After getting enough destruction done to get a good look at the state of the plumbing I finally got a start on ripping it out and putting it to rights.

The toilet supply line. The new PEX manifold on the top replacing the old leaky PB piece.

The new main bathroom distribution manifolds. The old PB with the old T on top is the hot water line. I had to splice in a new elbow to remove a leaking joint. The completely new PEX manifold is supplying the cold side for the toilet and the shower. Both the hot and cold run off camera to the bottom to two of the low-point water drains.

The same manifold seen from inside the bathroom. This will be under the shower pan when everything is put back together again. In the top-center you can see the SharkBite push fitting joining the old PB plumbing to my new PEX manifold.

I used a mix of PEX parts, PEX to PB adaptor fittings and SharkBite fittings to put this back together again. The SharkBite fittings are great in tight spaces where you can’t get in to crimp things together, but they’re much more expensive than the crimp-type fittings.

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After finally managing to get the toilet removed last time I moved on to the removal of the toilet riser and shower pan to give me access to the spaces under the shower. I also removed the heater on the other side of the wall to expose the rest of the shower/toilet plumbing.

A view of the backside and underside of the shower with the heater out of the way. More hose clamps here.

I’m really starting to hate these things. The T on the upper right is the hot water line, and then both hot and cold run off to the lower-left to what appear to be drain valves.

A little elbow grease and the toilet riser is removed along with the blackwater pipe down to the tank.

And finally we can pull the shower pan out of the way and get a better idea of the carnage. There seem to be three major leaks in play that I have identified so far:

• The toilet supply line which damaged the walls directly behind and adjacent to the toilet, and then out into the floor in front of the galley.
• The distribution manifold behind the heater which seems to have run forward and damaged the floor along the driver’s side wall of the coach and under the dinette across towards the entrance door.
• The major leak under the shower pan. I am still unsure if this is due to a leaking shower drain, a crack/leak in the shower pan that I haven’t noticed yet, or another leak up under the bathroom cabinetry

After a little carpet removal and a little vacuuming things are starting to look better.

Amazingly quite a bit of the carpet under the toilet riser had a plastic barrier sheet on top which caused the water to flow into the walls and the subfloor but not into the carpet itself.

I still have quite a bit of cleanup to do in the heater compartment, as well as more carpet removal in the bathroom itself. I also forgot a few things during my Home Depot run, so I will need to pick those up before I can re-do the plumbing and start putting things back together again.

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Finally got the toilet off the base and got a good look at the toilet supply line and the toilet riser/base.

Is that a screw clamp on the water line? Crap, it is… Well, at least I have pretty good confirmation of at least one leak source.

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I finally got a start on renovating/repairing the bathroom in the coach this weekend. From visible water damage on the floors it was obvious that there were one or more leaks somewhere in the bathroom.

Before Pictures

You can see through the access panel under the shower pan where persistent leaks have done horrible things to the underlying carpet.

It appears that there was a leak in the roof that was “fixed” previously. The actual exterior repair looks decent enough, but the interior part has pushed down part of the ceiling in the bathroom. This will be addressed before the bathroom is completed.

The shower is constructed in three main pieces, a shower tub and lower walls that is a one-piece fibreglass molding, and two panels which form the upper walls.

After Pictures

After pulling the trim pieces off, etc. I got this far. The upper panels were attached to the actual wall panels with doublesided tape. The panel on the right side took the wall panel with it when I started pulling, but I needed access anyways. So far I’m seeing no evidence of roof leaks, which tends to support my previous thinking that the water-damaged floors were due to leaking plumbing. I’m stuck on final removal. I need to remove the toilet to get access to the remaining flange on the shower base, but I need to pickup the right socket first.

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So Mrs. Nomad and I decided to go camping for our Memorial Day. We got ourselves, the trailer, and the Jeep all loaded up and set off for Idyllwild Thursday afternoon prepared for a great weekend…

After battling our way past traffic on the 91 freeway we were finally  on CA60 heading past UCR on our way towards Banning when we heard a distant “POP” Not thinking too much of it we continued on our way. Now, this stretch of the road is a bit of an incline, in fact lets just go all out and call it a hill. So we were heading up the hill after our “POP” and I was feeling the Jeep getting more and more sluggish, and I was starting to wonder what was going on. It was right about then that several people passing by us started motioning towards us and mouthing “You’re on fire!” . Needless to say we immediately pulled over only to find this:

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This is a very cool new device coming out soon from DeLorme:

They call it their inReach

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I’ve been AWOL for a long time now, dealing with a new wife, animals, cars, etc. Let see if I can keep this going and take it somewhere interesting.

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BMW R75/5 Pushrod Seal Repair

Since I got it I knew that the pushrod seals for the righthand cylinder were leaking on the BMW.

Unfortunately, replacing the seals involved pulling the entire jug + piston + head for that side.

The piston (still inside the cylinder) sitting on the workbench.

The cylinder head (sans rockers) sitting on the bench. Note the spacer rings sitting loose next to the ‘studs’ they go on. There are o-rings that go underneath these collars that need to be replaced. The bloody things were almost impossible to remove. I had to resort to vise-grip pliers and scratched the hell out of the outside of the spacers. Luckily, they are not a bearing surface, so I just used a little emery cloth to smooth them out a little and everything was good to go.

A view of the guts of the engine. Near the center you can see the connecting rod, and just below and to the left/right of it the depressions where the pushrod seals fit into. Also note the studs protruding from the block that the cylinder and head mount onto. What is really strange is that these same studs are what the rocker arms mount to. The rocker-block nuts form 4 of the 6 head/jug mounting points!

My great organizational skills at work. It is important to replace the rocker-block and the pushrods in the same locations and orientations as they came out. A spare box-lid served admirably.

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Well, I haven’t had much of a chance to do any real fun riding lately, mostly just commuting. I went to pull the bike out on saturday to run some errands, and on my normal pre-ride inspection I noticed that the brake pads were worn down to the point of needing replacement. Turns out the front brakes on a Bonneville are nice and easy to work on. No pics of the replacement process itself, but some nice ones of the old and new pads.
Just a good warning to everyone out there to make sure they check their brakes in addition to their tire condition and pressure.

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Finally, the conditions were perfect for a nice all-day ride!
I gave the bike an oil change and wash last weekend. Last night I finally got a replacement speedo cable from bikebandit. This morning I went down and fitted the new cable, checked the pressures and brakes and pronounced all as being well and truly good.
Today’s destination: Idyllwild. This little mountain town just east of Hemet is one of my favorite places to ride to. Its not that the scenery along much of the trip is all that outstanding given that the route I usually take winds its way through Lake Elsinore, Perris, and Hemet. The two high points of the trip are always the great view decending Ortega Highway into Lake Elsinore, and Idyllwild itself.

After leaving the house around 10:30 and gassing up I hit the 405 south to highway 74, the infamous Ortega Highway. The Ortega was fairly decent. I got stuck behind some slow cars so I just backed it off and had a nice relaxing ride through the canyons. I did get lucky and managed to get through the contruction zone without a wait.

The trip continued on fairly uneventfully until I hit Hemet. All of a sudden traffic stopped, and right in front of me in the other direction there was a bike down. I instantly pulled into the center turn lane, parked it and jumped off to do what I could to help. Luckily, it looked like it had been a very slow speed sort of thing. The rider had a nasty raspberry on his elbow, but other than that he and his pillion both seemed ok. His V-Star seemed ok except for a chrome piece that looked like it broke off his footpeg. He got the bike pushed to the side of the road, and all seemed well, so I jumped back on the bike and continued my voyage. Yet another good reminder why I go to the effort of always wearing my safety gear.

The rest of the trip up the mountain went fairly uneventfully, and I finally reached my destination: Idyllwild, and the Bread Basket Restaurant

I decided upon their skillet breakfast which was basically hash browns covered with peppers and onions, covered with country fried steak, covered with eggs, covered with sawmill gravy. YUM!

Desert was then indicated, and since they didn’t have any pie I settled on a brownie and ice-cream.

The brownie was delicious, and uniquely for me, it had raisins in it, something I’ve never had in a brownie before.

After lunch I poked around some of the neighborhood roads in town looking at houses with snow on them. Found a place with a decent view and stitched together this panorama.

After that I headed home. I normally spend some time in the town, but it was getting late, and I’ve been there plenty. I’ll save that for another trip.

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