The motorhome is in hospital

If you read of our South Island adventures you may remember my writing about leaks in the lockers on the internal walls adjacent to the awning brackets. We thought the problem may have been solved by Luke down in Cromwell, but when I got up on the ladder and looked, it was clear that with the awning on, there was no way to access the brackets and make them water-tight.

We decided we would get Freeway in Plimmerton to sort it out thoroughly - Luke only had an hour and we couldn't leave the motorhome overnight as we had a few time-dependent arrangements on our way back up to our ferry booking.

And since coming back from the South Island, we had a few days away in Kuratau with the Zero Degrees Club, where it rained and the leaks manifested themselves markedly, dammit. 

And while we were getting ready to head up to Kuratau, I noticed that the mechanism that holds the monitor for the rear view camera on to the windscreen had let go, and all that was holding it on was the tape I'd left on from the last glueing - and that was supposedly the strongest glue around. Nope! 

That made three glues that failed: Araldite, Superglue and the windscreen glue. Rather than having David hold it for me all the way to and from Kuratau, he was dispatched to the toolbox to find the electrical tape and I wound the tape around the driver's side sunvisor and the monitor. It worked and was what would be described in NZ as a number 8 wire solution - not elegant but functional.

So there were a few items on the list for Freeway:

• construct a dashboard mounting for the monitor and
• re-route the monitor's wiring so it is as invisible as possible on its way to the new mounting
• remove the awning and its mounting brackets
  
• sort out the leaks and seal all brackets with new sealant
• test for water-tightness and remedy any other leaks found
• and leak test them too
  
• warn me of the possible price so I could have a lie down in private...
• and go AAARRRGGGHHH!!!
   

The leaking was more substantial than we had thought (the sealing strip that goes from the bottom of the portside wall [passenger's side] up and along near the top and then down that wall near the rear was taken off and they found water; they also found water between the skin of the roof and the skin that goes from the side of the roof over to the aforementioned sealing strip; and I asked them to check the same locations on the starboard/driver's side - it's fine; they have replaced the sealant and the fixings for the solar panels). 

Note that it is not surprising that the sealant has broken down after 7 years - NZ's sun is vicious and the UV here plays havoc with northern hemisphere sealants.

So the mh has been in hospital for about 3 weeks now - not always being worked on but it looks like I will be able to collect it on Tuesday or Wednesday next week. I think we can just afford it, but no new toys for David for a while, and I may have to slow down on my kindle book purchases...