No, not us this time, but I did help Jim & Sally do some battery maintenance and then I helped my Dad & Stepmom (Elaine) pick up a new car.  Read on to hear more…

Here’s Jim & Sally’s Alpine Coach parked in the “overflow” area of the Elks Lodge 309 parking lot:

I wrote about Jim & Sally in a previous post (click Here).  Jim has had some issues lately with his ~5 year-old batteries.  Some of the battery posts have worked themselves loose over time due to (possible) manufacturer defect and excessive heat.

Jim pulled his batteries out while I employed my awesome supervisory skills honed through years of military service.  I made sure nothing sparked and ensured we had a fire extinguisher handy 🙂

His Coach, (a 1999 Alpine), has eight ‘house’ and two ‘chassis’ batteries, just like my 2005.  Although, Jim has installed an array of solar panels on top of his Coach, while I only have the original (two) 50 Watt panels.

It may be hard to see in this picture (below), but the old battery post appeared to be a bolt (turned upside-down) and embedded in the lead which simply pulled out after years of use.  It sure doesn’t seem (to me) that it’s a very good method of manufacture.  All the batteries I’ve dealt with in the past had solid (poured) lead posts.

In this picture (below), you can see the original battery post on the right.  It’s loose and it wiggles around, which isn’t good for a battery post.  This creates high resistance and reduces the batteries ability to conduct electricity efficiently.  The hole on the left-side of the picture (below) was drilled by Jim in order to use a self-tapping screw to secure the battery cables since the original post is loose and therefore unusable.

And here’s how Jim did it:

Here, he is cleaning up the area with a wire brush on his drill to prep for drilling.  Again, I supervised and kept a fire extinguisher handy 🙂

And here’s Jim drilling into the lead so he could ‘sink’ a new self-tapping screw to replace the old ‘post’.

After fixing two of his batteries with this ‘modification’… Jim started the task of putting all the batteries back in the bay.

And here ya go!  All back in place, hooked up, and working again:)

That took most of Tuesday morning – but, Great job Jim!  Now, start budgeting for new batteries instead of doing this again, eh?

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After finishing up the battery maintenance with Jim, my Dad and stepmom Elaine stopped by the Elks Lodge to pick me up.  I offered to chauffeur them to an auto dealership (Hoo Motors in Kiowa, CO) where they found a new (to them) car over the weekend.

They attended a Labor Day weekend campout with the FCRV “Rolling Springs” group in the Kiowa area and had stopped by the dealership to “just look-around”.  They found a really nice 2013 VW Passat TDI with low mileage.

They’ve been looking to trade in their Toyota Camry before it got too old and started to have maintenance issues.  It’s been good to them over the years, but they wanted something newer.  They’ve been known to go on long road-trips and certainly don’t want any break-downs to be in their future.

Here’s the old Toyota that they traded in.

And here’s the new (to them) 2013 VW Passat TDI.

Side-by-side comparison:

The Passat is a really nice car… I told them they should have bought two 🙂  The interior reminded me very much of our old 2004 E320 Mercedes which I guess isn’t unusual since they’re both German cars with (probably) the same design engineers.  It was fun to drive too!  I chauffeured them back to the Elks Lodge where we enjoyed (once-again) “Taco Tuesday” with all our friends 🙂

After tacos and drinks, we all went outside to check out Dad’s (or should I say?) – Elaine’s new car.  After everyone was properly impressed… we said our farewell’s to Dad/Elaine and Biff/Linda.

The rest of us; Jerry/Marilyn and Jim/Sally went back to the lodge to enjoy some more adult beverages and later on we finished up the evening outside Jerry/Marilyn’s Coach.

Good times with good people… and another awesome Colorado sunset completed the day!

Check back soon to see what we’re up to next…