Last Post of the 2011

Here we are! December 31, 2011! Wow! Time flies whether you are having fun or not! But we are definitely having fun most of the time!

A year ago we were at Zoar Holiness Church near Elba, Alabama with Pastor Jon Isaacs and his family. Today we are in Wynnewood, Oklahoma. We have covered some miles in the last year, been in some tremendous services, watched as folks lives were changed by the gospel and we have received much help from the Lord. It has been a wonderful crazy year and we are thankful for it.

We plan to start 2012 off by making our way to Blair, Oklahoma about 150 miles from here and beginning revival tomorrow night. The air leak is not resolved but I have made the decision to press on and try to either get it fixed there or take it to Prevost in Ft. Worth in the next week or so. 

We are looking forward to revival with Bro. Billy Ray Hudson and his church. We have been there once before for one service but we have never preached revival there. We are asking God to meet us in each and every service. God certainly knows what people need and he knows how to meet those needs. Please pray that God will use us to minister to His people.

We spent the day with the Landress family. I helped Bro. Larry on a project that he has going and enjoyed visiting with him. He helped me so much yesterday on several projects and I can't even begin to repay him. Bro. Larry and his family have been our friends for many years and they mean so much to us. They have helped us and encouraged us in more situations than I can count. I am very thankful that God brought them into our lives. We have shared several meals with them and their children and grandchildren the last few days and we have enjoyed it so much.

May God bless you all with a great start to 2012!

Davy

Here are the pictures I promised last night.

This is a picture of the lines that were/are broken. The small oil line in the foreground is fixed with a coupling and the big air line has the yellow patch material and the clamp around it. We are not sure that the temporary patch can take the heat but it is holding for now and has definitely slowed down the air escaping.

Here is the finished battery installation.

Working on the BoggsMobile

Today was a work day. I changed the batteries today and then Bro. Landress worked on replacing the leaking air hose. If you don't like posts that talk about working on things at least skip to the bottom and look at the last two pictures.. It will be worth it.

The batteries have been losing their charge quickly and they are over 5 years old so it was time for replacement. Everything went smoothly on the battery change and the bus started so I guess I didn't mess it up too badly.

There is a platform on top of the batteries and the battery charger sits on top of that. I had already removed that when I took the first picture.

Everything is pretty much out in the open and that is always a blessing when a fat guy is trying to work on something.

There are four batteries so I numbered the posts 1-8 and marked each wire as I took it off. Several  posts had four wires and all but one had two or more wires. By labeling each wire I wanted to make sure I didn't mix any up. Even with every wire marked clearly it could have easily been confusing.

These are the new batteries below.

These are the old ones. The old batteries charged for about 1000 miles over the last two days and three of them read 12.1 volts when I took them out. The one in the back was at 10.8 volts so that one was the culprit.

Here is the empty battery tray...

And here are the new batteries installed...

I didn't take a picture with the cover and battery charging re-installed but I should have a chance to take one tomorrow. I wish I wasn't going to open that compartment tomorrow but we are still working on the air leak. Bro. Landress took the small hose off and it had an obvious hole.

What wasn't so obvious was the fact that the large hose it was rubbing against also had a hole. This is the view from the passenger side just beyond the batteries...

The small hose is an oil hose. It runs from a fitting next to the compressor up to the alternator. You have never heard of an alternator that needs to be oiled? Me neither, but as my Dad always said, "You learn something new every day IF you pay attention." I actually had a diesel guy tell me today that NO alternator has an oil line running to it so he would have learned something too had he been willing to pay attention. lol

Down below near the bottom center of this picture you can see the two metal mesh type hoses. The small one going up is the oil hose the large one going side to side toward the right bottom corner is the main air hose coming out of the compressor. Of course these are special high temperature hoses with Teflon lining. We were able to have the small hose spliced with a special coupling  by a guy that specializes in hoses about 45 minutes from here.

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The large hose is a different story. It goes toward the front of the bus and out of sight. It looks like it goes all the way in front of the drive axle without a junction. That means there is no way we can access it to remove it, replace it or splice it without a lift or pit. The coupling the guy used on the small hose required a press on a bench. There may be a more portable way to press the coupling in but we have no way of knowing. The hose specialty guy isn't open again until Tuesday. 

Bro. Larry is working on temporary fix so we will spend some more time on it tomorrow. 

Now for a little fun. I thought you might be interested in a picture of me under the bus....

Can you believe it?

You shouldn't believe it! It was Bro. Larry and it was very tight. He had is head all the way up to the tag axle. He was trying to trace the large air hose. He just about smothered all of us while he was under there. Thankfully he made it out safe but not quite as easy as he went in. Lol



Hope you all had a great day. God bless,

Davy

We Made It Through One of Those Days!

We had another long day. We traveled less than 400 miles but it still took us about 10 hours. We started out in Ozark and stopped in Carthage at Colaw RV salvage. It is one of my favorite places. We spent about 40 minutes there picking up a few things.

Just a few miles down the road we stopped in Joplin for fuel and lunch with Bro. Kurt McCrorey and the Craftons. It was so good to see our friends.

Traffic was very heavy and we had several slow downs due to accidents and construction. Each time we had to slow down our air pressure in the BoggsMobile would drop. Each time we would have to pull over and let it build up. It made for a long and tiring day.

I spent a lot of time on the phone seeking advice and we all spent a lot of time praying seeking God's help. Praise God we made it without totally losing air pressure.

Bought a little diesel.

These are some pictures taken through the dirty windshield of the BoggsMobile. It's another beautiful sunset. This one was in Oklahoma City.

When we arrived in Wynnewood the Landress family and Blankenship family helped us set up. Brother Larry had arranged for us to park in a lot on the edge of town. It is a great spot with 50 amp service. We spent a few minutes accessing the air situation and found a hose with a whole in it near one of the compressors. We then went to grab a bite to eat. We plan to change the batteries in the morning and then try to replace or repair the air hose. I hope that takes care of the problem.

Thanks for praying for us.

Davy