16 October 2013

At crack of dawn (literally), took Dolores down to Green Mountain Garage in Brandon to see what was ailing her.  Mike “The Ace” Mechanic found water and “sludge” in the fuel filter that G. Stone Motors replaced last spring.  Apparently they didn’t do such a great job cleaning the fuel tank when they replaced the fuel pump.  Mike also found a spark plug wire disconnected and fried up against the exhaust manifold.  Guess I drove to Calais and back on 7 cylinders… We were able to get the slide-out almost in, but, after consulting with the chief fixing-person at Exit 1 RV in Fairhaven, determined that the problem most likely is with the slide-out tracks, something Green Mountain wasn’t equipped to repair and Exit 1 RV was too busy to handle on a walk-in basis today.  Thinking Dolores was as fixed as she could be, took her for a spin.  Engine performance better, but still weren’t right.  Mike took a second look and found another spark plug wire about to fall off.  Calais and back on 6 cylinders would explain a lot.  Fixed that and he took her for a drive.  Better yet, but still not right.  So Mike replaced all the spark plugs… and took her for another foray.  Better still, but, again, still not right.  Upshot is, in the spring, I’ll take Dolores back to Green Mountain for some high temperature spark plug wires… and we’ll see if that does the trick.  Returned to Fern Lake and spent an hour decompressing by tweaking the rough survey for the Sauna Building alternative that I like the best.  After lunch, cleaned and packed, then cleaned some more, getting as much of a head-start on the winterization checklist that is tomorrow morning’s agenda.  A wonderful end-of-season dinner at Marty & Merry’s to cap off the day.