Winterizing

Well, the time finally came to winterize my Travco. It is fairly simple to do so...

For the curious, read on.

I remove the city water inlet plug to allow the water to drain from it to the check-valve, replace cap later. My fresh water tank does not have a drain, so I have to pump it out, I should probably add a drain to it. After it is empty, I open the drain on the water heater and open all the faucets. After that is complete, I switch the valves on the water heater to bypass, switch the intake valve to the jug-inlet, and attach the hose that goes to the anti-freeze jug. I close all the faucets but the kitchen cold and turn on the pump until I get anti-freeze, close the cold, open the hot, etc. Same with the bathroom sink, but I flush the shower hose as well. I also make sure enough goes down the traps to dilute/displace any water. With all faucets closed, I allow the system to pressurize to take on a total of 1/2 gallon of anti-freeze. I have to make sure my accumulator gets filled/diluted as well. Then I relieve the pressure in the system with a faucet. I have a monomatic toilet, so I just make sure it has dumped to the tank. Lastly I make sure the grey/black water tank is drained.

Jinxed by my last post.

I guess I jinxed myself with my last post. I was getting ready to turn around the Travco to stage for the camping trip to Devil's Den this weekend. It started on the first try, but died and would never start again. I got out the Voltmeter and checked for power at the coil, coil resistance and they were both good. I got out the O-scope and checked the output from the module and only was getting 3V. I checked the input from the pick-up and got a saw-tooth like pattern, so assumed it was good. I decided that the HEI module was bad. The PO had installed the upgrade and had soldered the connections and mounted the module on a small piece of aluminum on stand-offs from the frame. I assume that the module went bad due to overheating.

I bought a new module from Larry the parts guy and installed it directly to the metal frame around the doghouse, with thermal grease between them. Since the module was soldered in, I decided to cut the wires off and crimp-on connectors for each. One of them is the smaller 3/16" size. From the photos one of the websites from the previous post, I decided the pick-up wires were reversed as installed by the PO, so I corrected that. After doing so, I had to adjust the timing as it was back-firing. I didn't check the timing with a light, I will do that later. But after the adjustment it ran great!

Here is a picture of Ben and Jack in the back of the Travco. This weekend was a little cold, but no precipitation.

On the second day at the camp, the furnace blower started having fits. It would not spin-up without a little help. From previous posts you would know I have an old furnace and the motor has brushes. I suspect the brushes need some work. I just ran the furnace for a while before going to bed, shut it off, then used my electric heater for the rest of the night and all was well. I will post later with what I found-out. Let's hope it is not three months till my next post.

BTW, I got 6.43MPG on the round trip, it was hilly, going about 45MPH, RT was 54.8 miles. (I have a 440-3 with 727 and diff. from the original set-up with the 318.)