More Trials & Tribulations

Yesterday we took the RV down to Signature for the fitting of a new bike rack and for the slide-outs to be checked and adjusted.

Thankfully Signature is only twenty minutes down the road from the Red Lion site and as we were not towing the trailer the journey was fairly straight forward.
As soon as we arrived, Ross the mechanic was straight on the job fitting the bike rack, so Kay and I took advantage of the courtesy car and went to Telford shopping centre (a) to keep out of the mechanics way and (b) to get some things posted off at the main post office.

On arriving back at Signature three hours later, fate decided that, that’s when things should start to go wrong.

Fair do to Signature, they were under pressure with a huge shed load of work, clearing out new machines for collection and repairing emergency work. But we felt as if excuses were being made as to why things weren’t being put right and after a bit of cajoling, they did eventually rectify all that we were unhappy about.

Several hours later apart from the slide outs which now fit a lot better, they had also fitted two new headlights which we hadn’t realized they were planning to do that day. They must have had the parts in for that job and by doing the work now it brought the RV up to scratch for the forthcoming MOT and thankfully as it turned out, we needed them.

One of the major problems we were having, was with a gas change over switch in the cab, which is there to allow me to select between Petrol and LPG. This had broken, Signature had attempted a fix to this previously but it still wasn’t working. Now the bad news, they informed me that they could repair a Prinz LPG system but not the Zavoli LPG system that was on my RV.

The manager Steve rang a chap who he thought may have the relevant diagnostics to check the system and arranged for us to visit him on the way back, as this garage was on the A5 and to too far away.

But as the hours passed while the headlights were being replaced and tested for alignment we realized it would be getting dark before we got back.

After the bill was settled, off we headed up to the A5 where at a small garage called ‘LPG Autos’ we met with Chris the owner. He immediately set up a computerized diagnostic and we took the RV for a spin, first one way down the A5 and then back again. It turned out that the switch was the culprit, but the switch was no longer a stock item and he needed to order a replacement. With the switch hanging loose on the dash (as this way it appeared to work) we were to leave it that way until we reached Oswestry and Chris would order in a replacement from Zavoli in the meantime.

So off we headed back to the Red lion site, but now day light was fading fast and thankfully the newly fitted headlights made the journey far safer as American headlights are extremely poor and on narrow roads we needed them.

We arrived back and were looking forward to getting into the warm RV and having a nice cup of tea, I hooked up the electrics and everything was looking fine, until I noticed that we had no TV or internal lighting down one side of the RV. Kay was getting very frustrated after the days tribulations and was wondering when things would 'just go right for once' and I was starting to pull my hair out. 

Being follicly challenged that was the last thing I wanted to do. I looked at this and looked at that, poked here and there but I couldn’t understand why we had this problem, was it something that had happened when they had redone the lights? So out came the old tool box and I decided to check all the internal fuses.

Yep, you guessed it, a simple 15amp fuse had blown 

but luckily I always carry spare fuses and the fault was rectified but too late for our favourite TV shows (Damn).

Today we enjoyed lunch in Stafford at the Soup Kitchen in the company of an old friend whose husband recently and sadly passed away, but it was very nice to see her and to spend a few hours chatting the time away and not having to worry about what else could go wrong.

I suppose that after all these trials and tribulations it can only make us stronger and more confident and I’m getting to know more about the workings of this monster of a machine.

After all it is a large learning curve and better to have these niggles now than in the wilds of France or Spain.

More Anon