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Re: Newbie

Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2019 6:08 pm
by bornnorm
Mohu Paper thin square amplified antenna.

We have a Mohu amplified antenna. We also have over cab cabinets. The antenna has two small mounting holes in the top edge. I put a couple of small pin nails in the top of a cabinet door to allow to me to mount the antenna to the top of the door using the two holes. Mounted on the door I can rotate the antenna to get the best signal strength.

Yes I do have the traditional antenna and booster. I have not compared the two antennas.

We're in mid Louisiana at a state park on Lake Poncutrain.

Re: Newbie

Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2019 8:27 pm
by bornnorm
First Adventure on the Trip West.

Fortunately we stopped at the Texas Visitors Center this morning. Ginny went to get a map and I did my usual walk around. Almost immediately I noticed the battery box tipped out about a foot twisting the 'generator' section. I looked underneath and the battery box was totally loose; it had been held in place with bolts through the 1/8th inch fiberglass. Certainly not good enough to hold 160 pounds of batteries. The bolts had ripped through the fiberglass.

We were lucky. If we hadn't stopped the batteries could have fell in front of our rear driver's side tires.

Ginny said 'the painting' is watching our for us. Ginny won a painting by a rather famous painter of 20 Lake Placid, FL murals. It's a 5x5 foot painting of Jesus, just his head surrounded by hidden symbols relating to Christmas. We don't know what to do with it so we put it in our bedroom before we left, treating him to air conditioning. 5x5 feet is large, it didn't even fit in our Honda Odyssey.

Regardless I removed the batteries, they're just on the edge of what I can carry with one hand. We put them in the coach until I can fix the problem. We went to the hardware store and bought some right angle for under the floor, brackets used for making stairs and some flat steel for the inside portion to spread the load. At our next campsite I'll do the installation. Right now the cabinet is tied up with rope. It worked for the last 170 miles.

Other then that little adventure the Born Free is easy to drive. Today's drive included the 50 miles or so across Houston, a drive we dislike, lots of lanes and lots of traffic. As an aside we're headed to Seminole Canyon, a marvelous Texas state Park south of Del Rio on Route 90. This will be our third visit.

Whether it was luck or intervention, we're thankful it's working out.

Re: Newbie

Posted: Fri Mar 01, 2019 8:26 pm
by bornnorm
Repaired Battery Box

Purchased 3 right angle stair brackets made of 1/8th inch steel. Mounted on on each lip of the box with 3 1/2 inch bolts through the floor, fiberglass and the brackets. One bracket on each side. Seems rugged enough.

We're now in Seminole Canyon State Park about 50 miles west of Del Rio, TX. This has a really interesting hike down into the canyon. Well worth the trip. This is our third stop here. The sites are big enough for Born Frees.

Today was a warm day but it's cooling fast. February passed without any sunspots for the whole month, first time since August of 1978 that a month has passed without a sunspot. As well the sun's energy output is dramatically low, the lowest in many decades. Hoping we can avoid the massive snowfall about to hit the USA.

Re: Newbie

Posted: Sun Mar 03, 2019 8:07 am
by bornnorm
Getting West,.leaving Texas as soon as possible as the cold front dives south.

Projected to reach below freezing where we are at Fort Stockton tonight. Though the trailer seems comfy at night, of course an electric blanket does the job, we want to avoid the cold................

Re: Newbie

Posted: Sun Mar 03, 2019 8:29 am
by tomzleapin
bornnorm wrote:Repaired Battery Box
Purchased 3 right angle stair brackets made of 1/8th inch steel. Mounted on on each lip of the box with 3 1/2 inch bolts through the floor, fiberglass and the brackets. One bracket on each side. Seems rugged enough.
Sounds like you had the same problem I had.

Link >> https://www.bornfreervclub.org/bulletin ... 926#p32284

Re: Newbie

Posted: Mon Mar 04, 2019 11:27 am
by bornnorm
Thanks for showing your solutions to the battery box problem. The solutions were similar to mine.

We do not have a generator thought the Born Free is fully wired for one.

We had our second problem this week. The idler pulley on our Ford 460 engine failed. Simply died from old age. Unfortunately I did not bring a large enough sprocket set to replace it. If the repair guy doesn't come in an hour it's off to Harbor Freight to get the tools I will need. I was able to get the part at Auto Zone.

The pulley failure is the kind of problems you may deal with in a 26 year old BF, I did not expect the battery box problem.

We are in El Paso, TX. WE picked up our pace to escape the cold air mass dving through the center of the country.

Re: Newbie

Posted: Mon Mar 04, 2019 7:15 pm
by bornnorm
Thinking about Older RVs.

In our 19 years of almost full time traveling we have used 5 different RVs, all used.

One advantage of the three trailers was that there is no engine to wear out. Two were fiberglass trailers each about 20 years old when we purchased the. The molded, really one piece fiberglass trailers really stand the test of time. Our oldest sun recently sold his 1977 Scamp 13 for $4000, well more than it cost new.

Our Born Free 21 is now 26. On this trip we've only (so far) had two problems, a failing battery compartment and a failed idler/tensioner pulley. The former I consider a design issue even though it took 26 years to fail. It's apparent I'm not the only one who's had the problem. If I had been sharper, more thorough I would have discovered the problem before it could have caused a serious failure.The latter problem, the idler failure, would not have typically caused a disaster. The original idler was mostly metal and seemed to have a 'rusted out' failure. The new idler has more plastic than the original and only cost $16 at Auto Zone.

I suspect I'll see more of this class of failure. It's part of having an RV wrapped around an engine.

On the whole I like the Born Free, better than the large motorhome we had based on the same Ford drive train. As I get older the general feeling is that smaller is better, in my RVs, my home and my body.

Even though the BF is bigger than our Scamp 16, we're still way smaller than most of the RVs I see in our campground tonight, also we standout by the absence of a slide out.

One design characteristic that surprises me is the depth of the counters, too deep in for my taste. This causes the aisle to at least feel narrower than the Scamp.

Re: Newbie

Posted: Mon Mar 04, 2019 7:28 pm
by perleys
Lots of good observations! I for one am glad not to have a slide because I always hear about issues with them from other campers!

Re: Newbie

Posted: Mon Mar 04, 2019 8:48 pm
by bornnorm
Slideouts.

We have not wanted a slide out since day one. They do have problems though they have gotten better. We had a friend with a Bounder in the early days of slide outs. He took a corner and the slide out slid out and I mean out of the rig on a corner.

Personally they add significant weight and another opening to the outside. Many of our friends can not imagine how we live in a small RV. We have never considered it a problem. Even in our smallest RV space has never been a problem.

We have now spent about 5000 nights on the road. The percentage of our awake time spent in the trailer is actually short. For example, we try to spent 2 months in Newfoundland, most years. We're usually in NL May and June returning in early July. The suns up for a long time at that time of the year.
Our day begins at dawn with breakfast and usually we're off for most of the day, seeking newness, taking in concerts, hiking new trails and visiting some of the old favorites. Unless we're out at a concert or show we're usually in bed by 9 PM.

I should comment that we time our visit to a 10 day concert held in the small seaport of Norris Point located in Gros Morne, a wonderful geologically interesting national park, and also a UN world heritage center. They begin each morning with either a guided 2 hour hike, a bike ride or a boat ride. There's musically that goes basically until 1:00 AM. People are invited to perform. To us the most interesting concert begins at 7 PM and goes to 10 PM. It takes place in the town hall and seats about 150. The charge is a $5 CND donation. There are typically four different acts. It's called Tales, Trails and Tunes. Besides Musicians there are storytellers and authors, varying from year to year.

As well you can explore Gros Morne on your own, exciting by itself.

I could and have gone on about Newfoundland for days. I'll end by saying the best part is the people.

Re: Newbie

Posted: Mon Mar 04, 2019 10:08 pm
by perleys
I am putting it on my bucket list when I retire. But I will have to able to RV for probably 20 years to get all the things on my list. Do you stay at the National Park at Gros Morne?

Re: Newbie

Posted: Tue Mar 05, 2019 3:15 pm
by bornnorm
We have stayed in Grose Morne, their are both public and private campgrounds. Of the park's campgrounds, we like Green Point.

We have made 6 loops of the USA, all of the provinces and territories of Canada and Alaska. If I only had one last place to go to it would be Newfoundland. Go to the Newfoundland Tourist Bureau site and order their guide book to Newfoundland. Also give them your email address; you will regularly get videos of Newfoundland.

Here's another interesting point, their lovely provincial parks give a senior discount.

We're in Benson, AZ, it's pleasantly warm with Bright sun. The mountains are out the front window. Life on the road is great. If I had known how great I would have retired when the kids went to college.

Re: Newbie

Posted: Tue Mar 05, 2019 10:55 pm
by bornnorm
PERLEYS.

We had planned to see North America in 3 years when we started. Nineteen years later we now know we won't see it all/ One soon finds out the list is virtually infinite. As you get out there you discover there's wonder in places you never considered visiting.

It's OK because virtually every day can be a wonder. It's sort of like you were 10 during the summer , just so much to do everyday.

Re: Newbie

Posted: Tue Mar 05, 2019 11:05 pm
by perleys
Sounds glorious for sure! I have always wanted to go to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. My parents went years ago and I have wanted to go after listening to them talk about their trip. Just didn't know about Newfoundland.

Re: Newbie

Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2019 10:27 am
by bornnorm
Perleys: Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and PEI.

We started traveling to the Maritimes before we began RVing. Living in NH we'd just take long weekends and escape north. At the time I worked at a start up company and could not escape for long periods.

We began with NB, and eventually went to each of them, once escaping for 12 days to NL. Once we began RVing we explored each more intently. They are all great but NL is really the best, my favorite place in NA. In the lower 48 my favorite is coastal Oregon, we'll be there soon. Of course there are many routes we traveled that I want to redo, like north/south Route 93 from Missoula, MT to Elko, Neveda. On that drive I remember Craters of the Moon, a very interesting stop I didn't even know existed. So much to discover and see.

Ginny and I joke it's the 16 year old life.

Re: Newbie

Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2019 2:44 pm
by bornnorm
Last Night.

We parked next to a man who spends six months in Benson, AZ and the remaining 6 months traveling. He said it was so cold in AZ this year he went to Mexico. It has been a cool month traveling thru the Southwest. Now in Tuscon, and cool today as well. Though the nights have been cool practically every where we've stopped, the Born Free has been toasty warm. All we use at night for heat is an electric blanket. I have noticed the door leaks air around the edges. It looks like the previous owner had added insulation, next stop at Home Depot I'll get some.

We're visiting a friend who just bought a Winnebago View, a little longer than our Born Free and 26 years younger. It has a very nice layout, a slide out providing more space.

From here we're off to Congress, A, a really tiny town, near Wickenberg, a real cowboy town. There is an Escapee park in Congress where I learned to play Pickleball. WE almost bought a place there, mostly because of Pickleball but also I liked riding up into the mountains. It's funny how life can turn on little things.