I installed a transmission cooler on the F150, yesterday/ last night. I got the cooler mounted, cut hoses, and debated with myself about if I should go ahead and start installing the hoses, and connectors, because I was running out of daylight. I am still not sure if I was right to make the gamble, but I got it hooked up. I still had pretty good leaks up until about 9 PM, but pulled it back apart and tried again with some Teflon tape and it quit leaking, but I am concerned about the temperatures and what they may do to Teflon tape. This morning when I woke up and drove it to work, it was still dry, with no drips under the truck. I haven't looked since I got to work. Guess I will just keep checking. Instructions said I wouldn't have to use sealer, putty, or tape, but when I didn't it wouldn't stop leaking, and I was afraid I would strip threads, or break something each time I went "Just a little bit tighter"

 

I still haven't wired it up for the fan, but the plumbing is done.

 

You didn't steal it off the ih did you?

 

HA HA HA :-)

 

No, I bought this one brand new. This is a dual core unit and substantially larger than the one in the IH.

 

Well, the trade for the 250r fell through. I don't get it. Same thing as I had with the d0ve heads. Come to an agreement, set aside time to do the deal, then radio silence. So I put the banshee back up for sale this morning and have a potential buyer.. Same guy from Massachusetts that offered to buy it last weekend. Supposed to be sending me some money shortly. Hopefully it works out.

 

I tried to help a neighbor get their garden tractor/mower started yesterday. The starter turns over, but it doesn't kick into the ring gear to turn the motor over. It seems to have good power at the battery. 12.8 volts. I'm going to try replacing the solenoid. Any other suggestions?

 

maybe starter drive gear

 

That is what I think too Clint. I checked online and the gear mechanism in the starter can also get dry or gummy and not kick into the ring gear. I didn't get a chance to work on it yesterday.

 

Del, one thing, before you tear into your starter, perhaps take a screw driver and short out the two larger posts on the solenoid to see if there is a major difference than when you just run from the switch. This will give a direct charge from the battery to the starter, and eliminate the solenoid from the circuit temporarily to see if that is the issue. If that doesn't change how it acts, then you can likely guess that the solenoid isn't bad. If it does, then you may have found your issue.

 

That's how we used to start our old junker riding mowers back when I grew up, the key NEVER worked! lol

 

Took the camper for the first outing of the season and it was a little brisk. Overnight lows in the high 20s so we were instructed to disconnect the water lines at night. Nothing blew, but the central heater did get a pretty good workout and kept up very well. Had an issue with the water heater leaking out of the relief valve after I de-winterized the system and thought for sure it was a faulty valve. After googling for a bit I found that these heaters are a closed system and need to have a gap of air at the top of the tank. I "burped" it according to the manufacturer's manual and after a couple tries it quit leaking, success! Other than that it was an amazing weekend, out of the 25ish spots around us there was only 2 other campers and they were WAAAAY down the line.

Also got to try out the new Denali's tow capabilities and I was very happy. Air ride shocks didn't blow out (can't say the same for the last tow rig) and leveled out perfectly. The new rig has 40+ horsepower AND torque compared to the last one (a lot less miles too) so it pulled pretty effortlessly. I can't say how it does on the highway, but I'm not sure I will ever need to pull it to another lake. Another really cool feature was that when engage tow mode the voltmeter swaps out for a trans temp gauge and the integrated brake controller takes over the bottom of the screen. Pretty neat!

 

I took my truck to Clay Center to get serviced, and transmission serviced on Saturday morning, then came back, hooked up the camper and pulled it to the river pond area at Tuttle Creek. There were 40 or so other campers out there. The modifications to the truck seemed to help a lot. The brakes seemed to work very well, and gave me a lot more confidence, and the transmission cooler kept the transmission at a peak of 165, for just a moment, the it dropped back down to 150ish, and sometimes 135ish. Of course the outside temperature was in the 50s, and not the 90's, and I pulled 15-20 miles vs pulling 100 +.
I rebuilt the ladder on the back of the camper, cleaned up mice evidence, boiled pots and pans and anything that was in the area where there was evidence of mice, threw out all of the Irish Spring Soap bars, and disposed of them, because obviously that didn't work. I sealed seams in the roof, removed a picture on the wall and replaced it with a mirror, vacuumed the floor, cleaned the linoleum, fixed the "spare table", fixed the fresh water toilet leak, and Julie came out for a bit and replaced the pink curtains with grey ones.
It did get pretty chilly at night. I have a furnace which operates on propane in the floor of the camper, and a strip heater which operates in the A/C unit but we just used a small space heater to keep the camper toasty. The camper is still in good shape for a 20 year old camper, but a lot of things were neglected because they could be used like they were with a little extra TLC, or they were not essential to camping so if it broke, or didn't work, then no need to fix it. I have most things fixed that were broke or in disrepair, but one item on the list is, I need to go through the whole sewer system. There are some leaks, and the kitchen sink holding tank's valve is cable controlled. The cable hasn't been connected for years, so that valve is open all of the time, which leaves the cap on the sewer to be the stopping point. Well it leaks pretty bad, and if I put a different cap on it, the pipes up further start to leak. Still have a lot of work to do, but if I do a little at a time, it won't be too bad.

 

Nice work man! You have your work cut out for you, old campers and jeeps can keep a guy busy for the rest of his life . I'm also surprised how many campers were out there, we didn't have more than 20 in the entire campground of 200+ sites!

Any reason why you didn't use the furnace? We have an oil-filled space heater that keeps our camper warm during cool days, but it would get frigid in there without the propane heater's assistance.

 

I have two tanks, one has a bad leak, and is nearly full, so when I turn it on, it leaks pretty good, the other one I had no idea how much fuel it had in it so I didn't want to use all of it up on heat for the night and not have enough left for the fridge on the way home and the stove for cooking and cleaning. It would have worked well, but the one little oscillating ceramic heater we have, will heat up the camper enough to almost cook you out. I like it because it puts out a lot of heat, but doesn't take up a lot of space.