And... we're out!

We got "sprung" from the mothership on Wednesday!

On Wednesday morning, Mike had all the gallons of transfer fluid ready for use...

Evacuating the system - as we understood it -- he had to remove all the old transfer fluid, rinse the system with water, evacuate all the water to ensure all the water was out of the system, and then put the new transfer fluid in and purge all the air.

I had noticed this sign around the shop before, but had not taken time to look at it carefully... this identifies the locations for emergency shelter -- the red areas are the safe places -- in the bottom right are restrooms and a laundry room, to the right is the alignment pit and mechanics room -- in the middle 3 motorhomes are illustrated - and there is a note to the side that indicates "Take cover under a motorhome". That would be an interesting endeavor and would not be my first inclination! But, since the roof could be blown off, I guess that would be safer? Thankfully, we didn't have to implement the instructions!

Last week, we had taken a tour of the Newmar factory on Wednesday. We were disappointed that the Newgle (Newmar Google) demonstration was at the same time as the factory tour, and we had missed it. We had no idea that we would have the opportunity to attend the next Wednesday! We learned how to use Newgle to search for information and documentation on components of our rig.

Mike finished up all the tasks on Gracie, we got the bill and paid, and were on our way by about 12:20pm (eastern time).

We got in to Illinois at about 1:30pm central time (we got an extra hour on the drive!).

We would overall judge the service center visit as "good" -- if we'd gotten out of there on Friday, it would be "GREAT!" We do feel that we had folks working on the rig who were very knowledgeable and that was nice.

Day 5 at the Mothership

Tuesday found us still in Nappanee. Nothing picture worthy! However, our technician, Mike, found out that the monitor he was using in Gracie to determine if the second element in our hydronic heater was working was not giving reliable readings (so it is probable that he has had the Oasis system working since Friday - bummer!!!).

Mike still needs to change out the transfer fluid in the Oasis. He had checked the pH level and it is not within spec (supposed to be above 8 but it is measuring at 7). It takes 3-4 hours to change it (and it was too late to start on Tuesday) -- so he will do that Wednesday morning. We are hoping to leave by noon on Wednesday.

Day 4 at the Mothership

We stayed in Nappanee over the weekend... we enjoyed some walks around the area and driving around where we could see some of the countryside. 

Monday was day 4 at the mothership. Mike came to get Gracie at 6am; the weather was very nice so Miss Kitty stayed in the Jeep.

Carl went back to the Parts Department and looked at the plastic guides for the bay doors -- there are two different shapes. The price is $40+ and we would need 10...

... so he took a tracing of each of them. We think that we can make them for quite a bit cheaper.

Since Miss Kitty was in the Jeep, we had planned to sit in the larger outer non-pet lobby, but, it was full, so we went back to the pet lounge. Our newly met friends from last week were there, and the dogs were well behaved. About mid morning, a lady opened the door from the hallway and a little dog trotted in, "Does this dog belong to anyone in here?", she asked. Right, someone would have lost their dog and not noticed it? Of course, a loose dog in a pet lounge was not a good idea... someone went to find a leash, and I grabbed the dog (since I didn't have a pet to manage) to keep it from annoying the other dogs. The lady from the hallway said that it had come from the non-pet lounge in the lobby, so I went out there to ask if anyone there saw where it had come from -- one person said that it seemed to have come from the front doors. We found the receptionist and she contacted the vet office phone number on the rabies tag and they were to contact the owners.

Meanwhile, Carl was holding onto the dog in the pet lounge. Of course, it "piddled" on the floor, so I asked the dog owners what they would do to clean it up (bottle of Windex under the sink and paper towels on the counter).

Within about 30 minutes, the owner arrived. "Max" had been at her daughter's townhouse which is just on the other side of the campground; a door had been left open and Max got out. They had been concerned that he would have gone to the railroad tracks and were very concerned. Instead, he had walked up to the automatic doors at the Newmar facility, walked right in, and was immediately taken care of! What a funny little dog!

Meanwhile, Mike was still working on the Oasis hydronic heating system on Gracie...

He had to take things out of the bay next to where the Oasis system is located.

He had repaired the wires that were corroded and looked burned, but it still appeared that the second element was not working. Mike had spent a few hours on the phone with a tech at ITR (Oasis manufacturing company) going through debugging of the system. He was not able to get it completed on Monday... so we would be staying at the Mothership through to Tuesday.

We head to the Chicagoland area after we finish here -- we were hoping to be getting together with family and friends this week... and we have doctor appointments already scheduled. I went ahead and changed one appointment that I had for Wednesday afternoon to the week after Labor Day... but we have doctor appointments on Thursday and Friday that, if we cannot make them, we probably won't be able to get rescheduled... we'll need to get out of here by Wednesday at the latest - even if the second element isn't working!

Usually, when we're going for service, we know that the time could extend longer... but when our appointment was confirmed here, the email indicated it would be for 3 days. I was surprised that they would make that kind of estimate, but I figured that they know their product and they wouldn't have given me a time frame if they didn't know... well... not so much! We've heard from other owners that they allow at least a week after the estimated end date -- good to know! We'll know better if we end up coming back here in the future, and we probably will come back, because they do know *their* product here better than anyone else does. I think, however, that we have determined that, for us, for systems that are provided by other vendors (HWH jacks, Oasis hydronic heater, Freightliner chassis components, Cummins engine), we'd be better served by going to those vendors directly. We are not limited like those under warranty service to have those services provided by Newmar, so there is no reason to be tied to Newmar for those systems.

Day 3 at the Mothership

Friday was our third day at the "mothership", and the original communication to us indicated that we should be done in 3 days. Mike came to get Gracie at about 6am...

... he had let us know near the end of day on Thursday that he thought he had found the source of the problem on our Oasis (hydronic heating) system -- there was a wire that was corroded and looked as if it had gotten hot enough to melt the covering off. He needed to find out why that occurred -- so he was digging further into the Oasis system on Friday. *Nothing* in these rigs is easy to access or work on... so he was having to work around in a very tight area. He also had tested the pH of the transfer fluid in the system and found that it was not within specs - we had originally asked for a complete system flush, so he was checking to make sure that was actually needed, and the pH said that it was needed - so he had that scheduled to be completed too. He let us know by early afternoon, that he wasn't going to be able to complete all of the work on Friday, so we'd need to stay over until Monday.

We had been taking Miss Kitty back and forth from the pet lounge to the Jeep -- it was cooler on Friday, and not very sunny, so we felt that she could stay in the Jeep safely and have continuous access to her food, water, and litter pan...

...that meant that we could stay in the regular customer lounge (no pets allowed).

It was quite nice...

...nice big windows looking out front to where the "campground" was located, so we could see when Gracie was being returned to her site.

Our nextdoor neighbors in the campground had a newer coach than Gracie (almost *every* coach in the campground is newer than Gracie -- there is one 2005, but we're the next oldest at 2012 -- almost all of the others are here getting warranty service - so within 1 year of purchase!) -- anyway, Carl asked if he could see how that plastic guide was installed on his bay doors and he took a few pictures...

Plastic guide that directs the latch to the catch --

It is interesting because on his coach, these are installed in two different ways -- in this picture, this one has the big block-y part installed "high" and the guide on the outside of the latch (toward the open edge of the door)...

... on this door, the guide is behind the plastic cover, but it is installed with the big block-y part installed low and the guide on the inside of the latch (away from the open edge of the door).

Carl thinks that these will make our doors and latches more stable. We are always concerned, particularly if we go through an area where the body flexes (like diagonally across railroad tracks or the entrance to a fuel station) that one or more bay doors may come open -- they have done so in the past. This would give us more peace of mind. A task for the future...

Day 2 at the Mothership

Thursday was our second day at the "mothership"...

We were up and Gracie was all closed up, aired up, Miss Kitty and we were ready to go before 6am, and Mike, our technician, came to get Gracie soon after 6am.

Entry to the Pet Lounge waiting area at 0-dark-30.

Gracie, inside the 50 bay service area

All inside - climate controlled, super clean

In the waiting area, other owners were talking about a guide that existed on their coaches to guide the catch to the latch on their bay doors...

Carl found one in the parts department, but thought the price was a bit high. He asked if he could trace the shape onto a piece of paper, and the parts guy gave him a piece of paper. He figures that he can create one himself possibly from a cutting board. (we found a video of a guy making one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2GZAltaeiQ)

Another view of Gracie in service bay #22.

In the waiting room, the TV was on with closed captioning turned on -- we almost always watch TV with captioning turned on -- it helps so much in understanding what is being said! Carl's kids give him a hard time about needing to have captions -- so he took a picture of this headline on the screen to prove that ours isn't the only generation that appreciates subtitles!

We went to see "Oppenheimer" a little over a week ago -- #1, we didn't like the movie much -- yes, it is critically acclaimed and no, we don't understand why. #2, we couldn't understand much of the dialog and there were no subtitles -- we have since heard that it may have been possible to get a device at the movie theater that you put in the cup holder and it displays the subtitles - who knew? I'm not sure it would have improved the movie enough for us to have enjoyed it, but at least we could have understood more of the dialog!

Work continues on Gracie...

The "Mothership"!

Our service appointment for Newmar at the "mothership" was scheduled to start on Wednesday, 8/23. The pre-arrival information indicated that the coach would be picked up by the technician between 6-7:30am. We were ready a few minutes before 6am... and waited... and waited...

... and waited...

We had a factory tour scheduled for 8:30am, for which we were supposed to arrive by 8:15am... so at about 7:30am, I first went over to the customer service waiting area to check. The lady at the check in desk did not have us on her list - uh oh. She said she would start looking into it, and I went back to Gracie to review the emails I had received. The pre-arrival email communications had been really difficult to understand, so I thought maybe I misunderstood something... but I went through the information and had a confirmation email for service to start on August 23 (sent August 22, last year!). Carl took a printed out copy of that confirmation and went back to the customer service front desk -- he talked with a service manager and they were working on finding a technician to work on Gracie. Carl let them know that we were leaving to go to the factory tour and the service manager said that they would get Gracie moved into the shop while we were gone.

Parked in front of us in the service center "campground" - this is the service trailer they brought with them to the Tampa Supershow Rally to be able to service customer's rigs onsite at the rally.

We drove over to the factory tour location -- we were the last participants to arrive, got our safety vests and headphones and receivers, and joined the others in the meeting room.

In the meeting room before our tour began -- some of the paint schemes for rigs.

The tour began with a couple of videos in the meeting room...

We weren't allowed to take pictures on the tour... some things of note:

• We started in the chassis area, where the chassis from Freightliner and Spartan are brought in. They build the STAR foundation on top of the chassis (https://www.newmarcorp.com/why-newmar/newmar-difference/chassis-overview/). My understanding was that they use residential home construction techniques in their building.
  
• In this area, they also build in the items at the base of the coach - water tanks (fresh, grey, black), and the floors. The tile is laid onto the wooden subfloor that is eventually transferred onto the foundation. The wooden subfloor is cut out in all the strange configurations needed for the floorplan of each coach so the tiles can be appropriately cut and laid too.
• The coaches are moved through the factory by means of air hover pads under the tires - when it is time for the coach to move to the next station, the hover pads are energized with air, and 2-3 guys push the coach sideways to the next station (20' or so) and successfully stop it too!
• Once done in the chassis area, the partially completed units are driven to another building where the upper frame is installed (metal studs) and the house is assembled. The fiberglass is adhered to the outside and the coach ends in the paint area. All those fancy paint designs are done by wax-paper-like templates adhered to the outside of the coach.
  
• I think we heard that 7 coaches a day are completed, and that it takes about 21 days for the building of a coach.

After the tour, we went back to the service center, officially checked in with our service technician (he had a list of the things we wanted serviced, and just wanted clarification), and then...

... headed into the "Pet Lounge" at the service center.

A little nicer than the Freightliner lounge from the previous week.

Miss Kitty got under the flannel shirt again -- she was burrowing into the sleeve -- kitties like being in close places!

We got into the lounge when most everyone else was gone to lunch -- when all the dogs came back, it could get noisy at times! Miss Kitty added her own meows to the mix -- she was *very* vocal. The other folks in the pet lounge said that they had never heard such a vocal cat! We were surprised that she was not intimidated by the "dawgs" there!

The parts department is located here at the service center -- we had actually been here back in 2020 when we needed to get an actuator for one of our slides (https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2020/08/a-show-and-repair.html) when Gracie was in for repairs at a shop in Elkhart, Indiana. We had brought a list of replacement parts that we wanted to get and found some of them here at the parts department...

... one of the main things we wanted was replacement bay door latches. There are two different types (different rigs need different types), and then a "left" and a "right" of each of those, so we had to take the latch off of one of our doors to know exactly which replacement part we needed.

This is an example of one of the broken ones -- the part at the top gets bent from the door not lining up properly and then the latches don't latch -- and it just gets harder and harder to get them to stay closed.

Putting the new latch on...

... close up -- the new latches are built more robustly -- so we're hoping they will last better.

So... the service center is doing repairs during the day, and we're doing repairs in the evenings! We should have a brand new rig by the time we leave here!

Back to Indiana

Our journey through the summer has been planned with the destination of ending at the Newmar Service Center  in Nappanee, Indiana, for a service appointment that we made 15 months ago! After having a number of issues with the slides on Gracie, we wanted to go to the "mothership" to get the slides adjusted by the factory professionals. The available appointments are at least a year out, so in May, 2022, we contacted Newmar to schedule a 2023 appointment -- and we decided to make it for near the end of summer and let this stop end our summer travels and get us near the Chicago area for family visiting.

After leaving Linette and Nick's within an hour or so, we crossed into Indiana...

"More to Discover in Indiana"

We got to the Newmar Service Center, got Gracie parked, and then headed out to the Shipshewana Flea Market...

We had visited this flea market a couple of years ago... lots to see!

Photo ops on the buildings

Obligatory selfie

After visiting the flea market, we went to Das Dutchman Essenhaus...

Another buffet!!! Yum!

Newmar service to start on Wednesday...

Visiting Cousins!

As we left Keith and Ruth Ann's on Monday, we headed west toward Ansonia, Ohio, to visit Carl's cousin Linette and Nick. We had checked with them a week or so before, and they said that they usually went to the county fair on Monday as it was Senior Day and senior citizens got in for free -- we were up for that, so we headed to the fair!

After we got parked, we took a shuttle up to the gate...

... and then a golf cart handi-ride took us further into the fairgrounds.

Nick got his picture taken at the corn dog place!

Linette had submitted several pieces of her handiwork in the fair -- this quilt won first place!

Linette with her winning entry!

This one won second place!

There were a lot of things going on at the Darke County Fair -- more like what you'd see at state fairs in other states.

A man was demonstrating the use of a mechanical sock knitter -- he indicated that during World War I, women could receive the machine and wool for free to knit socks for the men going to war. At the end of the war, they could keep the machines to continue to knit socks.

In the poultry barn - some information about eggs.

There were chickens, ducks, geese, guineas, turkeys, and probably other fowl in the building!

We also watched a few competition classes in the swine show, cow show, and horse show -- all going on in different parts of the fairgrounds at the same time!

Carl expressed interest in visiting the tractors... Nick said he thought there were "some" at this fair...

... there were quite a few!!! Extra big ones...

... medium big ones...

... I think this one was 4WD.

There was a section with antique tractors...

I don't have captions for these ...

... but thought you might enjoy looking at them!

This was an odd looking one...

It had this information on the side  -- check out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tpuk60ZGcu0

A toy version of the round baler that we saw being made in the New Holland Factory a couple of weeks ago!

Diesel lawn mower for the bargain price of $19K+!

New Holland tractor

Shuttle back to the parking lot

 

We decided to stop at Maid-Rite to get burgers and shakes and take them with us to enjoy back home!

It was a very WARM and humid day, but with the various shuttles available, we got to see a lot of the fair and had a good day with Linette and Nick.

The Jee-rage and Gracie outside of Linette and Nick's house.

We walked down to Casey's on Tuesday morning and got donuts prepared by Linette and Nick's daughter, Amy -- good to see her again too!

A photo of all of us together!

We were so blessed to be able to spend a little bit of time with Linette and Nick!