get license plates.  The next morning Jan and Paul drove back down to CT to get Bella from the storage yard of the RV dealer, screw on the plates, and head for home in MA.