After we got home from the Ajo rally in early December I had plans for a few upgrades: mud flaps like Bob H’s coach (by Steve F), a door stop to keep the bath door from opening too far, and a drinking water dispenser for the kitchen sink.

The mud flaps – actually called “splash guards” – are sold in auto parts stores (PEP Boys) and at Amazon. They have several choices but the Powerflow 6402 Pro-fit Splash Guards are the right ones for the GMC ($15-$20 per pair). Steve F had installed some on his GMC (now owned by Bob H) and I thought that they looked great – functional too.

The door stop is needed to prevent the bath door from opening too far. That door and the closet door both open form a little private bath area that both of us like. The latch used to catch of the face frame of the drawer unit but, for some reason, it stopped – probably something to do with the bracket I erroneously removed during the interior remodel.

My first step was to install the drinking water dispenser at the kitchen sink. We have a perfectly clean water tank but we don’t use it for drinking water – too much chance of getting tastes and odors from random water sources. We only use it for bathing, brushing our teeth and washing dishes. We carry some one-gallon jugs that we fill from our reverse osmosis system at home or the ones at grocery stores. The problem with this is that there is always a jug in the way or that needs to be stored or retrieved.

When we redid our kitchen at home we replaced the drinking water dispenser faucet with a new one. Meanwhile, the soap dispenser at the kitchen sink in the GMC turned out to have been a bad idea so I replaced it with the old drinking water faucet. Then I had to figure out how to take advantage of it.

I bought a 3-gallon plastic water jug at the grocery store, drilled a hole for a hose in the very large top, and then installed a regular RV water pump under the sink next to the furnace to supply the water. I powered the water pump directly from the house fuse panel and switched it via a relay triggered by the power from the regular water pump. Adding a switch allows me to control it from the regular pump switch and be able to disable it if needed.

While all of that work was going on we had some pretty heavy rains and even a snow storm. The bed got wet from some unknown sources both times. So that started me on more projects – finding and fixing the leaks along with some incidental stuff that has needed to be done for 4 years.

The first leak turned out to be the roof rack – I had forgotten to put a screw in one hole. The problem was that for some reason, the roof rack was invisible during my search for the source of the leak. I just did not ever “see” it as a potential leak. I saw only the drip rail and the A/C unit for some reason. I think the reasons are: the A/C unit had leaked in the past because of a very poor installation by some previous owner, and the drip rail was the most likely place, especially at the end. I ended up taking the A/C unit off and removing the FRP ceiling panel before I saw the real leak and the view of the sky through hole for the missing screw.

The second leak was even more fun. Because of the location of the leak – the other side’s drip rail end – and some faulty detective work I thought the source of this particular leak was definitely the A/C unit so I took the whole thing apart again. Did I mention that I had reinstalled the ceiling and the A/C unit from the last dumb move?

The leaks are now fixed and tested by rain, the water pump is installed and ready for use at the next rally on Jan. 22nd, and a leaking valve stem on a tire has been identified and repaired. The mud flaps require the rear wheels to be removed and replaced so they may not get installed before the rally but maybe the front ones can.