Maddie's newest shakedown....new A/C units
That is my new name for the bus, "Maddie the Mobster." Maddie is what we have been calling her but as of late she's been acting more like a mobster. You'll be happily cruising along and all of the sudden something will go wrong out of no where and she will shake you down for money. It started a few weeks ago when we were at a campsite that wasn't level. Initially I just thought "meh the campsites gravel/sandy it's just not level." No big deal we were only there for a few days. Next stop we didn't have a problem, so I thought it really was just the previous campsite. Nope, one more move proved we had just been lucky with level sites and that the air valve was leaking. No big deal ordered a new one, managed to get the new valves and put them in (so far it's been too easy right?) and it turns out its the air valve in the back that is leaking. It's not a hard fix but the bus needs to be raised up on jacks. Since everyone has decided to buy campers and go camping now it's a month out to get it fixed, we have a work around but sometimes its a little like living in a fun house.
All three A/C went in the bus.
Where do I sleep mom? There's no room!
All the while Maddie the Mobsters valve was leaking she decided to shake us down for some more money. Our third ac unit quit working, why not right? In her defense the units are 15 years old, so they are at their life expectancy. So now the great search for a replacement began, it was fairly simply to figure out which unit was the replacement, what wasn't easy was finding one. Again thanks to all the new folks buying campers and supply chain disruptions it was a challenge to find one. Most of the places we called said the lead time would be at least a month. We finally found an awesome rv dealer (shout out to Northern RV in Quinnesec MI) who ordered us 3 ac units (since the other ones are old and it's hard to find we bought 3) and the keypad/converters we need. Initially we were back in "southern" MI but to get the AC units we went back to the UP. While they could order us the new units they were booked out until September to put them in. Which meant that if we wanted ac we put it in our selves.
Our Rube Goldberg system
This was the easy part the last foot or so was the worst
This is where the fun began. The ac units aren't "super heavy" probably about 50lbs. But they are also kind of big, big enough to make it awkward and hard to get it up on top of Maddie. After wrapping the box with 100 feet of rope like a Christmas present we started on our short lived first attempt. We were trying to use the hill behind the bus for a better angle but since it wasn't a stable surface for the ladder we quickly abandoned that idea. Second try after moving the bus, same concept but on solid ground. Basically Hubby was on top pulling and I was under pushing it up the ladder. That also didn't go well. Third and final try is the pic shown, we used the winch from the tow dolly and hooked it to the hitch from the bus. Hubby was on top guiding it up and I was down below winching it up, it worked great until the last rung. The ladder is great and collapsible for normal use but a *little* short for this type of project. So basically hubby pulled it up the last wrung and I pushed it. All in all it was a success. No one died or went to the er, the ac unit made it to the top, and no paint was scratched. It does't get better then that right now. The ac still isn't hooked up to power but at least it is up and the old one is down. I can't wait to see what Maddie will shake us down for next!
Success!!!
Nice View from the roof.
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