Well, we are still at Les Schwab in Livermore.
Not unexpected, really, but somewhat disappointing. To his credit, James from Les Schwab spent a couple hours on the phone this morning trying to track down valve stems that would work. I have to admit, I never knew there were so many different valve stems on the market, or that the variation in stem mounting from wheel to wheel was so great.
Our stems are a metric item (since we have European wheels) that have a part number of 70MS-7, which means they have an overall length of 70mm, and a 7 degree bend in them. The bend has been the kicker -- we need ones that are straight, or that have enough length after the bend for the cores to fit properly. Our particular wheels also have very thick aluminum in the region of the stem mounting hole -- .550" vs. .340" for the standard Alcoa items. Apparently, the MS part numbers have enough thread on them to accommodate this thickness, unlike the vast majority of valve stems on the market.
James found some 90MS-27 parts in Oregon, which might work. I had Alcoa technical support on the phone, and they found some 41MS-00 parts in Ohio which also should work (though they will be very, very short). We are having both kinds overnighted, so they should be here by 10:30 tomorrow morning. When they get here, we will test-fit each type in the wheel and see which one will work the best, then install those on all six wheels. That should take a couple hours, so we'll be here until noonish tomorrow at least.
What all this means is that we will likely not be able to take the coast route to San Luis, unless we leave here close to noon on the dot. Instead we will take 101 down the Salinas valley, which is still a pretty route, especially with things so green right now.
Louise, statistics geek that she is, has been working all evening on estimating the number of full-timers in the US. Apparently, the US Census web sites have been giving her grief, more so than they used to when she owned Information Publications. She's been muttering about it for the last hour or so... In any case, I heard her calculations over dinner, and she thinks it's much closer to a quarter million people than to the one to two million number that is often arbitrarily bandied about in full-timer circles. I believe her -- the lower number makes much more sense, and this used to be her business, after all. We think the larger number has developed as sort of an urban legend, or maybe that should be a campground legend.
I spent part of today wiring up one of the replacement linear actuators I bought for the leveling system, so I can install it tomorrow while the wheels are off. Accessing the ride-height arm will be much easier with the wheels out of the way, and getting the darned thing out by slithering between the wheels on my back was a claustrophobic and nervous experience.
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
We are at Les Schwab in Livermore, California (map).
No, you have not accidentally loaded a post from three days ago, or a week ago, for that matter. Instead, you have entered the alternate universe that is our life, life on a 20-year-old German-built bus....
You may recall that, just this morning, we were at Laguna Seca in Monterey, on our way down the coast to San Luise Obispo. You may also recall that we had the wheels aligned yesterday morning in San Jose. And you may further recall that Les Schwab installed a dry polymer balancing product called Equal in our tires when they were mounted a week ago.
So here is what happened: When Les Schwab installed the wheels with the Equal dry polymer in them, they were supposed to replace the valve cores with the special cores provided with the Equal product. The special cores have little screens in them, to keep the powder from blowing back out the valve stem when air is released. The valve stems that came pre-installed on the Alcoa wheels have a slight bend to them, to position them at a better angle for checking pressures or adding air, and the special cores would not go into the valve stems -- they jammed at the bend and broke. The Les Schwab folks, in the mistaken belief that the little screens were for keeping airborne moisture and contaminants out of the tire, decided to simply omit the special cores and keep the regular cores in the valves. They told me that this would be OK, since they had a good dryer on their air system, and instructed me to make sure that only dry air was ever added to the tires. I seriously doubted this, but the tires had already been mounted and aired up long before we even arrived. Consequently, I made them give me several of the correct valve cores with the screens, in case I needed them later.
Les Schwab set the tire pressures to our required value of 100 PSI when the tires were mounted. Adjusting the pressure, of course, requires some air to be let out of the tires. This was not a problem, because the Equal powder comes in a paper-like bag, and the bag is put in the tire whole. The bag itself disintegrates as the tire is driven over the first 50 or so miles. So the pressures were originally adjusted while the Equal was still in its bags.
Yesterday, when we had the wheels aligned, the alignment shop checked the pressure, and finding it to be only 100 PSI, aired the two front tires up to 120 PSI as indicated on the sidewalls (maximum pressure). They told me this was standard procedure for alignment, and they further recommended that I run all the tires at their rated sidewall maximum pressures. When we left the shop, we kept the 120 PSI in the two front tires while we mulled over this new recommendation. Last night, I did some more research and decided that the 100 PSI recommendation, which we took directly from the load tables provided by Bridgestone for our specific axle loads, was the correct value to use.
So this morning, I went out with pressure gauge in hand to drop the front tires from 120 PSI back down to 100 PSI. The first thing I did was to check the pressure on one of the tires with the gauge. The instant I removed the gauge from the valve stem, air commenced rushing out of the tire. I knew instantly what had happened: Equal consists essentially of sub-miniature balls -- like plastic ball-bearings, but only micrometers across. When I pressed the gauge against the valve, a tiny amount of air came out, and with it, some of the little beads. One or more of the beads lodged in the valve seat, preventing the valve from re-sealing. And this, folks, is the fundamental reason why the little screens need to be in the valves.
So there I was, at Laguna Seca, with air rushing out of my brand new tire. I very quickly screwed the valve cap back on, with some degree of difficulty due to 110++ PSI air rushing out of the valve. Once I dogged the cap back down, the leakage stopped -- Alcoa had supplied quality metal valve caps of the sealing type. I immediately called Les Schwab and explained the situation, and they promised to get back to me. I'm sure they called the Equal people who probably read them the riot act about the screens. In any case, they called me back with the news that they would get replacement valve stems for the wheels that would accept the correct cores, and would have them by this afternoon. We would just need to come back to the shop.
Considering that replacing the valve stems would require removing each wheel, de-mounting the tire, changing the stem, replacing any lost Equal, re-mounting the tire, and replacing the wheel, mercenary interest prevailed over my pressing desire to keep heading south to the coast, and we returned here. I could have had this problem fixed somewhere further south, but at my own expense, whereas Les Schwab here is really on the hook to just make this right. So here we are.
The story does not end there, of course. The replacement valve stems that Schwab had rushed in to fix this turned out to be the wrong item for our weird wheels. So the day ended without resolution to the problem. Calls have been made, and sometime tomorrow morning we will know if the stems are available locally. If we can't get the right stems, we have a back-up plan to get us back on the road, but it will then require another visit to a Les Schwab at a later date for the correct resolution. So here we are camped overnight in the Les Schwab lot, even though the city of Livermore has forced the neighboring Wal-Mart to post "No Overnight Parking" signs throughout their lot.
Luckily, we do not really need to be in San Luis until Friday, and, although I was looking forward to spending a couple of quiet nights on the coast at Kirk Creek State Park, one of our favorite camp spots, it really does make sense to just get this fixed.
We are fond, by the way, of pronouncing "Les Schwab" as if it was French (Canadian French, to be specific), where we imagine it means "the Q-tips."
No, you have not accidentally loaded a post from three days ago, or a week ago, for that matter. Instead, you have entered the alternate universe that is our life, life on a 20-year-old German-built bus....
You may recall that, just this morning, we were at Laguna Seca in Monterey, on our way down the coast to San Luise Obispo. You may also recall that we had the wheels aligned yesterday morning in San Jose. And you may further recall that Les Schwab installed a dry polymer balancing product called Equal in our tires when they were mounted a week ago.
So here is what happened: When Les Schwab installed the wheels with the Equal dry polymer in them, they were supposed to replace the valve cores with the special cores provided with the Equal product. The special cores have little screens in them, to keep the powder from blowing back out the valve stem when air is released. The valve stems that came pre-installed on the Alcoa wheels have a slight bend to them, to position them at a better angle for checking pressures or adding air, and the special cores would not go into the valve stems -- they jammed at the bend and broke. The Les Schwab folks, in the mistaken belief that the little screens were for keeping airborne moisture and contaminants out of the tire, decided to simply omit the special cores and keep the regular cores in the valves. They told me that this would be OK, since they had a good dryer on their air system, and instructed me to make sure that only dry air was ever added to the tires. I seriously doubted this, but the tires had already been mounted and aired up long before we even arrived. Consequently, I made them give me several of the correct valve cores with the screens, in case I needed them later.
Les Schwab set the tire pressures to our required value of 100 PSI when the tires were mounted. Adjusting the pressure, of course, requires some air to be let out of the tires. This was not a problem, because the Equal powder comes in a paper-like bag, and the bag is put in the tire whole. The bag itself disintegrates as the tire is driven over the first 50 or so miles. So the pressures were originally adjusted while the Equal was still in its bags.
Yesterday, when we had the wheels aligned, the alignment shop checked the pressure, and finding it to be only 100 PSI, aired the two front tires up to 120 PSI as indicated on the sidewalls (maximum pressure). They told me this was standard procedure for alignment, and they further recommended that I run all the tires at their rated sidewall maximum pressures. When we left the shop, we kept the 120 PSI in the two front tires while we mulled over this new recommendation. Last night, I did some more research and decided that the 100 PSI recommendation, which we took directly from the load tables provided by Bridgestone for our specific axle loads, was the correct value to use.
So this morning, I went out with pressure gauge in hand to drop the front tires from 120 PSI back down to 100 PSI. The first thing I did was to check the pressure on one of the tires with the gauge. The instant I removed the gauge from the valve stem, air commenced rushing out of the tire. I knew instantly what had happened: Equal consists essentially of sub-miniature balls -- like plastic ball-bearings, but only micrometers across. When I pressed the gauge against the valve, a tiny amount of air came out, and with it, some of the little beads. One or more of the beads lodged in the valve seat, preventing the valve from re-sealing. And this, folks, is the fundamental reason why the little screens need to be in the valves.
So there I was, at Laguna Seca, with air rushing out of my brand new tire. I very quickly screwed the valve cap back on, with some degree of difficulty due to 110++ PSI air rushing out of the valve. Once I dogged the cap back down, the leakage stopped -- Alcoa had supplied quality metal valve caps of the sealing type. I immediately called Les Schwab and explained the situation, and they promised to get back to me. I'm sure they called the Equal people who probably read them the riot act about the screens. In any case, they called me back with the news that they would get replacement valve stems for the wheels that would accept the correct cores, and would have them by this afternoon. We would just need to come back to the shop.
Considering that replacing the valve stems would require removing each wheel, de-mounting the tire, changing the stem, replacing any lost Equal, re-mounting the tire, and replacing the wheel, mercenary interest prevailed over my pressing desire to keep heading south to the coast, and we returned here. I could have had this problem fixed somewhere further south, but at my own expense, whereas Les Schwab here is really on the hook to just make this right. So here we are.
The story does not end there, of course. The replacement valve stems that Schwab had rushed in to fix this turned out to be the wrong item for our weird wheels. So the day ended without resolution to the problem. Calls have been made, and sometime tomorrow morning we will know if the stems are available locally. If we can't get the right stems, we have a back-up plan to get us back on the road, but it will then require another visit to a Les Schwab at a later date for the correct resolution. So here we are camped overnight in the Les Schwab lot, even though the city of Livermore has forced the neighboring Wal-Mart to post "No Overnight Parking" signs throughout their lot.
Luckily, we do not really need to be in San Luis until Friday, and, although I was looking forward to spending a couple of quiet nights on the coast at Kirk Creek State Park, one of our favorite camp spots, it really does make sense to just get this fixed.
We are fond, by the way, of pronouncing "Les Schwab" as if it was French (Canadian French, to be specific), where we imagine it means "the Q-tips."
We are once again at Laguna Seca (map). We finally made it out of the bay area yesterday morning, after having the alignment done at Ross Equipment in San Jose. By the time we got moving, it was already after noon. Fuel and grocery stops in Salinas ate up part of the afternoon, and by the time we were on the Monterey peninsula, we decided to stop here rather than take a chance on arriving further south at sunset, only to find no suitable spaces for us.
I should mention here that highway 1 has reopened, and we will be taking the coast route down to San Luis Obispo. We will likely get back on the road again early this afternoon. I need to spend the morning editing photos for an upcoming magazine article. Odyssey will be the "centerfold" of next month's Bus Conversions magazine (yes, there really is a publication dedicated to this), and I need to get the photos over to the editor today. I sent the text of the article late last night.
The alignment process yesterday morning turned out to be unnecessary, as both the steer and tag axles were nearly dead-on already. Which made the fact that Doug Ross smacked the front end against the driveway all the more distressing. He whacked the very same left-front corner that I just paid Coach Specialties $700 to repair. This damage is much less visible, but the fiberglass is again cracked, the mounting holes are damaged, and the bottom is scraped. I got him to knock $80 off the aligment, but I'm still fuming about it (and considering filing a claim with his insurance).
While the technician was under the coach adjusting the tag axle alignment, he discovered a bent steering damper. This is similar to a shock absorber, mounted horizontally, to damp the movement of the steerable tag (preventing that annoying shopping-cart-wheel syndrome). The damper is creased about an inch from the end. There is no way this could happen from hitting something under way, so either someone tried to jack the coach under the damper, or the coach landed on the damper when being lowered from a jack. Hard to tell when this happened, but I am thinking perhaps when the coach fell off the jack (yes, you read that right) while a tire was being changed in Pittsburgh.
The bent damper is restricting the range of motion of the tag steering, so we need to get it replaced ASAP.
I should mention here that highway 1 has reopened, and we will be taking the coast route down to San Luis Obispo. We will likely get back on the road again early this afternoon. I need to spend the morning editing photos for an upcoming magazine article. Odyssey will be the "centerfold" of next month's Bus Conversions magazine (yes, there really is a publication dedicated to this), and I need to get the photos over to the editor today. I sent the text of the article late last night.
The alignment process yesterday morning turned out to be unnecessary, as both the steer and tag axles were nearly dead-on already. Which made the fact that Doug Ross smacked the front end against the driveway all the more distressing. He whacked the very same left-front corner that I just paid Coach Specialties $700 to repair. This damage is much less visible, but the fiberglass is again cracked, the mounting holes are damaged, and the bottom is scraped. I got him to knock $80 off the aligment, but I'm still fuming about it (and considering filing a claim with his insurance).
While the technician was under the coach adjusting the tag axle alignment, he discovered a bent steering damper. This is similar to a shock absorber, mounted horizontally, to damp the movement of the steerable tag (preventing that annoying shopping-cart-wheel syndrome). The damper is creased about an inch from the end. There is no way this could happen from hitting something under way, so either someone tried to jack the coach under the damper, or the coach landed on the damper when being lowered from a jack. Hard to tell when this happened, but I am thinking perhaps when the coach fell off the jack (yes, you read that right) while a tire was being changed in Pittsburgh.
The bent damper is restricting the range of motion of the tag steering, so we need to get it replaced ASAP.
Sunday, March 27, 2005
I've finally gotten serious about figuring out how to post photos here. I'm using the free programs Picasa and Hello, available as downloads from the Blogger main site.
We debated whether I should publish the pictures back in the original posts where they logically belong, or just add them to the latest post. Most of our friends and family are reading the current blog entries. Rather than make them delve back into the archives to see pictures, we settled on posting photos, both old and new, in the current day's ramblings. Let us know what you think! Feel free to click on the red "comment" link and make your voice heard...
We debated whether I should publish the pictures back in the original posts where they logically belong, or just add them to the latest post. Most of our friends and family are reading the current blog entries. Rather than make them delve back into the archives to see pictures, we settled on posting photos, both old and new, in the current day's ramblings. Let us know what you think! Feel free to click on the red "comment" link and make your voice heard...
Friday, March 25, 2005
We are back at the San Jose Elks Lodge (map) for a few nights. We had not planned on being back here now, instead hoping to head south from Monterey after our visit there. Two things intervened to derail that plan. The first was the delay in getting all the wheels for the great tire project, as I have already chronicled. The second item was waiting for the results from a family member's surgery. What we had all originally assumed would be a relatively minor procedure turned out to be more involved. All's well that ends well, though, and we are glad that the surgery was a success.
The postscript on our spa visit is that we arrived around 3:30 for our 4:00 massage appointments, which meant we had to foreshorten the normally hour-long "bathing ritual" that is recommended before the treatment. Nevertheless, half an hour in hot mineral baths was enough for us to unwind and settle down from the drive, and we both enjoyed our 50-minute massages. We had arrived too late to check in to the Inn before our spa sessions, and by the time we checked in we had missed the 5pm wine tasting session.
There was a complimentary bottle of friendly, though unsophisticated, white wine in our room, and we polished that off before heading over to dinner in the prix-fixe Sante restaurant. All of the dinner items were tasty, if a bit overpriced. Also, we often share an entree when we dine out, and the prix fixe format precluded that, so we overate a bit. The soufle of the day, strawberry with cassis creme anglais, was to die for.
This morning we headed back to the spa area and spent a couple hours "taking the waters," relaxing in the mineral baths that initially brought fame to the region (known as Boyes Hot Springs) and are the raison d'etre for the resort. We ended our stay with brunch in the Big Three restaurant.
No stay in a four-star resort is complete without some sort of drama, and ours came when we got ready to leave and noticed that Odyssey had leaked coolant all over the parking lot. We were able to clean most of it up with kitty litter and alerted the maintenance staff to hose down the area. Apparently, it got very cold last night, which often leads to some of the steel hose clamps expanding faster than the brass pipes and allowing some seepage around the hoses. When the coolant loops are hot, it's not a problem, but we left the heater off since we were in the hotel. The problem was probably exacerbated by the fact that, even though the boiler was off, the circulating pump was still running. One more item to add to the "lay-up" check list.
We returned to the south bay via the Golden Gate Bridge and highway 101. A brief stop in Menlo Park to see our nieces and friends before they jet off to Hawaii tomorrow, and then we proceeded to Sunnyvale to visit Edith and Bob. Bob's birthday is later this month, and tomorrow we are taking him to the Capital Club for his birthday dinner.
As long as we're still here in San Jose at least through tomorrow evening, I made an appointment with Ross Equipment for Monday morning to have the alignment done. Now that all the new wheels and tires are on, the timing is right to get this done, and Royal Coach recommended Ross. It's worth an extra day here to have this done by someone we know, rather than taking our chances somewhere on the road later.
So we are here until Monday morning. After the alignment, we will again head south, en-route to San Luis Obispo, where we need to be on Thursday. We were hoping to go down the coast, but it is closed, so I am working on an alternate route.
The postscript on our spa visit is that we arrived around 3:30 for our 4:00 massage appointments, which meant we had to foreshorten the normally hour-long "bathing ritual" that is recommended before the treatment. Nevertheless, half an hour in hot mineral baths was enough for us to unwind and settle down from the drive, and we both enjoyed our 50-minute massages. We had arrived too late to check in to the Inn before our spa sessions, and by the time we checked in we had missed the 5pm wine tasting session.
There was a complimentary bottle of friendly, though unsophisticated, white wine in our room, and we polished that off before heading over to dinner in the prix-fixe Sante restaurant. All of the dinner items were tasty, if a bit overpriced. Also, we often share an entree when we dine out, and the prix fixe format precluded that, so we overate a bit. The soufle of the day, strawberry with cassis creme anglais, was to die for.
This morning we headed back to the spa area and spent a couple hours "taking the waters," relaxing in the mineral baths that initially brought fame to the region (known as Boyes Hot Springs) and are the raison d'etre for the resort. We ended our stay with brunch in the Big Three restaurant.
No stay in a four-star resort is complete without some sort of drama, and ours came when we got ready to leave and noticed that Odyssey had leaked coolant all over the parking lot. We were able to clean most of it up with kitty litter and alerted the maintenance staff to hose down the area. Apparently, it got very cold last night, which often leads to some of the steel hose clamps expanding faster than the brass pipes and allowing some seepage around the hoses. When the coolant loops are hot, it's not a problem, but we left the heater off since we were in the hotel. The problem was probably exacerbated by the fact that, even though the boiler was off, the circulating pump was still running. One more item to add to the "lay-up" check list.
We returned to the south bay via the Golden Gate Bridge and highway 101. A brief stop in Menlo Park to see our nieces and friends before they jet off to Hawaii tomorrow, and then we proceeded to Sunnyvale to visit Edith and Bob. Bob's birthday is later this month, and tomorrow we are taking him to the Capital Club for his birthday dinner.
As long as we're still here in San Jose at least through tomorrow evening, I made an appointment with Ross Equipment for Monday morning to have the alignment done. Now that all the new wheels and tires are on, the timing is right to get this done, and Royal Coach recommended Ross. It's worth an extra day here to have this done by someone we know, rather than taking our chances somewhere on the road later.
So we are here until Monday morning. After the alignment, we will again head south, en-route to San Luis Obispo, where we need to be on Thursday. We were hoping to go down the coast, but it is closed, so I am working on an alternate route.
Thursday, March 24, 2005
We are again in Livermore, staying at the Elks Lodge (map). Tomorrow morning we will go back to Les Schwab here in town to have the 9" steel inner wheels fitted on our drive axle. Since we were in the neighborhood, we stopped by Danville this evening to have dinner with a friend.
We had a great visit in Monterey, even though it pretty much rained the whole time. As a bonus, our camp spot had a great view of turn 5 on the track, and we got to see two "track days" for sports car clubs, and two for motorcycles. Not the same as an actual race, but fun to watch anyway.
After we get the wheels finished, we will be on our way to the Sonoma Mission Inn, to cash in a certificate for one night's stay and a pair of massage treatments. As was the case with our visit to the Lick Observatory, this was something we bid on at a charity auction. If you've never been to one of these, let me take a moment to explain how they work:
In any case, items such as our upcoming stay in Sonoma are donated to the charity, often by the providers themselves. So even though we paid cash for this item, it is not considered a gift certificate (which, by law in California, can never expire), since it was donated by the hotel, and they can set limits on its use. In this particular case, it was set to expire in February, and I was able to wrangle an extension on it by phone.
Similarly, our Lick visit had a deadline of next month, and we have a pair of ticket vouchers on American Airlines that expire in early May. We just redeemed those for round trip tickets to Cancun, leaving out of Phoenix, and that is where we will spend our anniversary this year.
Nevertheless, we are really looking forward to our spa visit. I've always wanted to stay there, ever since I stopped by the grounds 15 or so years ago while visiting Sears Point raceway. And, while we pretty much paid retail for the stay, all that money went to a good cause.
Other things we "won" at the auction, such as our Lick visit, are priceless, since they represent opportunities not available in the marketplace. So it was definitely worthwhile. Especially if you count the free drinks.
We had a great visit in Monterey, even though it pretty much rained the whole time. As a bonus, our camp spot had a great view of turn 5 on the track, and we got to see two "track days" for sports car clubs, and two for motorcycles. Not the same as an actual race, but fun to watch anyway.
After we get the wheels finished, we will be on our way to the Sonoma Mission Inn, to cash in a certificate for one night's stay and a pair of massage treatments. As was the case with our visit to the Lick Observatory, this was something we bid on at a charity auction. If you've never been to one of these, let me take a moment to explain how they work:
- You enter the event venue, and a horde of charity staff members descend upon you, greeting you like an old friend who has been the lifeblood of the given charity since it's inception.
- You are handed a strong drink. Often this is in keeping with some sort of "theme" that the organizers have concocted for the event.
- You are issued a paddle and a card with your pre-assigned bidder number.
- You are told there is food. When you find it, you will realize that the food involved is carefully chosen so as not to interfere with the direct absorbtion of alcohol into the bloodstream.
- You are handed a strong drink. You are also shown the locations of all the various bars where other strong drinks are available, should the current one not be to your liking. Or should it be empty.
- You are turned loose on a room full of tables, containing "items" such as the aforementioned certificate. Bid sheets are in front of the items.
- You run from table to table, frantically adding your name, bidder number, and an amount higher than whatever the last inebriated person wrote down on the bid sheet for any particular item you might think you'd like. You do this irrespective of the fact that the last person has already bid more than the item would cost new, in a store.
- At some point, a staff member "closes" each table and removes the bid sheets to the inner sanctum, where they are tallied.
- At this point, the "live auction" portion of the event starts. By this time, you have consumed enough alcohol to fail a breathalyzer test.
- You spend the next twenty minutes frantically sticking your paddle in the air, hoping that the auctioneer is still working on an item that you carefully valued and selected for bidding sometime earlier in the evening, when you were sober.
- When the dust settles, a staff member cheerfully informs you what items you have "won", and then hands you a bill. Depending on exactly how much alcohol you have consumed, they may also cheerfully help you find your wallet, checkbook, etc.
- You wait nearly an hour for a cab, because (a) you were clever to arrive without a motor vehicle, because you already knew how much alcohol they serve at these things and (b) the event venue is always in a remote industrial area where cabs seldom venture, and it's now after midnight.
In any case, items such as our upcoming stay in Sonoma are donated to the charity, often by the providers themselves. So even though we paid cash for this item, it is not considered a gift certificate (which, by law in California, can never expire), since it was donated by the hotel, and they can set limits on its use. In this particular case, it was set to expire in February, and I was able to wrangle an extension on it by phone.
Similarly, our Lick visit had a deadline of next month, and we have a pair of ticket vouchers on American Airlines that expire in early May. We just redeemed those for round trip tickets to Cancun, leaving out of Phoenix, and that is where we will spend our anniversary this year.
Nevertheless, we are really looking forward to our spa visit. I've always wanted to stay there, ever since I stopped by the grounds 15 or so years ago while visiting Sears Point raceway. And, while we pretty much paid retail for the stay, all that money went to a good cause.
Other things we "won" at the auction, such as our Lick visit, are priceless, since they represent opportunities not available in the marketplace. So it was definitely worthwhile. Especially if you count the free drinks.
Sunday, March 20, 2005
We are at Laguna Seca recreation area, in Monterey (map). And, yes, this is the place with the race track, although it is quiet at the moment. We are here visiting Louise's dad, Jerry, and his wife, Kay, who live just down the road.
Friday we went to Les Schwab in Livermore to have our new tires and wheels put on. We had been informed by ABC Bus that Watkins freight would be delivering the two steel inner wheels by 2pm, so we arrived about 1:30 and technician/salesman James Cox started working on removing our existing wheels and making sure the new Alcoas fit properly and the fancy sleeve nuts engaged properly on the existing studs. All turned out to be fine, but two o'clock came and went with no steel wheels. A quick call to Watkins confirmed the bad news: the wheels were at their San Francisco terminal, having arrived late, and would not be on their way to Livermore until Monday.
James graciously agreed to temporarily mount our new inner drive tires on our old 8.25" steel wheels, in the interests of getting the job done and us back on the road. We will return sometime later this week to have the tires transferred to the 9" rims that are still en-route.
So we now have our six shiny new Alcoa Dura-Bright alumninum wheels mounted up, and they look great. Also, the new tires look and feel good, and all the vibration we've been experiencing on the old tires (due to irregular wear) is now gone. Handling and road feel is much improved. The block treads on the drivers "sing" a bit on the highway, but it is minimal in the cockpit. The drivers look really butch now, especially on the new rims. I hope to get some photos of the coach with the new wheels up on our photo site soon.
One of the things we had done at Les Schwab was installation of the SmarTire tire monitoring system. I have to say that this thing is way cool, and, I think, worth every penny of its fairly hefty price tag ($980 for an eight-wheel system, plus $350 for installation). We now have a little module on our dashboard which alerts us audibly and visually if any tire drops below normal pressure, or increases above reasonable operating temperature. We can also scroll through all eight tires and see a direct reading of the tire's pressure and internal temperature. It's been interesting watching the tires heat up as we drive. Right now, we are getting contsant alerts on the inner duals, since we did not have the sensors mounted on our old, temporary rims. The alert for unreporting sensors is different than the tire alarms, so it's not really an issue. Besides which, the other two sensors should be in place within a week.
Another great thing about having the internal monitors is that I will seldom have to check pressures with a gauge. This is good because the gauge lets a bit of air out every time. It's especially good now, because we also have a dry powder substance called "Equal" in every tire that dynamically balances the wheel as we drive. In certain instances, the powder can try to come out through the valve stem when letting air out or using an air pressure gauge, so we want to minimize these activities. (The Equal people sent valve inserts with little screens on them to prevent this, but they do not fit in the Alcoa stems.)
We spent Friday night at the Fremont Elks lodge (map), en-route to San Jose and Monterey. They have a handful of RV spaces with electric hookups, and we got the last space. This happens to be my old lodge, the one where I joined the Elks many moons ago. Still looks the same, but I did not recognize anybody.
Saturday morning we dropped off a few items at our "storage locker" in San Jose (a garage closet that is part of our condo, the rest of which we rent out). We then stopped by the curb-side drop box at the San Jose library to drop off some books we checked out during our stay. A library staffer just happened to be there emptying the drop box, and, as we pulled up, he said "Wow, I didn't know musicians could read," which has to rank as the funniest rock-star-bus comment we have heard to date.
From there we came straight here, just in time to celebrate Jerry's birthday at a nice local eatery called "Passion Fish."
Friday we went to Les Schwab in Livermore to have our new tires and wheels put on. We had been informed by ABC Bus that Watkins freight would be delivering the two steel inner wheels by 2pm, so we arrived about 1:30 and technician/salesman James Cox started working on removing our existing wheels and making sure the new Alcoas fit properly and the fancy sleeve nuts engaged properly on the existing studs. All turned out to be fine, but two o'clock came and went with no steel wheels. A quick call to Watkins confirmed the bad news: the wheels were at their San Francisco terminal, having arrived late, and would not be on their way to Livermore until Monday.
James graciously agreed to temporarily mount our new inner drive tires on our old 8.25" steel wheels, in the interests of getting the job done and us back on the road. We will return sometime later this week to have the tires transferred to the 9" rims that are still en-route.
So we now have our six shiny new Alcoa Dura-Bright alumninum wheels mounted up, and they look great. Also, the new tires look and feel good, and all the vibration we've been experiencing on the old tires (due to irregular wear) is now gone. Handling and road feel is much improved. The block treads on the drivers "sing" a bit on the highway, but it is minimal in the cockpit. The drivers look really butch now, especially on the new rims. I hope to get some photos of the coach with the new wheels up on our photo site soon.
One of the things we had done at Les Schwab was installation of the SmarTire tire monitoring system. I have to say that this thing is way cool, and, I think, worth every penny of its fairly hefty price tag ($980 for an eight-wheel system, plus $350 for installation). We now have a little module on our dashboard which alerts us audibly and visually if any tire drops below normal pressure, or increases above reasonable operating temperature. We can also scroll through all eight tires and see a direct reading of the tire's pressure and internal temperature. It's been interesting watching the tires heat up as we drive. Right now, we are getting contsant alerts on the inner duals, since we did not have the sensors mounted on our old, temporary rims. The alert for unreporting sensors is different than the tire alarms, so it's not really an issue. Besides which, the other two sensors should be in place within a week.
Another great thing about having the internal monitors is that I will seldom have to check pressures with a gauge. This is good because the gauge lets a bit of air out every time. It's especially good now, because we also have a dry powder substance called "Equal" in every tire that dynamically balances the wheel as we drive. In certain instances, the powder can try to come out through the valve stem when letting air out or using an air pressure gauge, so we want to minimize these activities. (The Equal people sent valve inserts with little screens on them to prevent this, but they do not fit in the Alcoa stems.)
We spent Friday night at the Fremont Elks lodge (map), en-route to San Jose and Monterey. They have a handful of RV spaces with electric hookups, and we got the last space. This happens to be my old lodge, the one where I joined the Elks many moons ago. Still looks the same, but I did not recognize anybody.
Saturday morning we dropped off a few items at our "storage locker" in San Jose (a garage closet that is part of our condo, the rest of which we rent out). We then stopped by the curb-side drop box at the San Jose library to drop off some books we checked out during our stay. A library staffer just happened to be there emptying the drop box, and, as we pulled up, he said "Wow, I didn't know musicians could read," which has to rank as the funniest rock-star-bus comment we have heard to date.
From there we came straight here, just in time to celebrate Jerry's birthday at a nice local eatery called "Passion Fish."
Saturday, March 19, 2005
We have once again been at the Palo Alto Elks lodge for the past two nights. Coach Specialties did an excellent job repairing our minor boo-boo, but we did not clear out of Alameda until nearly 2:30 Wednesday. We barely had time for a cup of coffee with an old friend before Louise had to be at the eye doctor's for a routine check-up.
Yesterday was dedicated to shopping, errands, and sanitizing the fresh water system. This latter item involves filling the tanks to the brim with a mild bleach solution, running some of the solution out of all the fixtures, and letting the whole system sit for an hour or two before emptying it completlely and re-filling with fresh water. We did this at Louise's mom's house, because they are on the Hetch-Hetchy water system, perhaps the best water in the country.
We will leave here shortly for Livermore, where we will have our new tires and wheels fitted (hooray!). Other than "passing through" on our way south from Livermore, our visit here in the bay area is at an end.
In spite of the fact that we have been here for nearly a week longer than we anticipated, we still did not get a chance to see everyone we wanted to. This was due, in large part, to the number of outstanding issues with Odyssey that we needed to resolve (wheels, body damage, curtains, etc.). So if you are one of the many folks with whom we did not connect on this visit, please accept our sincere apologies, and we will make every effort to do so when next we return. (Of course, we're also always happy to connect elsewhere in the country, should you be someplace where we are headed -- keeping up with this blog is the best way to track us.)
Yesterday was dedicated to shopping, errands, and sanitizing the fresh water system. This latter item involves filling the tanks to the brim with a mild bleach solution, running some of the solution out of all the fixtures, and letting the whole system sit for an hour or two before emptying it completlely and re-filling with fresh water. We did this at Louise's mom's house, because they are on the Hetch-Hetchy water system, perhaps the best water in the country.
We will leave here shortly for Livermore, where we will have our new tires and wheels fitted (hooray!). Other than "passing through" on our way south from Livermore, our visit here in the bay area is at an end.
In spite of the fact that we have been here for nearly a week longer than we anticipated, we still did not get a chance to see everyone we wanted to. This was due, in large part, to the number of outstanding issues with Odyssey that we needed to resolve (wheels, body damage, curtains, etc.). So if you are one of the many folks with whom we did not connect on this visit, please accept our sincere apologies, and we will make every effort to do so when next we return. (Of course, we're also always happy to connect elsewhere in the country, should you be someplace where we are headed -- keeping up with this blog is the best way to track us.)
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
We are still in Alameda at Coach Specialties. As I had hoped, they jumped right on our little project, and it looks like we can be done here by mid-day tomorrow. Proprietor Don Roderick and his brother Jim clearly know the coach repair business, and even have more than a passing familiarity with Neoplans. Nice folks. We also enjoyed another nice sunset here tonight.
I received an email today from Remington Stone of Lick Observatory. It turns out he's reading the blog(!), and he wrote to correct some minor (and some major) errors and oversights in my post here on Saturday. (Thanks, Rem!) If you've already read it, feel free to scroll down (or use this link) and do so again...
My story, and I'm sticking to it, is that it was ~2am when I posted that, and I was trying to remember and record everything we did before I turned in. And that's how I moved a moon out of Jovian orbit and caused it to circle Saturn instead -- a neat trick, if you consider the physics involved. (It's fixed now, so if you missed my goofs, too late.)
We will be off-line in the morning because I will need to pull Odyssey into the shop here first thing. We both have appointments in the south bay tomorrow, so we will likely end up somewhere around there tomorrow night.
I received an email today from Remington Stone of Lick Observatory. It turns out he's reading the blog(!), and he wrote to correct some minor (and some major) errors and oversights in my post here on Saturday. (Thanks, Rem!) If you've already read it, feel free to scroll down (or use this link) and do so again...
My story, and I'm sticking to it, is that it was ~2am when I posted that, and I was trying to remember and record everything we did before I turned in. And that's how I moved a moon out of Jovian orbit and caused it to circle Saturn instead -- a neat trick, if you consider the physics involved. (It's fixed now, so if you missed my goofs, too late.)
We will be off-line in the morning because I will need to pull Odyssey into the shop here first thing. We both have appointments in the south bay tomorrow, so we will likely end up somewhere around there tomorrow night.
Monday, March 14, 2005
We are parked in front of Coach Specialties in Alameda (map). We are going to have them look at our minor body work issue and give us an estimate (cost and schedule). Frankly, I'm hoping they will just decide it's a small enough job that they can belt it out while we're here.
Their facility is in an old hanger/shop on the former Alameda Naval Air Station. The last time I was here, I had to pass armed Marines and a maze of jersey barriers. I came here to tour the USS Carl Vinson, CVN 70. The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier had been home-ported here, and they were giving the community tours as a fare-well before changing ports. I had also been here previously to see the Blue Angels fly, and had dinner with them at the O-club.
It's a weird experience to be able to just drive out onto the facility without fanfare. Many indicators of a mighty military presence still remain, in the form of strict signage forbiding all sorts of things, and that ubiquitous "military-paint-look." But it is nice to see the place being re-purposed as an industrial complex -- we are surrounded by various light industrial facilities, and even a sports club. It's actually quite a nice place to park -- quiet, and we enjoyed a beautiful sunset over the San Francisco skyline.
I spoke today with the tire shop in Livermore, and our aluminum wheels have arrived. Also our tire pressure monitoring system is there. They are going to get a head start by mounting six of our tires and the monitors on those wheels. We are just waiting on the two steel wheels to come in from Florida, and we can go over there and get everything installed.
We also stopped by Hayward today and picked up our sixty special lug nuts. Over $600 for nuts -- I can hardly believe it myself.
With any luck, the steel wheels will be there by Wednesday and we can be on the road again Thursday.
Their facility is in an old hanger/shop on the former Alameda Naval Air Station. The last time I was here, I had to pass armed Marines and a maze of jersey barriers. I came here to tour the USS Carl Vinson, CVN 70. The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier had been home-ported here, and they were giving the community tours as a fare-well before changing ports. I had also been here previously to see the Blue Angels fly, and had dinner with them at the O-club.
It's a weird experience to be able to just drive out onto the facility without fanfare. Many indicators of a mighty military presence still remain, in the form of strict signage forbiding all sorts of things, and that ubiquitous "military-paint-look." But it is nice to see the place being re-purposed as an industrial complex -- we are surrounded by various light industrial facilities, and even a sports club. It's actually quite a nice place to park -- quiet, and we enjoyed a beautiful sunset over the San Francisco skyline.
I spoke today with the tire shop in Livermore, and our aluminum wheels have arrived. Also our tire pressure monitoring system is there. They are going to get a head start by mounting six of our tires and the monitors on those wheels. We are just waiting on the two steel wheels to come in from Florida, and we can go over there and get everything installed.
We also stopped by Hayward today and picked up our sixty special lug nuts. Over $600 for nuts -- I can hardly believe it myself.
With any luck, the steel wheels will be there by Wednesday and we can be on the road again Thursday.
Saturday, March 12, 2005
We are at Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton (map).
We just wrapped up a night of observing through the 36" Great Lick Refractor -- what an experience! We must be living right, because conditions were absolutely perfect for observing -- clear skies, little wind, and pleasant temperatures.
The evening started with a wonderful tour of the facilites conducted by our host, Lick astronomer and Director of Operations Remington Stone. During the tour we spent considerable time in the dome of the three meter (120") Shane reflector, the largest telescope at the observatory, where we learned about the various instruments available to astonomers and how the telescope is used for modern astronomical observation.
We then went to the astronomers' dining hall for dinner, where we met astronomers Wei-Dong Li from UC Berkeley, Mel from SFSU, and Dave from UCSD. Laurie Hatch, resident photographer at the observatory, also joined us. After dinner, we enjoyed a panoramic view of the entire observatory and learned about the nine telescopes housed in its eight domes.
As night fell, we again went to the three meter reflector, this time to the control room where Dave and one of the Lick telescope technicians were setting up for Dave's observations. Dave is using a spectrograph to analyze light from a distant quasar, the absorbtion of which allows him to make an analysis of the intervening matter. In other words, Dave is trying to figure out what all the matter in the universe is. From our standpoint, it was way cool to be looking at an object eight billion light years away -- the light we were "seeing" (by way of the CCD camera in the instrument) was half as old as the universe itself!
From there we proceeded to the 36" refractor in the main building for our own observing.
We had fantastic views of Saturn and its moon Titan, Jupiter and the four Galilean moons, the Orion Nebula, the sombrero galaxy, a globular cluster, and one or two more Messier objects.
Truly a rare opportunity, and an experience we will not soon forget.
We will spend the night here on the observatory gounds, and tomorrow we will head back down the mountain.
We just wrapped up a night of observing through the 36" Great Lick Refractor -- what an experience! We must be living right, because conditions were absolutely perfect for observing -- clear skies, little wind, and pleasant temperatures.
The evening started with a wonderful tour of the facilites conducted by our host, Lick astronomer and Director of Operations Remington Stone. During the tour we spent considerable time in the dome of the three meter (120") Shane reflector, the largest telescope at the observatory, where we learned about the various instruments available to astonomers and how the telescope is used for modern astronomical observation.
We then went to the astronomers' dining hall for dinner, where we met astronomers Wei-Dong Li from UC Berkeley, Mel from SFSU, and Dave from UCSD. Laurie Hatch, resident photographer at the observatory, also joined us. After dinner, we enjoyed a panoramic view of the entire observatory and learned about the nine telescopes housed in its eight domes.
As night fell, we again went to the three meter reflector, this time to the control room where Dave and one of the Lick telescope technicians were setting up for Dave's observations. Dave is using a spectrograph to analyze light from a distant quasar, the absorbtion of which allows him to make an analysis of the intervening matter. In other words, Dave is trying to figure out what all the matter in the universe is. From our standpoint, it was way cool to be looking at an object eight billion light years away -- the light we were "seeing" (by way of the CCD camera in the instrument) was half as old as the universe itself!
From there we proceeded to the 36" refractor in the main building for our own observing.
We had fantastic views of Saturn and its moon Titan, Jupiter and the four Galilean moons, the Orion Nebula, the sombrero galaxy, a globular cluster, and one or two more Messier objects.
Truly a rare opportunity, and an experience we will not soon forget.
We will spend the night here on the observatory gounds, and tomorrow we will head back down the mountain.
Friday, March 11, 2005
We are in Palo Alto, at the Elks Lodge (map).
Yesterday morning, we hit the official two-week limit at the San Jose Elks lodge. We also had completely full waste tanks, and we needed to do laundry. So we loaded up the bikes, bailed out of San Jose, dumped our tanks and got Odyssey washed at Royal Coach, did laundry in Mountain View, had dinner with friends in Sunnyvale, and spent the night in front of their house.
As a side note, this is the longest we have ever gone between tank dumps -- over two weeks. It may seem like a small matter, but waste capacity is actually the determining factor of how long we can "boondock," and we are quite pleased with the results of this informal test. This is also the first time we ever dumped our tanks at a bus garage, where dumping is done over an open grate without benefit of a hose, which provided some perspective on this story. Royal Coach, by the way, has done some work on Odyssey in the past, and also stores and maintains the MaddenCruiser. They just got a whizzy new bus-washing machine, so we had Odyssey washed there as well.
Tomorrow morning, Louise has been invited to do a brief presention for our niece's third grade class, in Menlo Park. This Elks Lodge is "on the way" and will make it a bit easier for us to be in Menlo Park at 9:30am.
Now, normally, we would not bring Odyssey to Menlo Park just for Louise to spend ten minutes at an elementary school. However, we need to be half way up Mount Hamilton by noonish, and so we will be leaving directly from her morning appointment.
Tomorrow night we will be at Lick Observatory, enjoying the night sky through the Great Lick 36" Refractor -- a privilege upon which we bid at a charity auction last year. The Lick folks are generously allowing us to stay in their parking lot, so we can just roll into bed after a night of observing, rather than have to drive a long and twisty road back down to the valley.
We took an exploratory ride up there this past weekend. We've been up there on our motorcycles many times in the past, but never did we do so specifically looking for low trees, tight corners, etc. with an eye to whether Odyssey can negotiate the drive. Our conclusion is she'll do fine, but it appears we will have a police escort in any case. While on the summit, we ran into UC resident police officer Mark McDonald, who offered to meet us at Grant Park in Hall Valley and give us an escort to the top from there.
With any luck, we'll have clear skies, and I will have something interesting to post here.
The Palo Alto Elks Lodge is right next door to Trader Vic's, so we went there for dinner. We have to do that once every couple years, to remind ourselves that the food and, especially, the drinks, are overpriced. I had a pina colada -- and my hair was... perfect.
Yesterday morning, we hit the official two-week limit at the San Jose Elks lodge. We also had completely full waste tanks, and we needed to do laundry. So we loaded up the bikes, bailed out of San Jose, dumped our tanks and got Odyssey washed at Royal Coach, did laundry in Mountain View, had dinner with friends in Sunnyvale, and spent the night in front of their house.
As a side note, this is the longest we have ever gone between tank dumps -- over two weeks. It may seem like a small matter, but waste capacity is actually the determining factor of how long we can "boondock," and we are quite pleased with the results of this informal test. This is also the first time we ever dumped our tanks at a bus garage, where dumping is done over an open grate without benefit of a hose, which provided some perspective on this story. Royal Coach, by the way, has done some work on Odyssey in the past, and also stores and maintains the MaddenCruiser. They just got a whizzy new bus-washing machine, so we had Odyssey washed there as well.
Tomorrow morning, Louise has been invited to do a brief presention for our niece's third grade class, in Menlo Park. This Elks Lodge is "on the way" and will make it a bit easier for us to be in Menlo Park at 9:30am.
Now, normally, we would not bring Odyssey to Menlo Park just for Louise to spend ten minutes at an elementary school. However, we need to be half way up Mount Hamilton by noonish, and so we will be leaving directly from her morning appointment.
Tomorrow night we will be at Lick Observatory, enjoying the night sky through the Great Lick 36" Refractor -- a privilege upon which we bid at a charity auction last year. The Lick folks are generously allowing us to stay in their parking lot, so we can just roll into bed after a night of observing, rather than have to drive a long and twisty road back down to the valley.
We took an exploratory ride up there this past weekend. We've been up there on our motorcycles many times in the past, but never did we do so specifically looking for low trees, tight corners, etc. with an eye to whether Odyssey can negotiate the drive. Our conclusion is she'll do fine, but it appears we will have a police escort in any case. While on the summit, we ran into UC resident police officer Mark McDonald, who offered to meet us at Grant Park in Hall Valley and give us an escort to the top from there.
With any luck, we'll have clear skies, and I will have something interesting to post here.
The Palo Alto Elks Lodge is right next door to Trader Vic's, so we went there for dinner. We have to do that once every couple years, to remind ourselves that the food and, especially, the drinks, are overpriced. I had a pina colada -- and my hair was... perfect.
Sunday, March 6, 2005
Apparently, there are a number of very disappointed people who've come here looking for "Galveston Mardi Gras flashers." I know this because Louise is tracking web statistics on the blog, and she reports that some people have clicked-through after that expression found us on some search engine in the #43 position. I think it's because we 1. had our flashers on, 2. stayed at the "Mardi Gras" campground and 3. went to Galveston, all in the same "page" (as Blogger indexes them). I'm guessing this paragraph will increase the hit rate, or move us up above #43.
I haven't posted an update here for a while, mostly because we're not moving. We are still parked at the San Jose Elks Lodge, running various errands and visiting friends and family around the bay area.
Actually, I have spent waaay more time working on the "wheel and tire" problem than visiting anyone at all. Not that you asked, but let me explain:
We have always wanted to put aluminum wheels on Odyssey. We have steel wheels at present, with a set of hub caps that are uniquely "Neoplan." I actually like the way the hub caps look, and they are aerodynamic (however much difference that can make on a vehicle with the aerodynamic profile of a brick), however, we have some good reasons for wanting to switch:
1. The hub caps prevent us from easily checking tire pressures, inspecting lug nuts, or feeling the hubs for excess heat. Removing each hub cap requires prying out a plastic insert, then removing two nuts, all of which needs to be reversed to reinstall the cap. Multiply by six, which is how many hub caps we have. So checking any of these items, which really should be done at every major stop, is enough of a pain in the butt that we seldom do it. This is bad.
2. The steel wheel and hub cap combination weighs about 110 lbs (without tires), whereas an aluminum wheel and matching "hub cover" (which just covers the center part, where the wheel is open) weighs about 60lbs. So replacing the six outer steel wheels will save 300 lbs in unsprung weight. Moreover, manhandling a wheel around will be easier, especially considering the tire itself already weighs 150lbs.
3. As nice as the Neoplan hub caps look, aluminum wheels look even nicer, and have a "higher end" appearance.
4. Our current wheels are 8.25" wide, and we would like to have 9" wide wheels, which can accept a wider variety of tires, particularly ones with higher load ratings.
So I have been working, on and off, for the past two years to identify exactly what parts we would need to put 9" aluminum wheels on the coach, and how to proceed. This has been exceedingly difficult, because of our weird German-spec running gear. Our hubs (axles) are Mercedes-Benz units that are not sold in the US, and few people know anything about them and/or are willing to commit to specifics on exactly what we have to do to retrofit aluminum wheels. Progress has thus been slow, but the problem has not been urgent.
Until now. The urgency comes from the fact that we need, essentially, a full set of new tires. Two of the tires on the drive axle are completely worn out, with no tread remaining at all -- a situation owing to the fact that we blew out a drive tire in Pittsburgh, and the used tire we had put on to replace it wore out quickly and also caused the tire dualed with it to wear out. One of the tag axle tires was punctured and is running on a repair patch. And all of the tires are within a year of the end of their "shelf life" (7 years). Rather than just throw two more tires on the drive axle to keep us going, we decided to use our three weeks of downtime here in San Jose to replace all eight tires.
Of course, the ideal time to replace wheels is when you are replacing tires, so the "problem" of how to install aluminum wheels moved to the top of the stack.
I am happy to report that , after expending a few dozen more hours on the problem here, I believe I know how to replace the wheels, and we have ordered most of the required parts. Six shiny aluminum wheels are coming from Florida (yeah, yeah, I know -- we were just there), sixty new lug nuts are coming from southern California, because these wheels require different nuts, and hub center covers are coming from Tenessee. The only issue that remains is we also need two steel wheels for the inner duals. The ones we have now are 8.25" and we want 9", and we can't use an aluminum wheel on the inner because the "hub pilots" or "lands" which center the wheel on the hub and support the coach are not long enough to reach past an inner aluminum wheel and still engage enough of the outer wheel to be safe (aluminum wheels are about twice as thick, where they mount, as steel ones). We've also ordered eight new tires at a tire dealer in Livermore, CA.
I am hoping to resolve the inner steel wheel issue on Monday. With any luck, the lug nuts will be here next week, and the six aluminum wheels will be delivered to the tire dealer by the 14th, and we will try to have the whole thing done on the 15th.
We are also having the tire dealer install a pressure/temperature monitoring system for the tires. This is a device that clamps inside the wheel on a circular steel band, sort of like a giant hose clamp, and transmits pressure and temperature information to a dashboard readout. After two blowouts and a flat, we've decided this is cheap insurance.
Lastly, I will mention that we are putting traction-type tires on the drive axle, as opposed to the high-mileage "rib" type we had before. These will be a bit noisier, and may decrease our fuel mileage by a small bit, but should be a big help in the mud, rain, snow, and off-road conditions. We will still use rib tires on the other two axles.
As I said, not that you asked...
I haven't posted an update here for a while, mostly because we're not moving. We are still parked at the San Jose Elks Lodge, running various errands and visiting friends and family around the bay area.
Actually, I have spent waaay more time working on the "wheel and tire" problem than visiting anyone at all. Not that you asked, but let me explain:
We have always wanted to put aluminum wheels on Odyssey. We have steel wheels at present, with a set of hub caps that are uniquely "Neoplan." I actually like the way the hub caps look, and they are aerodynamic (however much difference that can make on a vehicle with the aerodynamic profile of a brick), however, we have some good reasons for wanting to switch:
1. The hub caps prevent us from easily checking tire pressures, inspecting lug nuts, or feeling the hubs for excess heat. Removing each hub cap requires prying out a plastic insert, then removing two nuts, all of which needs to be reversed to reinstall the cap. Multiply by six, which is how many hub caps we have. So checking any of these items, which really should be done at every major stop, is enough of a pain in the butt that we seldom do it. This is bad.
2. The steel wheel and hub cap combination weighs about 110 lbs (without tires), whereas an aluminum wheel and matching "hub cover" (which just covers the center part, where the wheel is open) weighs about 60lbs. So replacing the six outer steel wheels will save 300 lbs in unsprung weight. Moreover, manhandling a wheel around will be easier, especially considering the tire itself already weighs 150lbs.
3. As nice as the Neoplan hub caps look, aluminum wheels look even nicer, and have a "higher end" appearance.
4. Our current wheels are 8.25" wide, and we would like to have 9" wide wheels, which can accept a wider variety of tires, particularly ones with higher load ratings.
So I have been working, on and off, for the past two years to identify exactly what parts we would need to put 9" aluminum wheels on the coach, and how to proceed. This has been exceedingly difficult, because of our weird German-spec running gear. Our hubs (axles) are Mercedes-Benz units that are not sold in the US, and few people know anything about them and/or are willing to commit to specifics on exactly what we have to do to retrofit aluminum wheels. Progress has thus been slow, but the problem has not been urgent.
Until now. The urgency comes from the fact that we need, essentially, a full set of new tires. Two of the tires on the drive axle are completely worn out, with no tread remaining at all -- a situation owing to the fact that we blew out a drive tire in Pittsburgh, and the used tire we had put on to replace it wore out quickly and also caused the tire dualed with it to wear out. One of the tag axle tires was punctured and is running on a repair patch. And all of the tires are within a year of the end of their "shelf life" (7 years). Rather than just throw two more tires on the drive axle to keep us going, we decided to use our three weeks of downtime here in San Jose to replace all eight tires.
Of course, the ideal time to replace wheels is when you are replacing tires, so the "problem" of how to install aluminum wheels moved to the top of the stack.
I am happy to report that , after expending a few dozen more hours on the problem here, I believe I know how to replace the wheels, and we have ordered most of the required parts. Six shiny aluminum wheels are coming from Florida (yeah, yeah, I know -- we were just there), sixty new lug nuts are coming from southern California, because these wheels require different nuts, and hub center covers are coming from Tenessee. The only issue that remains is we also need two steel wheels for the inner duals. The ones we have now are 8.25" and we want 9", and we can't use an aluminum wheel on the inner because the "hub pilots" or "lands" which center the wheel on the hub and support the coach are not long enough to reach past an inner aluminum wheel and still engage enough of the outer wheel to be safe (aluminum wheels are about twice as thick, where they mount, as steel ones). We've also ordered eight new tires at a tire dealer in Livermore, CA.
I am hoping to resolve the inner steel wheel issue on Monday. With any luck, the lug nuts will be here next week, and the six aluminum wheels will be delivered to the tire dealer by the 14th, and we will try to have the whole thing done on the 15th.
We are also having the tire dealer install a pressure/temperature monitoring system for the tires. This is a device that clamps inside the wheel on a circular steel band, sort of like a giant hose clamp, and transmits pressure and temperature information to a dashboard readout. After two blowouts and a flat, we've decided this is cheap insurance.
Lastly, I will mention that we are putting traction-type tires on the drive axle, as opposed to the high-mileage "rib" type we had before. These will be a bit noisier, and may decrease our fuel mileage by a small bit, but should be a big help in the mud, rain, snow, and off-road conditions. We will still use rib tires on the other two axles.
As I said, not that you asked...
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