The saga of the fridge

I'll be adding to this post as we progress. It will likely won't be resolved until after we get home in April.

 Our fridge, a Norcold 1201LRIM, is acting up again, unable to keep the food safely cool though both freezer compartments are cold.

Investigation showed one of the two fans was not working. These fans are critical to the correct working of the fridge as we found out two years ago when both fans quit. That time it turned out to be nothing more than a corroded connection so it was an easy fix.

Following some advice from RV.NET we temporarily placed a 120VAC 12" fan in one of the vents. This helped a lot and eventually the fridge began to cool. Fridge temperature is hovering around 40F though is some places is higher.









The fans can't be replaced without removing fridge! It doesn't have to come out of the motorhome but has to be disconnected from gas, electricity and water lines and pulled into the galley area. The fans are NOT accessible from the outside the rig.















For a better temporary fix we are waiting for a couple of 120mm 12Volt computer fans to wire in there somewhere so we can use the fridge while underway. Perhaps hang them from the upper fins or somehow attach them to the back of the fridge and/or the base of the upper vent opening. I'll use these same photos to ask for specific suggestions from the experts on RV.NET.




UPDATE Jan 26th  Further research leads me to believe that the fans need to go way down, perhaps above the fans in the top photo. Others have suggested putting one in here some where blowing up. I don't see that there is room!

Then I need to figure out where and how to get the 12VDC I need. I'm pretty sure it's those heavy black and white wires. Spicing in there will be fun. Another problem is that the fans I have been able to find are quite light plastic and I don't know how they will stand up to the heat.

Also, recently the fins in the back of the fridge are frosting up, much more on one side than the other. I suspect that part of the problem is the ambient temperature here, low to mid 30s Celsius (90s F) and another is the fact that the fridge is too full. We can fix that by shopping more regularly and NOT putting 5 litre boxes of wine in it!

Update: 26 January:  Defrosted the fridge a week or more ago and drank the wine and now it appears to be holding up much better. Though there is a lot of moisture on the top of the inside of the fridge it isn't frosting up as much or as fast.






The big question is what to do when we get home? Just replace the fans? Replace the entire cooling unit? Replace the fridge with the same? OR replace with a residential compressor fridge? This would involve adding one or two more solar panels, another inverter/charger and another solar controller all to run the fridge. We would also need a switch to be able to turn off the 120VAC to that inverter/charger when running the heatpump while having only a 30 Amp connection is available, such as when we are here in southern Mexico.

A domestic residential fridge is much cheaper than a new RV fridge, even factoring in the extra solar and inverter. Just the cooling unit for our present fridge is $1100.00 US.  Most of the residential fridges  are quite energy efficient though what the power usage here in high ambient temperature Mexico we have yet to find out.

A lot of the above depends on the age of our fridge. Is it the original? (2002) or was it replaced before we bought it in 2008?  We're hoping that we can discover that by the serial number.

Decisions, decisions.

Now it doesn't want to run reliably on propane. I cleaned the burner but no change.
AARRGGGHHHH!

I was told by a tech on RV.NET  that I have to remove and clean the burner orifice and the igniter. This is a bit awkward and I'll have to take the fan down and turn the fridge off. Might wait until I install the new temporary 12V fans.

We defrosted the fridge last week and by today it was looking the same. Another problem.

More in another post.

Some Local Wild Life

One of the many local crocodiles (Cocodrilo in  Spanish).

Sometimes not so easy to spot (right of centre):

Sometimes very easy to spot:

Good thing that cats have nine lives. Not sure how many Totopos, the restaurant cat, has left. Check out what she is watching so carefully in the background:

And much less intimidating, various iguanas.

Though sometime the iguanas can be quite stupid.  The waiter occasionally leaves bits of salad on this stump for the iguanas. This little one apparently hasn't noticed mister crocodile checking out a possible snack!

And birds; a juvenile heron

and the adult form:

And relatively rare here (the first I have ever seen), a Blue Footed Booby. Which according to witnesses, washed up on the beach after rolling in on the surf. Exhausted it waddled up to the strip of vegetation between the beach and a house where it stayed recovering for almost 24 hours. Thankfully local dogs and tourists left it alone.

This photo was taken just before dusk. The bird was still there next morning but was gone by later in the day.


And not so rare, a Black Capped Blue Eyed Turista:

Settling in at El Manglar

I thought that I should at least start these posts while they would show up as 2015!

I'll be back to fill in next year :)

It rained a little: That water at the entrance to El Manglar was at least 6" deep.

Temporary mirror fix: Make a cardboard template of the broken glass, trip to the glass shop , where a stock mirror was cut while I waited, 60 pesos. Tube of silicone sealer, 65 pesos, done;

UPDATE:  As of 11 June 2016 the mirror is still hanging in as shown. Other than a few smears of silicone it works well. I keep forgetting to order a new gla$$ from Velvac.

Zihua, Week One

Day one,

Monday, November 30. A crew arrived to do some fibreglass and paint repairs to a neighbours trailer. Art liked the workmanship so we decided to have an old OOPS and sundry scratches and rock chips taken care of:

Old OOPS repaired and primered several years ago:

New Colour coat and top coat, looking like new. 

Note the colour match. Only part of the panel was painted.

They came back a few days later to apply the clear coat. 

6,300 pesos in all. $525.00 Canadian

Margarito spotted the damaged bumper on the Jeep and asked if we wanted it repaired as well.

We had been told by the dealer at home that it could not be repaired as it wasn't open at the back and we would require a new bumper. 2000 pesos (160.00 Canadian) later it had been removed and taken to the shop, the back cut open, damage repaired, back plastic welded up, painted and re-installed. Cheaper even than our insurance deductible.

29 November On the road to Zihuatanejo

We left Bugamville RV Park at 9:05, a little later than hoped for but not truly expected. Beginning to accept reality.

We were looking for a new stretch of cuota (toll road) towards Morela, according to reports just before Irapuato is a new Salamanca-Leon highway. we saw a few signs as we got near then finally one for Morelia, Salamanca and Leon.

Well Leon was in the wrong direction, Morelia was where we would be going and Salamanca was on the way. Then we quickly came upon the exit for the Salamanca-Leon cuota. As we entered the turn into the exit we spotted a second sign back on the highway that read "MORELA SALIDA 200 METERS". Morelia  exit 200 meters. ! ! ! ! ! Very rude words. Too late to get back on the highway, we were well into the exit.

As we joined the highway to LEON we noticed a car ahead of us making an illegal left hairpin turn into the  southeast bound lane. By the time we realised that he had done the same thing as we had done, thought about doing the same thing (around several workman) it was too late. It appeared that this had been a temporary exit that was in the process of being closed now the new exit was open. Oh well, we'll take the first retorno. Except there wasn't one. Almost to Leon there was a Silao exit which put us heading south east to Silao, guessing still at least 10 Km away.

Eventually we  were back in Silao passing the Guanajuato toll road we had come down one hour and 20 minutes and 165 pesos in tolls earlier. Now we really should stop for fuel before Zihuatanejo. We had spotted a good one an hour and a half ago on the first time around so this time we kept watch for it. We fuelled up and by 11:15 we were back to watching for our exit. This time we made the right one. At 11:30 we paid another 130 pesos in tolls. At least this time we were going in the right direction.



Fifteen minutes later we were on another toll road, one we remembered from previous years. Here we took a ticket and would pay at the end.

Thirty five minutes later we paid 419 pesos and very soon after we were crossing Lago Cuitzeo. Morelia wasn't far away.

This bridge/causeway is 5,600 meters in length.


This highway crosses the main North South Mex 15 to/from Mexico City and leads directly into Morelia. We have heard rumours that they are constructing a new Cuota (Toll Highway) from here to Patzcuaro which would avoid Morelia altogether and save an hour or more on the drive. No sign of it from here as yet.

We had also heard that the Periferico around Morelia was much improved. I think that was a little optimistic. It was better than it had been and much work had been done but the right lane in particular was very rough. However the signage to and from the Periferico was much improved so we didn't miss it and find ourselves in the middle of the city which happened two years ago.

Off the ring road and on the highway to Patzcuaro we began looking for somewhere we could pull off for a quick lunch and a short walk around for Tia. An hour after paying the last toll at Quitzeo we found space near a Pemex. 35 minutes later, at 1:55 PM we were rolling again--next stop: Zihuatanejo.

Six tolls (839 pesos) and three hours later we were off the 37D toll road and south bound on the Mex 200 to Zihuatanejo and one more hour to the Pemex in Z to top up with fuel. 103 Litres @ 14.02 pesos per litre. (Roughly $1.10 Canadian)

According to the fuel tank capacity we probably would have made it with out the fuel stop in Silao but we don't like to take chances. Adding the 141 litres we took there meant we used 244 litres since the previous fill. The most we have ever put in at once was 264 litres. And the low fuel light had been on for a while!

The fuel stop took another 20 minutes and 10 minutes after that, at 6:30, we had arrived at El Manglar just in time to get parked before dark.

To Guanajuato

Shortly after we arrived at the Midway Inn two more rigs arrived, a huge truck with a 5th wheel, and a motorhome, both from Quebec. They were heading to the Pacific coast via Guadalajara, while were aiming further south, though for part of the way we would likely be on the same roads.

Though the electrical plugs were wired correctly the voltage was too high so we ran the generator for a few hours. We watched the evening news from home thanks to the satellite and basically just kicked back relaxing, fueling up for the next two days of driving.

Setting off just before nine we weren't feeling too rushed though about half of our route would be new to us. We had a 2013 Guia Roji road atlas and the GPS both of which seemed to agree though the GPS wanted us to turn northwest from just past San Luis Potosi while we wanted to go southwest. We added a way point to the GPS routing and that made it happy enough.


We checked also with Google Maps and again things seemed to agree but we had a lot of trouble with the Street View where we would join the highway at Silao and turn south for just a few kilometers. It seemed to take us sideways over an overpass where the road suddenly disappeared!

Nevertheless we got underway and had a mostly uneventful drive. The road we wanted was signed for San Felipe, which was the way point we had used. Once we were on that road we cancelled the way point and the GPS was quite happy to take us mostly the right way. I say mostly because at Villa de Reys there was a new highway being constructed and things had changed. Also at San Filipe there were some changes being made.

The road wasn't too bad for the most part, except for a nine kilometer stretch with very narrow lanes and zero shoulders with sharp drop offs to the fields. Fortunately there were no semis heading our way.  The supposedly new bit from San Filipe to Silao though wide and straight had some surfacing issues. Lowest bid contractor or some politician's brother-in-law with a hand in (or out) being  the likely explanation.

As we approached Silao we could see straight ahead of us high on the mountain the huge statue of Christ in Guanajuato. However we had to go around three sides of a square before we would get there. Closer to Silao the signs for Guanajuato began to appear and very soon we were back on familiar highways.

We knew that there had been some development near the RV park entrance but by keeping a couple of sharp eyes out we found our turn in to Bugamville RV Park. The actual site though had moved. Instead of being straight ahead and to the left, it had been moved to the other side of the lane and was to the right. We pulled in, and having the place to ourselves we didn't back into a space but just drove a big loop and parked sideways.

Jacks down, slides out, power checked OK, plugged in, satellite dish set and we were done. By 2:00 PM.

This park has been around for years and is the only option for anything much bigger than a van in Guanajuato. The owner had died some years ago (he was a very nice helpful and friendly man) and now one of his sons has taken over. He too is friendly and helpful. We believe the other son has the rest of the property

The Park has needed work for years, so moving it to another field was probably a good idea. He has about 40 sites each with water, sewer and 15 Amp electric outlets, though they are fairly narrow. Power seems fine, hard to really tell with only us drawing on it. Also nice are the clean washrooms and showers with hot water.

Now it's lunch time so off the the little cafe at one end of the park. A couple of beer, a filet of fish, dinner tonight would just be something light and easy.



One thing we hadn't done was refuel. We prefer to fill up at the end to the day rather than stop in morning. We'd have enough to make Patzcuaro but to push through to Zihuatanejo on what was in the tank would be silly. We'll find fuel somewhere tomorrow.

Friday, 27 November; Crossing the border

So much for being at the border at 8:00 AM, we didn't get rolling until 7:45. We had both slept in!

There is a direct toll road but it does not accept cash or credit cards. In fact there are only transponders and  readers for  cameras. If your vehicle doesn't have a Toll Pass, a photo is taken of your license plate and a bill mailed to your home address. We didn't know what would happen with a Canadian Plate and we wouldn't get the mail until April so not wanting to take chance we went the long way.

We crossed the Rio Grande via the Columbia Toll Bridge, $7.00 US and we were at the border. We parked along the building (there is not a lot of room here for big rigs--the commercial trucks have their one route through.)

Inside we got our immigration forms and the import for the Jeep. No problems with doing that in Gillian's name, guess the new passport number made the difference.

Then the rig had to be X-Rayed. This involved everyone getting out while the machine rolled past. Then Art got back in and drove back to where Gillian was waiting. No room for the motorhome to turn down where the cars go so he swung out and around to the main exit lanes and headed back the the wrong way as directed.

There was no traffic coming out but he had to make another U turn at the end and swing in to pick Gillian up, so he was keeping close to the right hand edge while watching ahead and to the left deciding just where to turn to make that pick up and wait for our clearance after the officials had studied the X-Rays.

A loud BANG made him return his attention to the right hand side of the rig where he saw the side view mirror glass hanging by the heater wires. He had drifted just a touch too close to a lamp post. A rude word was spoken. Loudly and repeatedly.

He made his turn, the glass swinging, and parked. A close look showed that the mirror arm had take the brunt of the force and had moved aft, the mirror housing had turned on it's shaft. All these were adjustable, though the set screws didn't want to move.

The mirror glass had shattered in it's plastic frame but the retaining clips that fit the frame to the motor housing had not fortunately broken and when gently put back up and pressed they snapped into place. A mess of white 3M tape crisscrossing the mirror glass looked like it would keep the pieces from falling out. And the driver could still see somewhat. Also the convex mirror below was undamaged.

Getting the set screws to loosen took some careful judicious tapping and coaxing and finally began to move. The Mirror arm moved back into place with some fiddling and the set screw tightened down.

A test showed that the mirror adjustment motor was undamaged and everything worked OK.

It could have been a lot worse, and in fact the repair only took about 20 minutes.



Next stop about 50 Km down the road, a Pemex for Diesel and the next door OXXO to see if we could get time on the cell phones. Fuel was fine, the phones were not. The system was down.

Another 2 kilometers was the final customs check point where we were waved through after checking the vehicle permits and immigration forms. 11:15 and we were clear now of everything except the toll booths and lunch.

We were now 50 minutes behind where we were in 2013 and we hoped to go farther this time. We grabbed a very quick lunch a couple of hours later at one of the five toll stops we would have today.

A few kilometers before our stop for the night we pulled into a Pemex for more fuel and to try our luck with the phones. Gillian put 20 pesos on each of our phone numbers (2 from Zihuatanejo and one from Puerto Vallarta). Gillian's worked, neither of Art's did. That's why we just put 20 pesos on; we suspected that some or all might not work.We'll sort them out in Zihuatanejo.

We arrived at Las Palmas Midway Inn in Matehuala at 5:45 and parked for the night. Looking at the log book from 2013, it seems that taking the bypass around Saltillo cut an hour off the driving time.

U.S. Thanksgiving, our Last Day in the USA

Thursday, 26 November

We spent the morning packing up and hooking up. No rush for once, we had plenty of time and we weren't going far today. The next three however. . . . .

Finally ready to leave San Antonio. Checkout time noon, but the staff said "Stay for dinner" so we did. Served at noon, Turkey and stuffing supplied by the park, the rest was pot luck.

This was Round One:

Then there was the desert table:

And a good time was had by all.

We shared our table with a couple of neighbours from home who had provided some Willis Point Spot Prawns. Just like home!

With everything ready, even the Jeep connected before hand, as soon as dinner was over we were on the road at 1:30 PM. We were both stuffed like Turkeys and had brought a goody bag with enough leftovers for another meal or two.

In previous years we had stayed at a Flying J for the night, where we would top up the fuel and spend a noisy night. A fellow camper at Braunig Lake told us that they stayed in the Travel Center a bit further north, secure and quiet, so we made that our destination. 






We arrived to nearly deserted parking lot at about 4:00 PM. The Travel Info Center was closed for the holiday! But it was beautiful and relatively peaceful even though it was located between the highway and the railroad