[VACList] Sucesses and flops; a knucklehead tells all

[Alexkensington@xxxxxxx]

Hey folks -

As I get set up for another season I discovered a do and don't 

Refer-

My original Dometic had the usual compliant of "works well on electric; not 
so great on propane..." Well, after some digging I found something to check 
for in these mid sixties refers. 

The gas thermostat control has the classic bellows & bulb temperature device. 
In my instance, a screw behind dial plate (of which there are only two; at 2 
o'clock and 8 o'clock as you look at it from in front of the refer). The 
harder to see of these (8 o'clock) had backed itself completely out, leaving 
the bellows with a bad seat on the gas valve. This control makes the flame go 
up or down as needed for the cooling and idling cycles. In the screw-out 
scenario, the flame was not very robust now matter how much I adjusted it at 
the burner. By finding the wee screw, and putting it back in place, the flame 
operation improved dramatically (high flame for cooling; lower for idling) 
and the sucker really chills now on propane. I suggest adding inspection of 
the thermostat control in fixing the above complaint; added to flue cleaning, 
level parking, burner alignment and cleaning, &c. 

Online in the archive is an owners manual for a 1966 Overlander. The refer 
section has drawing of the control I mention.

Big Flop in Polishing

Boy is this a screw up to avoid. I was doing a touchup buffing of the finish, 
and wore my self out doing it. This made me lazy in my clean up after 
polishing. I had been working some corrosion off the roof area which I had 
let go for a couple of seasons and had finally gotten rather gray again. I 
always wash every thing down after I finish and I washed some of this area 
after removing the black mud we all know so well. Well, on the other side of 
the coach I had finished brightening the aluminum very nicely, but when I 
washed the roof off some of my rinse water from the hose ran down over the 
now clean and raw aluminum. I was dog tired and decided to let it air dry 
just this once. I could hardly lift my arms any more. 

The next morning I awoke to find the most hideous, stubborn, god-awful water 
spots I ever saw. Is looked like white measles! NOTHING took it off: water, 
detergent, minerals spirits ... threats, prayers, entreaties, curses, all 
useless. Corrosion laden wash water, settling on the fresh raw aluminum 
bonded to it over night at a covalent chemical level, and I had to do a heavy 
amount of rough polishing (basically compounding) to wear it off! 

Happily only a couple of panels were affected, but it meant starting from 
scratch on those panels. This was especially bad as so much raw aluminum was 
exposed Not Spotted that I watched my buffer fill up quickly with good 
aluminum that would have been better left on the coach. 

Lesson learned: Just being able to towel it off would have prevented this. 
Now I wax each panel as I finish 'em, while I work on the rest of the coach. 
I am using straight carnuba wax, which comes off when I want it to. With ease.
What a knucklehead. 

Have you done a knuckle headed thing during your restoration?  let's hear 
about it

Alex In Indiana
WBCCI 8728
66 Safari & Overlander