Yesterday I set to work on the door check assembly. Our coach has a mid-entry door. When the door is opened, the door check should lock the door in position once the door reaches 90 degrees. When we took delivery, ours was broken and wouldn’t hold the door open. The dealer had a replacement assembly on order. The part was back ordered and just arrived on Thursday.
I set up my Werner* multi-ladder as a tall step ladder by the door. Removing the old assembly was easy. Five screws attached it to the upper door frame and six screws attached it to the top of the door. Removing the cable bracket was little tricky, but it didn’t take too long. I installed the new assembly in reverse order of removal. I wish I had taken time to shoot a few pictures along the way. Most of the time, when I start rolling on a project like this, I’m on a mission to get it done. I was focused on the task at hand and didn’t think about photos for the blog.
Once I had everything put back together, the door locked open as it should. When I pulled the door handle to unlock it, it didn’t unlock. I thought something might be wrong with the cable that releases the latching mechanism.
I removed the inner door handle cover, dead bolt cover and door panel. When I pulled the handle, the cable didn’t move. I pushed the locking lever to the locked position. Now the cable would move when I pulled the handle and the latch on the door check released.
I put everything back together. It seemed strange to me that you would have to engage the door lock before the door could be closed. This seemed like a recipe for an inadvertent lock-out.
I posted a question about the door check operation on the Alpine Coach owner’s forum. A short time later, I had a reply with links to instructions on how to adjust the cable. I still don’t understand how locking the door affects the cable. I’m going to take the door panel off again and figure it out today.
Later, I rode the scooter over to our former neighbor’s house and picked up two NetFlix discs. More Breaking Bad. Some people have asked why we order Blu-Ray discs instead of just streaming the NetFlix. The answer is data usage. This month we’ve used 12 GB of data and the costs add up. I can only imagine what our usage would be if we streamed hours of video.
On the way back, I stopped at Lucky Lou’s and sat with Mike Hall, his wife Jodie, John Huff and a few others. We had a couple of beers and swapped stories. The subject of this alternate lifestyle being an endless camping trip came up. This is a misconception.
We’re not on an endless vacation or camping trip. We may boondock at times or stay at a place with limited facilities, like Usery Mountain Regional Park, which is more or less camping. But we also stay in RV parks where we lead a more “normal” lifestyle. I like mixing it up. Changing scenery and accommodations every few weeks suits me.
When we boondock, we have to conserve water. We take Navy showers, which means we turn on the shower and get wet. Then we turn the shower off and soap up. Then we turn the shower back on and rinse.
One of the first things I bought for our coach was an Oxygenics* shower head. I put one in our old coach as well after reading so many testimonials on RV forums and blogs. It’s a great upgrade. It uses less water while providing an accelerated spray. We really like it. The only thing I didn’t like was the shut-off button. This button stops the flow so you don’t have to constantly re-adjust the water temperature. Our last one leaked when shut off and I hear that’s a common complaint. When I installed this one, I added a separate shut-off valve on the shower head. No leaks.
Navy showers aren’t all that satisfying. After a few weeks of boondocking, it’s nice to pull into an RV park with full hook-ups and amenities. Full hook-ups mean unlimited water and sewer capacity. Long, hot showers are no problem. We can use our clothes washer/dryer. In most parks, we can have UPS or FedEx deliveries right to our site. We can also receive our mail.
Site 56, Apache Wells RV Resort
That’s why we enjoy moving and changing things up every few weeks. We alternate between awesome scenery with wide-open spaces and RV parks with tight spaces. We are still evolving in this lifestyle, but for now, that’s how we roll.
Chicken and peppers on the grill
Last night I grilled boneless chicken breasts and mini sweet peppers. Donna prepared salsa verde to serve over the chicken. Another delicious recipe.
Served with salsa verde
Time for me to get started on the door project. These things always end up taking longer than they should.
*Just so you know, if you decide to purchase one of these through the Amazon link in this post, I’ll earn a small commission. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!