Week #7: R&R and Van Maintenance

We arrived in Santa Monica a week ago and have been staying with my aunt which has been a great break from life on the road. We also had been putting off a bunch of van maintenance and related projects until we got here since these things are more easily accomplished at someone's house rather than a Walmart parking lot. In fact, our projects will be the focus of this week's blog since we haven't really been doing much travel this week. Apologies that there aren't many photos but fixing water leaks doesn't inspire me to take photos!

Our punch list for the week consisted of installing rear windows in the van, installing a swivel seat on the passenger seat, fixing a persistent leak near the shower and fixing our inverter (finally!). We started with fixing the shower leak which we suspected was likely a contributing factor to the stinky van that I mentioned a couple weeks ago. As with most things in the van, extensive trouble shooting is necessary before fixing a problem. In this case, we had identified that the leak was coming from the back of the shower as we had noticed a small river flowing by our van seats when we had the water pump on. So we removed 4 panels (back and side shower panels as well as the roof panel and floor panel) to gain access to the pipes. Once the panels were off, we were quickly able to identify the source of the leak which was a PEX pipe that was not securely attached to a SharkBite fitting. I jammed it in better and the problem was fixed (for now). Part of the challenge of van living is that there are constant vibrations throughout the van which can be difficult on our electrical, propane and water systems.      

Our next project was to install van windows on our rear doors. We had already installed smaller bunk windows on both sides of the van and a larger window on our sliding door so we had a fairly good idea of what we were getting into. These rear windows were different though as they didn't clamp on like the others but adhered to the vehicle using a urethane caulk instead. This was a little scary as it seemed like a flimsy way to keep our brand new windows attached to our vehicle but what choice did we have? So we jumped into it, boldly cutting huge holes in our van doors with a jigsaw and slapping the windows on just before it got pitch black! So far, so good with the windows and we're keeping our fingers crossed that they stay on particularly when we're rumbling down bumpy roads in Mexico in a few weeks. See photo below of our snazzy new windows!

We were on a roll with these van projects so we figured we might as well install the swivel seat which had finally arrived after several shipping mishaps and supply chain challenges. The swivel seat is exactly what it sounds like - once installed, it would enable us to swivel around in the passenger seat to face the back of the van. This gives us extra seating and extends the living space of the van into the cab area. It was actually a very easy installation thanks to the portable toolkit that my aunt's husband Chet gave us back in New Hampshire. Thanks again for the toolkit, Chet - it has come in handy SO many times!!   

The final topic for this abbreviated post will be fixing our inverter which hadn't worked since we hit the road in early November. Ginny had spent countless hours trouble shooting the inverter and was at her wit's end trying to figure out why it still wasn't working. We decided to take advantage of our proximity to the company that makes our inverter (Renogy) to get the problem fixed. Their tech support is truly abysmal so we decided that we would just show up at their facility and not leave until it was fixed. This sounded good in theory but I thought it might be a little like Michael Moore trying to get a meeting with Roger Smith (GM Chairman) in Roger and Me over the Flint, MI plant closures. To avoid morning traffic, we decided to go spend the night in a parking lot in Ontario, CA very close to the Renogy facility. The next morning we rolled down the street to the Renogy facility and learned that they were not really well set up for customer protests i.e. you need an employee swipe card just to get in the front door! We finagled our way in though and eventually found a technical guy (Oliver) who agreed to test our inverter for us. After extensive diagnostic testing, it turned out that our inverter was just on the wrong setting...can you believe that!? A 30 minute call with their technical support should have been able to solve that problem but it took us driving to their facility, camping out and sweet talking Oliver into inspecting our inverter. Anyhow, all's well that ends well and we're very happy to have a functioning inverter again...hot showers here we come!