Racing The Cold

Before we entered the deep freeze for a few days, we had an outdoor chore to complete. Friday or Saturday would have been the right timing but there is no sense working in 4° on Friday when I could work in 41° on Tuesday. 

What is that chore? It is emptying the holding tanks, otherwise known as doing the work of the evangelist. 

I do not have a receptacle for emptying the black holding tank inside the barn so after 20-21 days, we need to pull outside and take care of that task. 

We are very rarely home that many days in a row, so it is really not that big of a problem.

It has been cold in the barn so I turned on the engine block heater for a few hours. The big Detroit fired right up like it should. That always brings a smile to my face. 

I have a short length of rubber exhaust hose that I clamp onto the bus exhaust when I start the bus in the barn. It reaches out the big overhead door and about 3 feet away from the door. That helps us to prevent smoking up the barn.

KJo drove the bus in and out of the barn  and helped with the work too. I would say we were finished in about 30 minutes with no injuries and no frostbite. 

We were praising God for sunshine along with 41°! By the time you read this we will be sliding into very cold temperatures. I will stay inside as much as possible. 

Thank you for stopping by. 

 Davy 

Bussing Along

I was reminded by a faithful reader recently that I had failed to bring you up-to-date on the bus repairs that were needed when we parked in Tennessee.

 

My laptop has been down for a few weeks and that throws me into a tailspin when it comes to blogging. It is difficult for me to blog from the phone and much easier to write and post from the computer.

Odie has continued to help me out since we have been home and I appreciate that. She may continue that for a while until I can get this computer back on its feet. Kelly and I worked on the laptop a few hours yesterday and made some progress, but we need professional help. 

BoggsMobile

As you may remember, we have been having a problem with our power steering on the bus since September. Jeff Rowe ordered parts in September, hoping to have them in by the time we could get the bus to him in November. 

Thankfully we were able to add fluid on a daily basis, sometimes a few times a day, and we made it there without completely losing power steering. 

He had the parts and while we were gone he had his guys replace the proper parts and got the power steering working properly again.  

On our way home, the power steering worked beautifully. I will need to check The level before we roll again, but we are so glad to have it working.

Jeff also performed some maintenance items on the bus while we were gone and completed other repairs. We are so glad to have him in our lives and we are thankful for him. We pray daily for God to bless him and his business. 

In other bus news, the bus has two 12 volt water pumps for our fresh water system. The first few years of bus ownership I worked on these and the leaking water lines every winter. 

Several years ago I put in two very good 12 volt pumps and had brother Jimmie Radcliffe put pex plumbing from them to the water intake.

We only need one pump and the other is a back up. One of them went out a while back, but it is the hardest one to replace so I let it go. Jeff Rowe replaced the second pump last spring.

After we arrived home a week ago, the non-working pump started leaking. Rather than remove everything to take it out, I disconnected the hoses and capped them Saturday with Kelly Jo's help. 

I will replace it and replumb it in warmer surroundings   If we make it through December, will be fine.

I do not know if you can see this, but the water pump in question is behind the manifold and water lines in the picture below. I have had all of that out several times, but it is a major job.

 

The "easy" one is the one with red writing behind the lower water lines.

The capped water lines.  

I am sure there will be more bus stuff in the future. Thank you for taking time to stop in today. We appreciate it.

Davy 

The Weekend Dispath 12/12/22

We have slipped back into our routine weekends and it feels great. Friday and Saturday, KJo and I messed with bus stuff and unfortunately, that seems way too normal.😍 

Saturday, we went next door to Dodds Church for a few minutes for a funeral visitation and Sunday was full of church and driving.

First, I will post pictures from Dryden Rd Church that I promised Friday and did not deliver.

Sunday morning we drove about an hour to West Harrison, Indiana, to preach for our dear friends there. Pastor Wade Hicks invited us to preach and we are always glad to be there with him and his folks. We love these long time friends.

We had a wonderful Christmas themed service and then they had breakfast afterward. We enjoyed all of it.

We drove back home after the meal, rested a few minutes and then drove about 35 minutes to Linwood Faith Tabernacle on the east side of Cincinnati. It is hard to believe, but we had never been to this church before.

We are very thankful for the invitation to meet them and to preach. It was an outstanding Sunday night service and we enjoyed every moment of it.

Bro. Jerry Pascarella began as Pastor there in recent months and we are so glad he invited us. The Pascarella's have been our friends for years and we are so happy to be introduced to the Linwood Faith Tabernacle.

We were pleasantly surprised to know some of the folks and to be connected to several others through friends and family. That is always cool when going to a new to us church.

Then we enjoyed Skyline with our friends and made our way back to the ranch.

That pretty much wraps up our weekend. Tune in next time for some of the bus stuff I was talking about. Thank you for stopping in.

Davy

It Is NOT The Most Expensive Mistake I Have Ever Made

Several weeks ago, I told you a story that happened on the first day of this tour in August. Long story short, I left my fuel cap on the pump. In 39 years of driving and 14.5 years of driving this bus, I had never done that before.

Here is the long of the story. You can skip down if you have heard this one before.

I had planned to stop for diesel in northern Kentucky, but that did not go so well. We maneuvered through traffic, waited in line and then my fuel card would not work. 

That is not so unusual, so KJo took it inside while I retightened the 48 lug nuts on the trailer. I had the wheels off recently and this was the 50 mile checkup.

The fuel card will not scan properly so the clerk has to punch in the numbers manually. This clerk said it was company policy not to run a card that will not scan, so no diesel. We have multiple ways to pay, but I wanted to use that card.

In the process of this, I unlocked and opened the fuel door and removed the cap. While tightening the lug nuts, I closed the fuel door. After the clerk could/would not help, I made sure the fuel door was locked and left the fuel cap on top of the pump!

Stupid rookie move!

I discovered my mistake 30 miles later at the next truck stop. All went well with the fuel card, as we knew it would/should.😍

Since then, I have been using several heavy duty paper towels to cover the opening and holding them on with a wire tie.

I tried to order a cap from the national parts line for Prevost, but they could not determine which cap I need. They should be able to tell from my VIN but they were having trouble for some reason. 

There are a few different fuel tank configurations for my model year and even though I could tell them about mine and had the VIN, they could provide no joy. It must have been a glitch in the system of some kind.

I called the Prevost Fort Worth location and after some searching, some holding, some begging and pleading they came up with a part number. There was one matching part in New Jersey and I had it shipped to our next stop. After so much trouble, I was not 100% confident it would be the right one, but low and behold, it is!

It is exactly the correct cap. It even has a chain to hook inside. The chain should prevent a reoccurrence of this mishap. For future reference, the part number is 530041. I hope I never need to know the number.

The price was $42.18 plus $9.99 shipping. It is pricey enough to make me regret it, but not the most expensive mistake I have ever made.😍🤣

Well, you live and learn. At least that is the goal. It sure would be a shame to live a long life and never learn.

Thank you for stopping by today.

Davy

Traveling "FUN"

We have been having a wonderful time this week under the Blue and White Gospel Tent. That completely makes up for the work and stress of getting to this point. 

We are praising God for His help!

But the reality is that tent revival is not all fun and games.

Monday I mentioned that last Thursday was a whopper of a travel day. IF all travel days were like that one, I might croak. But if all travel days were easy, everyone could do it and I might be out of a job!

We were leaving Central City, Kentucky, driving the bus and pulling the trailer 470 miles to Thomasville, Alabama.

This was the plan. We would crank the bus and KJo would follow me in the Green Machine about 3.5 miles to a local business where the tent trailer was parked. There we would hook up the trailer, pull to a local store with a big parking lot and load the Green Machine in the trailer.

Easy Peazy, right? This is how it turned out in the real world.

I left in the bus, but KJo could not follow me. She had left the Green Machine key in her apron pocket and the apron was in the bus with me. 😁

No problem, except, there is NO place for me to turn a bus around on the road. So I had to go all the way to town, turn around and go back to the church, pull into the church and leave again.

25 minutes gone like dust in the wind.😢

At least KJo captured pictures of the BoggsMobile coming back.

It took about 25 more minutes to go to the trailer, hook it up and drive to a nearby store with a large parking lot. We inserted the Green Machine, strapped it down and we were ready to go.

Before leaving, I checked a few lug nuts and also checked a few tires for proper air pressure. While doing that, I noticed one of the dust covers/grease caps had come off. Ugh!

Keep in mind, we just had these off recently and we are ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN all the caps were on good and tight. 

Thankfully, the cover was not lost, the center cap caught it, but this one has come off before. Since that cap had a history of coming off, I replaced it.

I had ordered four of the correct size (2.75") two weeks ago so I had extra. I put a new one on and it stayed on all day. It is a different style, but it works fine. Of course, the wheel had to come off to get to it. Ugh Again!

I did not reinstall the center cap. In the pictures below, the left one has no center cap and the right one does.

What do you think? I may remove all the center caps. It would be so much easier to work on.

By the time we finished that, 90 minutes had passed since we first left the church, we had driven 14 miles, but we were only about 6 miles from the church in 90 minutes. 90 minutes = 6 miles. Not a very good start for the day. At that rate, we might be in Alabama by November.😢😜

50 miles later, we stopped at a truck stop so I could retighten the lug nuts on the tire I had removed and reinstalled.

The traffic in Nashville was not near as bad as it could have been. It was only slow for a few minutes. However, with all the delay at the beginning of the day, it took us four hours to get south of Nashville about 130 miles from where we began. Wow!

The rest of the day was better. We finished with 353 miles and over 8 hours later at a Flying J near McCalla, Alabama.

It was a welcome relief to pull into a parking place and shut down for the day. Hallelujah!

Some days you eat the bear and some days the bear eats you. Keep putting one foot in front of the other and press on!

Thank you for reading today.

Davy