Checking out Picacho Peak

Yesterday's plan was to explore views of Picacho Peak from angles other than those visible from my campsite on AZ Trust Land near Red Rock, AZ.

But first, here's last night's sunset:

I rode out on Scarlett, my 2014 Ural Patrol, to check out the south and west sides of Picacho Peak.  The weather was overcast at first, then mostly cloudy with occasional strong wind gusts.  The rest of the country is going through another cold snap so no complaints here.

I found the single road that allowed western face views of the peak, you go through the Village of Red Rock, which looked to me to be a bedroom/retirement community.

The western side proved unremarkable in the day's lighting.  It is the side on which one hikes/climbs up to the very top of Picacho Peak if I recall correctly

I then rode back through the Red Rock Village, stopping at the community park where I asked the attendant and was granted access to a water spigot.  I filled out two of my spare water cans, so I'm good to go for more than 4 days now.

Crossing back over the busy I-10 Superslab, I positioned Scarlett near the junction of the Park Link Road and Adelante Road which is a frontage road along the superslab.

Returning to the campsite, I saw one of the two rigs which had moved in last night was gone.  It's nice having a site almost to one's self.  I also did some scouting and found another camping area nearby which is more secluded as well.  For the next time.

Last night's sunset:

Note the profile of Picacho Peak, it has always reminded me, ever since I first saw it, of something else:

I used to be a bit of a WWII Militaria Buff back in my teen years.  The Japanese battleship Yamato was, I thought, one of the more beautiful ships.

I trust you can see the resemblance between Picacho Peak and the Yamato.

Warmer day forecasted for today.

Now Boondocking near Red Rock, AZ

After a few more restful days at the AZ State Trust site near Catalina, AZ, it was time this morning to move to different scenery.

I displaced less than 30 miles.  First, parking the VRRV in the way-too-crowded BLM dispersed camping area near Cattle Tanks Road!  Holy Cow.  (pun intended).

I unloaded Yagi, my TW200, and set out to find a less crowded site.  I found one closer to this displacement's main objective: Picacho Peak.  It's also on AZ Trust Land but I've got the permit so am good to go.

I got Scarlett, my Ural Patrol sidecar rig, off the trailer and posed her a little closer to Picacho Peak:

The site where Scarlett is was considered briefly for a campsite but its close to Park Link Road.

View of distant hazy peaks

Telephoto closeup of Picacho Peak.

I actually hiked to the very top of Picacho Peak back in 2020, a bit over 5 years ago.  LINK  I'm pretty sure I won't be doing a repeat of that!

I'm planning on camping here until I run short of fresh water.  I should have enough to get me through the weekend, if not, there's a water point near the Picacho Peak State Park I think.

As a bonus, the single Class C that had been in the site before me, left at 1PM, leaving the entire site to myself.  Let's see how long that lasts.

Note, sunny and warm but WINDY!

Boondocking again near Catalina, AZ

Back on AZ State Trust Land near Catalina, AZ. since Wednesday this week.

I got here after displacing from Gila Bend and finished the repairs to the slideout system on the VRRV and power issue for the control board in the VRRV's Norcold N811LT Refrigerator.

Got the replacement slideout controller via Amazon yesterday and it works!  All is well now with the slideout.  No more rigging bypass wires, manual overrides but both are now viable options in case of failures in the future.

I will be ordering a spare control board for the fridge as its quite Norcold is no longer supporting it and components thereto.

Here's a shot of the connector to the old slideout controller.  Note the damaged pins due to extreme heat and apparently some corrosion.  A new connector has been ordered but this one works fine for now as well.

The 12 volt bypass wire, coming up from below the fridge where the fuse panel is located.

Refrigerator Control Board.

P/N 621991001

The new slideout controller in place.

p/n: Lippert 10566, Power Gear 135666

A shot or two to celebrate everything fixed for now:

Last night's sunset after finishing the repairs on the VRRV:

Lots of resting and relaxing the last couple of days, very much the preferred mode of boondocking for me.

I returned the rather expensive $69 multimeter that I got from NAPA back at Gila Bend to aid in troubleshooting procedures.  (my old multimeter was giving bad readings).  While it worked fine, the volume on its continuity tester sucked!  I could barely hear it and that's with hearing aids in and turned up to max gain.

I went to the NAPA in Tucson and tried a different one, same weak signal, so back it went for a refund.  It was the TrueBlue Jr. Multimeter.  I can't recommend it.

I got a replacement multimeter via Amazon today, a Klein MM325, a better reputation brand and much nicer, for almost half the price!  $34.

Nice and loud beeps when needed!

I went walking about the area for almost two miles to get some exercise, some pics along the way:

The Catalina Mountains during today's Golden Hour:

Mount Lemmon

RV Fridge and Slideout Issues after a Short Visit to Ajo, AZ

 Monday, February 3

Rode south on AZ Highway 85 the 12 miles or so to the small town of Ajo.

Ended up just getting gas for the spare gas can and some pics of the main church along with the arches in the town's main plaza.

The church entrance was locked.  Unusual.

That night, I woke for the usual trip to the bathroom and noticed that the fridge status lights were flashing.  Not good.  Usually, this meant that I had to reset the control board via an published process.  

Didn't think much of it as it was 3:30 AM, and I figured I'd run the reset process in daylight when I next woke up.

This would be the start of a rather lengthy and sometimes frustrating process of troubleshooting.  The reset procedure didn't work, and things started warming up in the fridge.

I prematurely gave up at this point and started talking to a mobile RV repair service in Casa Grande.  I arranged to meet their tech there at 4PM and started breaking down camp to move.

That's when I discovered what appears to be a related issue.  The slideout switch wasn't working to activate the motor to bring in the slideout!

Obviously, I had to cancel the appointment.  A call to CoachNet got me in touch with a tech who suggested attaching a battery to the slideout motor, bypassing the relay/switch.  This worked using jumper cables to the house battery and I got the slideout back in.

This event highlighted to me that I didn't know how to manually override the slideout.

I finished packing and drove the VRRV the 30 miles or so to Gila Bend, AZ where I thought I'd meet with the repair tech the next day.

Once I got there though, I realized after another call to CoachNet that since I was no longer "stranded" with a stuck slideout, they'd not call it a service call and I was now responsible for the $150 charge for a tech to just come out, in addition all hourly charges and parts costs.  Before, when they considered me stranded, they'd have covered the $150 cost.

Since it was all now on me, I decided I'd stick with the tech I'd engaged beforehand and sent a text when I set up camp in BLM land just SE of Gila Bend.

That evening, RichardM came to the rescue of the food in the warming fridge.  He suggested running a bypass wire to supply 12 volts to the control board.  I hooked up test leads to the nearby house battery and the board and voila, the fridge was working again!

I would wake during the night, and realize a possible way to manually override the slideout.  This was confirmed in the morning when I found this video on Youtube: LINK.  Note to self, my slideout uses the Below Floor Mount RV Slide system and the components involved are made by Power Gear (bought by Lippert).

I tried it out and yep, I was able to move the slideout to the out position with very little trouble/effort.  A dedicated wrench is to be bought soon to be kept for just this purpose.  I didn't have one wide enough so I used channel locks.

Further troubleshooting also revealed the most likely cause of why the slideout switch wasn't working:

The burn marks pretty much settle the cause.

I was able to find what I believe is a replacement controller on Amazon and it's being shipped to a locker location in Catalina, AZ.  

I drove to Catalina, north of Tucson, and found a nice campsite near where I'd previously camped with Martha.  I used the wires bypass again to bring the slideout as its easier than manually doing it.

I also permanently installed the bypass wire for the fridge's control board.  I drove to Catalina from Gila Bend with the test leads in place but of course that wasn't a good permanent solution.

The controller will arrive by 10PM today, Thursday according to Amazon.  Stayed tuned.

Lessons learned:

1.  Learn and practice how to manually override your slideout motor when components fail.  Preferably before it happens.

2.  Yes, control boards required a constant 12 volt source when the associated appliance/device is turned on.

3.  Always have a second multimeter with you.  The "reliable one" I had with me was giving me bad voltage readings and really hampering troubleshooting the electrical issues encountered.

4.  To eliminate the converter (converts shore/generator power or 120v to 12 volt) as a problem, see if it charges the battery...if it does, it's not the converted.  Wasted a lot of time thinking it was fuses on the converter, in the end I couldn't even get at the screws that mount it to the floor under the fridge, dang RV builders.