The wiper blades on the Mirada were starting to show their age. I believe they were Anco A-24-M blades, a good quality blade, but the rubber was starting to tear on the passenger side.
I started searching for replacements, It seems the moment you put the letters “RV” on wiper blades, the price goes through the roof, and I found replacements from $15 – $25 each. Continue reading “Replacing wiper blades”
If you’ve been using the Acme EZE-TOW dolly, you may have experienced the ramps popping off of the dolly while loading or unloading your car. For some reason, the ramp hooks bounce out of the dollys loops and the ramp(s) fall to the ground.
EZE Tow representatives state you must load / unload on a hard surface such as asphalt or concrete.
I routinely load / unload on soft surfaces such as packed gravel and dirt, and the ramps have popped off a couple times. This seems to happen when loading/unloading, and the car bounces up / down or forward/backward, and the dolly is jerking around a little. Continue reading “Acme EZE-TOW dolly ramps pop off while loading / unloading”
Although the awning was in good shape, at the very top that’s always exposed to the sun, the fabric was brittle and cracked and could rip very easily. It was time for a new awning.
Getting the correct size – All the awning fabric sites I visited on the web pointed out how to measure the old awning and warned NOT to measure the fabric, but to measure the distance between the awning vertical support rods. On mine, the distance of the vertical supports was exactly 18 ft.
I searched the web and chose Sun Wave as the replacement awning provider. Their price was very reasonable and they had my awning in stock.
My Mirada came with an non-ducted rooftop Dometic 13.5 BTU AC unit. When I’m standing outside, I can barely hear the unit running, But when I’m inside, it makes so much wind noise that I swear a 747 is taking off. With all that wind noise, Why can’t I fell the air moving? When I put my hand up against the two air louvers, it just didn’t seem like I was getting the air flow that it should.
Last week I was prepping the roof for re-coating and had to remove the AC unit. When I took the inside ceiling unit off, I looked carefully at the inside to see if there was any airflow obstructions. Continue reading “Beat the heat – Improving air flow from the air conditioner ceiling unit”
While traveling last year, the hood hinge on the drivers side broke. This is the piece the hood swings on and is mounted just below the windshield on the inside of the front end of the Mirada. I took the hinge off, found a shop that welded for me, put it back together and we were on our way.
This weekend, I noticed a lot of play in the hood. I was thinking that it had something to do the the broken hinge from last year, but that repair was still solid.
Looking at the hood, the drivers side metal hinge mount point was soft and flexing. The passenger side was solid Continue reading “Hood hinge attach point repair”
I read recently where someone had installed sound proofing and heat barrier material to their doghouse, and it made a considerable difference in both heat and sound.
On the Mirada, I don’t recall objectionable sound or heat from the engine compartment. The engine noise was there, but not loud. As for heat, we do the majority of our travel in winter and it seems like its always cold on the drivers side, yet hot on the passenger side. I could put my hand on the engine compartment, it wasn’t hot, but seemed like it was warm. Continue reading “Sound deadening and heat shield”
I’m not sure if the Mirada headlight assembly is unique to the Mirada or is used on a production vehicle. If someone knows if this is a production assembly send me a PM or leave a comment.
One item of interest for the 2001 Ford F53 chassis is that the DRLs (Daytime running Lights) stay on anytime the ignition switch is in the ON position. Most vehicles I’ve ever seen either have a separate switch or the DRLs are switched on when the transmission is in Drive. In order to turn the DRLs off, I added a “HEADLIGHT” switch that turns power off to the headlight circuit, Continue reading “Headlight assembly”
I don’t know any of the operation / maintenance history of my generator other than the dealer installed a new control board just before I picked up our New-to-Us Mirada a couple years ago. I believe the previous owner used the generator a lot based on the hour meter. This isn’t the original generator as the generator serial number doesn’t match the serial number on the coach manufactures build sheet.
I changed the oil last fall just before our winter trip. Since then we put 6 hours on the generator, and it seems like its hard to start. So, not knowing the maintenance history, I decided to do a tuneup to bring the maintenance up to date and a known condition. Continue reading “Onan Microquiet 4k Tuneup”
Being able to monitor the tires of a dolly and Toad are crutial. If something goes wrong, i.e. hung brakes, blowout, bad bearings, etc, the RV will hum right along and won’t even fell the extra drag caused by something wrong with the Toad.
I’ve had a personal experience with this when our old tow dolly suffered from a broken axle. When the wheel departed the dolly, there was no indication that anything was wrong. No thumps, no sound, no feel, nothing.
This same problem is with a 4 down, there is no indication of a blown tire, or hung brake (heat).
Adding a TPMS specifically for the TOAD/Dolly solved this problem. The TPMS unit I use monitors both the pressure and temperature of the rear tires on the TOAD and the two dolly tires. Continue reading “Dolly / TOAD Tire Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS)”
This is my latest attempt to deal with a mild Chirp – Chirp – Chirp thats been part of my Mirada life since day one.
It seems like everything I’ve done works for a few hundred miles, then I get the chirp back. Basically, the chirp is caused when the belt skids on the idler or a pulley Continue reading “Chirp-Chirp-Chirp – Try a smaller belt”