Long time no post

We've been busy ... where to start ....

I took the cubevan up to the SuperUke's to pick up the generator the day after we arrived back in Nipawin. As could be expected, a visit to the SuperUke wasn't without incident. I had to endure his abuse but I think I gave as good as I got. Once we got done insulting each other and after I paid him for the rebuild we loaded the gennie in the cube and I headed back to Craig's yard. When I started the van it sounded different and it hiccuped a couple of times as I was leaving the Ukeyard. By the time I got across the flat and going by our old place it was dying and restarting pretty regularly. It died again as I approached the highway by McDermott's and then it died completely coming across the bridge.

The Dept. of Holidays was sand sealing the highway that morning so they had a goof stopping traffic on the east side of the bridge. I rolled to a stop just off the bridge and then had to endure the questions of the flag-idiot while I waited for the van to cool off. I was pretty sure that it would start up again if it sat for a while and sure enough, after about 15 minutes of inane conversation with the Highways guy, the van started again. But not for long - by the time I got to the Paramart on the east side of town it was spluttering and coughing again so I rolled to a stop on the service road and waited for it to cool off again. It wasn't overheating but the cam sensor that I had put in was clearly not working. After another rest it fired up again and that time it got me back to the yard.

I went in to Verklan's and after a discussion with Neil and Glen ended up with a genuine Ford CPS. That seemed to solve the problem although it was hard to tell without taking the truck for a long drive. I did drive it out to Codette and back which should have been long enough to create a CPS failure if it was going to recur. It didn't let me down on that trip but I did notice occasional hiccups which caused me to wonder if I had truly solved the problem completely. Sure enough within another 24 hours it had died completely in front of our old shop and that time it didn't fix itself by waiting. We ended up towing it to Verklan's shop and eventually Neil diagnosed a bad injector driver module ($1800 for replacement). So now we're into the van for about $5000 which is a lot closer to what it should be worth but still not an excessive amount. Time will tell how that turns out. I did do a bit of internet research and found that this is a known problem with Econoline vans and powersmoke engines of that vintage. Apparently the IDM is mounted on the driver's fenderwell and it gets too much water on it. Eventually that causes problems. Neil said he dumped about 1-1/2 cups of water out of the old one and found some green death on the ground connector.

In between diagnosing and towing the cube van I got the generator stuffed into the back of the bus. I had all sorts of plans and ideas about how to mount it but in the end most of my design ideas simply wouldn't work. The space where I had to fit the genset just wasn't big enough for anything fancy. In the end I dismantled the old genset completely and remounted the components in a double 3/4" plywood box that I built in place where the generator was originally mounted. I'm not 100% happy with how that all turned out but I think it will be workable. I still don't know whether I have reduced the sound level because I have been running the generator with no muffler. It is certainly loud with an unmuffled exhaust but I think I have reduced the machine noise so perhaps when the muffler goes back on I will have made more progress than it currently appears that I have.

On Wednesday we took time off from all the other things we have been doing to go to Regina and move father to a new suite. When we moved them into Victoria Park Mom & Dad took what was available which turned out to be a suite on the second floor, well out into one of the wings. Father is almost 100% dependent on somebody to move him around now because he seems incapable of learning the manual skills involved in operating a wheelchair. He likes to be involved in any and all activities but that was difficult when his room was so far from the centre of the building. Activities at Vic Park centre around the activity room which is directly ahead of you as you enter the complex. Father's new room shares a common wall with that activity room so it is hard to imagine a location that would be more convenient for him. The nursing station is across the hall from his new room and the reception desk is next to that so he should be well monitored as well. There's not much joy in his life now so whatever little happiness he can get from increased activity is a good thing. I expect that he will even be able to shuffle his wheelchair out to the activity room from his new room. Certainly he will be able to work his way out into the hallway and somebody will no doubt push him the rest of the way once he gets there.

It froze hard again last night so our water hose is iced up again. Once it is warm enough to work outside I need to get back to fitting shelves into the cube van. We're setting it up so that it is convenient for both long term storage as well as for storing tools and supplies of a more immediate nature. I also need to install a hitch on it because we have too many wheeled units to get out of Nipawin with otherwise.

Yesterday we booked our campgrounds through to the 3rd week of August. That is the most organization we have ever had in our camping life but we thought it was prudent to have our summer accomodations arranged well in advance. We'll be spending most of July and August near to Chilliwack so we expect some congestion from Vancouverites trying to get out of the city. Marilyn bought a membership in a campground group called Holiday Trails and we already had our Thousand Trails membership. Holiday Trails has a campground at Bridal Falls and Thousand Trails has one at Cultus Lake. By going back and forth between the two of those we should be able to stay pretty well as long as we want in the the vicinity of Chilliwack. We also booked an extended period at Whispering Pines both for old times' sake and in order to meet up with some friends that will be there at the same time.