We drove down to Mansfield, OH to the Ford dealership from Martha's sister's home in Brownstown, MI. Our thanks to Laura and Andy for allowing us to stay with them since Thursday of last week!
Along the way we had a couple of issues to resolve.
First, the starboard strap holding Yagi onto the rack in back of the CRV broke. Luckily the other straps held it in place but seriously leaning outboard. I hurriedly exited the highway and we put a new strap on. Close call!
The second thing was Martha's iPhone started acting weird again. The screen blanked out and she could not use the phone so we decided to find the Verizon store in Mansfield. The phone started behaving again as we waited for customer service but we decided to go ahead and upgrade her phone since it had been due since before the trip.
As this was going on and her data was being transferred to the new phone, we drove over to the dealership and I chatted with the mechanic, Randy.
Basically, the solenoid that is related to the house battery had to be replaced along with the fusible link connected to the chassis battery. It had burned and melted quite badly but the way it was installed it was not easily visible. Randy did not believe that the charging circuit to the house battery was compromised and we tested it with a clamp-on amp meter and it seemed to be charging when the engine was running!
The bill was paid and I drove off following Martha to the Harvest host where we are staying at tonight. It's called the Blueberry Patch Farm and this located between Mansfield and Lexington Ohio a long highway 42.
Nice Harvest Host location, two RVs parking spots and we are the only rig here tonight.
The dealership mechanic also replace the failed wooden board that supports the house battery inside the battery box. The house battery was also replaced by the dealer as the fear was the previous battery had been "cooked". Unfortunately AutoZone gave them the wrong battery I think, it's a starting battery not a deep cycle battery.
However, after a couple of calls with RichardM, it should be fine to keep this battery for now just do some calculations as I use it to figure out how many amp hours it really has. The fact that my electrical needs are not very high made RichardM State that it really didn't matter in that we should be fine. I am guessing it only has, the new battery, between 42 to 70 amp hours, we'll see.
The plan for now is to install a DC to DC charger system once I get home to go with a LiPO4 battery since they have become less expensive on Amazon.
Otherwise, everything seems to be working on Uma and we will start the drive back to Colorado again tomorrow morning.
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