Preparing for the Maiden Voyage

This is when I am supposed to say, "Sorry for taking so long between posts but boy things sure do get busy in the fall, heh-heh." I think everyone knows that September, October and November is Tailgating Season so there is not exactly time available to work on other things. If I was not tailgating, I was getting kitchen renovations done. Well enough of that, it is time for Fandango's first real trip so there are some key things that I need to take care of this week.

The first thing to attack this week is something that I really should have taken care of during the fall but I fell into the trap of being busy with other things. I bought Fandango with a hole in one of the exhaust manifolds. The previous owner was nice enough to locate a replacement manifold as part of the purchase. My current challenge is finding gaskets for the manifold. It is a 1972 Dodge 413 M300/M600 manifold which is not the most common part to find 30+ years later. The auto parts stores do think they may have found it in another town so we will see later this week when I go pick them up. If anyone has advice on where to find these parts, I do plan on buying some spares now for when I need to fix it again a few years from now.

I also have found my first "big" problem that needs to be fixed. I was rechecking all of my features, etc. in Fandango and I found a water leak in the city water hookup. This is an older water system that has the intake go straight into the holding tanks. The water pump is designed to pump air into the top of the tank and push water out if I am not connected to a water hook up. Well, there is a water leak somewhere inside that pressure switch on the old pump. I have two pictures attached. The small red box is the switch and water is leaking from inside. I am going to just cap the water line for now since I will be camping with water hook ups this weekend but unless I can find some old spare parts, I may be spending some holiday time updating my water system with a modern on-demand pump.

Well, the good news is I have cleaned up the inside of Fandango, will shampoo the carpets this week, we have most of our camping gear and are close to being ready for this weekend. I will add a post or two this week with my progress. Wish us luck!