Day 616: Prop repair continued

Posted on April 15, 2015 by Ben

Today is our last day here at my parents’ house. I sanded down the part I epoxied to the prop, looks pretty good now:

Day 615: Still More Maintenance Tasks

Posted on April 14, 2015 by Ben

After two layers of urethane finish per side, the bathroom door was ready for installation:

In Maricopa, a too-short muffler stud allowed a lock nut to come off and strike the prop. A popsicle stick-sized piece of prop broke off. I was going to send the prop off for repair, but Wayne encouraged me to try the fix myself. He even found a broken prop fragment at the flying site that I could use for the transplant. After sawing out the broken area to make it square, I marked a similarly sized section for removal on the donor prop fragment:

I then used epoxy to attach the transplanted material to my prop. Tomorrow I’ll plane and sand it to shape:

Day 614: More Maintenance Tasks

Posted on April 13, 2015 by Ben

Today we dropped off the truck for tire replacement. Our tread depth was just a sliver more than the legal minimum 2/32” tread depth, so we figured it was time:

The original highway tires were replaced with a BFG KO2 all-terrain tire. Hopefully this will allow us to access more remote dispersed camping locations with confidence:

Tonight I put back the original leaf spring on the RV. I got a bit dirty in the process:

Day 613: Catching Up on RV Improvements

Posted on April 12, 2015 by Ben

The last days of Passover were very pleasant. We especially enjoyed having lunch with friends both days. We moved from my Parents’ synagogue to my Parents’ house this morning.

Today I tried to complete a few repair and maintenance items. I first checked the brakes, since they are squeaking. Looks like there’s still a good bit of brake pad left:

I also added a couple coats of clear coat to the bathroom door I stained before Passover:

Tonight I tried to install heavier duty leaf springs on the RV, but it turns out the U-bolt kits that shipped with the springs are the wrong size, so I’ll have to give the vendor a call to get the right side. I’ll have to put back the original leaf spring tomorrow.

Day 610: Back to Las Vegas

Posted on April 9, 2015 by Ben

This morning I took off on flight #47:

Aloft, it was quite bumpy, so I landed pretty quickly. A couple hours later, the wind unexpectedly intensified, bringing massive dust devils to the lake bed: