"No More Projects!", says I. And then...1972 Superior 2200. Couldn't pass it up.

[dwh]

Thanks for the lamp lesson !

Just thinking out loud really. Decades ago I used to know all the different lamps. Now I find myself doing a lot of head scratching and, "it'll come to me".

But dont you realise you are not supposed to use ”fixture” any longer ? ”Luminaire” is correct nowdays.

I'm a politically incorrect geezer. I can get away with it.

1156 lamp is same envelope & base and much higher wattage than 1147.

Yea. Still trying to remember the number of that smaller one I was holding in the pic. And the wattage.

It'll come to me.

 

[Mat Mobile]

I've already discovered quite a bit of interesting stuff. For one thing, the fridge isn't 6 cu'. It's 7 cu'. 6 was standard, 7 optional.

View attachment 424928View attachment 424929


And, Norcold has a 7 cu' ac/dc fridge.

http://www.thetford.com/product/de-0061ev-0061/

I haven't taken measurements yet, but I imagine the Norcold will be pretty much a direct fit in the hole where the Dometic is now. The specs say it draws 3.2a at 12v. The question is duty cycle...just off the cuff, at say worst case 50% duty cycle, that'd be 3.2a x 12hr/day for about 40ah per day. With 300w solar, MPPT, and 400ah of battery, I can easily live with 40ah/day for the (7 cu'!!) fridge.

Following this thread for fun. That's a huge project for a guy who doesn't want a project! :coffeedrink:

I just wanted to give you a heads up on fridges. I was shopping for one the other day and our local distributor specialized in RV/Boat/Tractor trailer fridges does not recommend Norcold. Simply because he's been having trouble with service and parts. To my understanding, I believe it started after the recession and cutting costs but can't confirm. This might just be a Canadian issue but I think it's faire to let you know in case you want to ask a few extra questions before making your final decision.

FYI, we ended up going with Vitrifrigo (Italian company) but he also recommended Dometic and Novakool.

Good luck!

 

[dwh]

Yea, it'll be quite a while before I change out the fridge. It's low down the list, especially if I can get the original Dometic working. I'll be doing a lot more research before commiting to that sort of major purchase.

I just picked up a used Dometic/Waeco 12v/24v to replace the dodgy old Norcold 3-way in my camper van, and it needs a new door gasket. Went to the Dometic web site to see if I could order one...nope...have to order parts through a dealer. Called a few and they weren't enthusiastic, mostly giving me numbers of other places to call. Finally one repair shop gave me a number for a parts distributor they use, who will also sell direct. Gsve them a call and provided model and serial numbers and they are supposed to look into it and give me a call back.

We'll see how it goes. Thus far, getting parts for Dometic seems like a bit of a pain.

But who knows...Norcold could be even worse...

 

[Mat Mobile]

Yea, it'll be quite a while before I change out the fridge. It's low down the list, especially if I can get the original Dometic working. I'll be doing a lot more research before commiting to that sort of major purchase.

I just picked up a used Dometic/Waeco 12v/24v to replace the dodgy old Norcold 3-way in my camper van, and it needs a new door gasket. Went to the Dometic web site to see if I could order one...nope...have to order parts through a dealer. Called a few and they weren't enthusiastic, mostly giving me numbers of other places to call. Finally one repair shop gave me a number for a parts distributor they use, who will also sell direct. Gsve them a call and provided model and serial numbers and they are supposed to look into it and give me a call back.

We'll see how it goes. Thus far, getting parts for Dometic seems like a bit of a pain.

But who knows...Norcold could be even worse...

I got Dometic parts from GetRVparts.com. It went very well. As long as they have your part it should be fine. But hey, my Roadtrek is only 20 years old. Your RV is 45 years old.

 

[dwh]

I got Dometic parts from GetRVparts.com. It went very well. As long as they have your part it should be fine. But hey, my Roadtrek is only 20 years old. Your RV is 45 years old.

I'll check it out. Thanks for the link. The fridge I need parts for at the moment is only like 5 years old though.

That's going in my other camper...the 41 year old camper van.

I know, I swore I wouldn't put money into it, but I picked up some solar and batteries cheap a few months back, and had no other use for them, so I put them on/in the van. And I'm not planning to get rid of it until I get the Superior usable.

And the fridge was free.

So what the hell.

 

[dwh]

So, to begin this week's session, a short digression...





The little fridge. One of these days, I'll get around to removing the old Norcold 323 from the van and installing this little beauty. Once it's installed, I'll finally have a load on the solar/battery system and can finally get some real performance numbers. (For about 4 months now, all it's basically been doing is topping up the already full batteries every day. Not bad though, after sitting all night, the batteries are usually still at 13.1v resting before the sun comes up and they get pushed up to 14.7v for a while and then floated all day at 13.8v.)

Turns out, it's not only missing the door gasket, it's also missing the freezer door. The parts distributor got back to me, they can get both parts, though it'll take 30 days for Dometic to ship them to the distributor, and then from the distributor to me. The guy I was talking to had gotten the price for the freezer door - 30 bucks - but spaced out and forgot to get the price for the door gasket. Should hear back on that next week.


It's a CR-0050. Near as I can tell, it's basically the same as this:

http://www.suremarineservice.com/CR-1050U/F.aspx


Also apparently sold as the Waeco Coolmatic CR50 in either stainless or chrome trim:

http://campingequipmentshop.co.uk/waeco-caravan-fridge-waeco-coolmatic-cr-50-fridge-cr-0050e.html


There is also a pull-out drawer version:

https://www.amazon.com/Dometic-CD-5...11156060&sr=8-6&keywords=dometic+refrigerator


The newest version is the CRX-50, found on Amazon for around 500 bucks:

https://www.amazon.com/Dometic-Cool...qid=1511156170&sr=8-1&keywords=dometic+crx+50



This one also has the optional (at extra cost) mounting bracket kit.



So I had to um...negotiate...with the swing-shift mechanics in the shop at work. They knew I was looking and when a truck got turned in off lease and the company didn't want the fridge, the mechanics pulled it and set it aside for me. However, there was a reckoning due. We went back and forth on terms. Various suggestions were made, but rejected by one side of the table or the other. We finally settled on a price.

Krispy Kremes. Two, count 'em, TWO dozens.

So Friday before work I stopped in at the local Krispy Kreme and got a dozen glazed, and a dozen pumpkin spice. They even saved me a pumpkin spice.


Dunno yet what the door gasket will cost, but I figure with the freezer door, the door gasket and the doughnuts, I'll be around 100 bucks all in.

I'm not complaining.

 

[dwh]

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming...

Well, first of all, I picked up another battery for the superior.

A few years back, doing some research, I found that O'Reilly has a battery, part number 31DCM. That's a group 31 marine (dual purpose) battery with a (IIRC) 105ah@20hr rating. I found that they also had a DCMJ. I had my suspicions, and they got on the phone to their tech guys who confirmed my suspicions. The DCM was made in the US by (IIRC) Enersys, and the DCMJ made in Mexico by Johnson Controls. They of course stocked the DCMJ in the store, but the DCM had to be ordered. So I ordered one and picked it up a week later. And then I beat the crap out of it as I commonly do. And it didn't last any longer than any of the other group 31s I had beat the crap out of over the years.

So a few months back, just before the warranty ran out, I had run it dead and then forgot to recharge it, so I just took the thing into O'Reilly and let them test it and they decided to replace it under the one year warranty. The old battery was a group 31, but since I had added the 300w solar and the 2 big 200ah AGMs, and had no real reason to have a house battery under the hood any more, I downsized to a group 24. Figured it'd be good enough to occasionally jumpstart the truck if I left the lights on. No other reason to carry that ballast. I just grabbed a 24DCMJ they had in stock.

So I had pulled that battery and toted it down to Compton to use to get the Superior running, and it did fine for that, but the last couple of weeks of trying to get the thing to run (again) ran it down. Plus it was a bit small, so I picked up another 31DCMJ. For now, I hooked up the 31 as the cranking battery, and the 24 as the house battery. Later, I might reverse that.




So here's the battery hole (note to self, grease the rails on that sucker):





And here's the (apparently) factory installed split-charge relay, which is conveniently mounted to the end of the sliding tray:



Don't ask me why, but for some reason, that reminds of a Ford starter relay...


The original hold-downs were missing, but the bolts were there, so I bought a couple of hold-downs. Turned out, when I opened the package - they were made of rubber.



Well, that didn't much matter, since they didn't line up the hold-down holes in the tray anyway... But it turned out for the best. You see, there is about 1/2 of 1/3 of 1/4 of a thousandth of an inch between the battery terminals and the metal roof of the battery hole. With one end of the rubber hold-downs bolted, and the other just sort of sticking up, it actually jams in there just right to keep the batteries from bouncing up and hitting the aforementioned metal roof of the battery hole. Serendipitous.

In that last pic you can see that I've wired the pos from the house battery to the split-charge relay. Well, actually...to the wrong side of the relay. Duh. After thinking it over for a moment, I realized that the green wire must be coming off the converter/charger so the house battery needs to go to the same side, and the cranking battery to the other side.

And I was one red wire short of a full deck...

So for now, the batteries are wired correctly, but the the wire from the cranking battery to the relay is missing and the house battery won't be charged by the alternator when the engine is running. Which is fine, since the engine doesn't run anyway (more on this later).


The factory battery cables are awesome. #4 I think, with swaged brass ends. 45 years later, and still in bloody good condition and perfectly serviceable.




But no markings or color. So which is which? One has a bigger hole (the one on the right)(sorry for the crapp pic, the wire wouldn't hold still):




More to come...

 

[dwh]

EUREKA!





So anyway, after giving the battery tray the boot (it wouldn't slide in with the weight of the batteries on it, so I had to leg it), I wandered into the RV and heard a sound. The sound, of life. The sound...of the range hood fan. Yes, it was running.

Sweet.

Speaking of Sweet, a short diversion:



Well, I had picked up a couple of 1141s, but they only had 4, plus I had the one I took out of the galley sink fixture (there were two, but one had a broken filaminent), and I had the 97 China whatsis. Beautiful, I can get some lights working!

Yea...right.

So I stuck lamps in fixtures here and there and everywhere. Tried them all. Only one worked - the one over the dinette. And even then, only one end of it worked...




A bit of a pickle...

Then I remembered that there are two switches in the entry:



Which appear to be a rather normal double-stack switch, that someone has um...shortened...with...um...a hacksaw.

But, they can still be flipped to the on position:



And lo and behold, the bottom one turns on the other end of the dinette fixture:



So it's a bit whacky. The double-throw center-off rocker switch on the end of the fixture turns on one lamp, the switch on the wall turns on the other...but if you rock the switch on the fixture the other way, it turns them both on. I'll have to think on that and maybe draw a little schematic on the back of a bar napkin to figure it out. But for now, I stuck the little 97 China lamp in the end controlled by the door switch, so I can turn on a nightlight when I enter in the dark (as I have never done yet), and stuck an 1141 in the other end. Or, vice versa. Don't really remember, I was getting a little punch drunk at this point.




So then on to the center isle and galley fixtures. Which don't work. At all. Doesn't matter what switches I fool with or what combinations of switches, they just do not work.



So...time to do the electrician thing! ElectroMan the Rescue!

Pulled the cover off the 12v wiring box over the range hood:

 

[dwh]

So anyway, see these wires here? On the back of the fuse block?




Well, what I had to do was a very technical electrician thing. It's called, "jiggling". Yes, I jiggled. I jiggled them all. Mercilessly I might add. And whala!



Center isle and galley fixtures up and running! But...apparently only controlled by their on-board rocker switches - the door switches do nothing with these two.


But only the three fixtures in the front would work. The two in the head, and the four in the rear compartment just would not work. That might have had something to do with a fuse or two blowing. There were a couple of spare fuses, so I stuck them in. They held up a while, but eventually blew as well.

So here's what I know so far...

The fan in the roof vent in the head has a little motor that does not turn. It's rusted solid. It may be that the switch for that thing is actually on, and that's blowing one of the fuses. I'll have to open up the switch box and disconnect it before I replace any more fuses.
When I turned on the water pump switch, I thought maybe I might be hearing a little noise from back there, but if so, it was very quiet. But when I turned it on, the ammeter on the master control panel did go down into the negative a touch. (And, BTW you can see the shunt for the ammeter against the back wall of the 12v wiring box).
The water and holding tank switches don't cause any lights to light up on the control panel, but those tanks are empty right now anyway.

The panel light switch works, and the two gauges light up:




I also know, that pushing the switch on the MonoManiac does nothing. It's possible that the motor section of that thing is also locked up, which may be another cause for fuse blowage. Dunno yet.



The lights in the head don't work, but the 12v lighter receptacle does:



(and BTW, that El Cheapo voltmeter from Amazon always reads 0.3v low)


I also know that with only two fixtures running, each with an 18w 1141 - the ammeter was reading minus 28 amps. Since I don't think 3a worth of light was drawing that much, I have to surmise the either the ammeter is way off or something else was sucking power. And I don't think the ammeter is way off.


I didn't get around to firing up the little generator and trying out the 120v system yet.

 

[dwh]

So I also spent some time dicking around with...um...I mean working on, the engine.

This thing has been giving me fits. First and foremost, I KNOW it runs. It ran before I bought it, or I wouldn't have bought it. I drove the damned thing 30 miles. But since I parked it, it hasn't run since. I replaced the points and condenser, the cap and rotor, and the plugs and coil. I still haven't found a set of plug wires that works. Well, I found a set that would work, if the longest wire hadn't been too short to reach the furthest plug. But I don't think the wires are bad. They are aftermarket, 7mm silicone wires and the boots and terminals all look to be in decent shape.

So, it SHOULD run. But it doesn't. Cranks over nicely, just won't fire.

Hrmmm. When I replaced the cap, I just set the old and the new side by side and moved the wires over one by one. No change - should have worked. But it didn't. I've double checked the point gap. There is spark from the coil wire. There is spark from the plug wires. The fuel pumps, I can see it splooshing into the clear fuel filter. It's got fuel and spark - it's gotta be timing. But the timing hasn't changed from when it ran.

******?

Well, screw it. Back to basics. First I pulled all the wires off the cap, and one by one, traced them from the plugs to the cap and replaced them. I KNOW the firing order is correct. There are actually two sockets on the distributor cap labeled "1". One is for a clockwise rotation distributor, and the other for a counterclockwise rotation distributor. The 413 industrial is a counter-clockwise rotation. I KNOW the firing order is correct.

Or...is it? Hell, thinking about it, I recall thinking that something was strange. When I pulled the original rotor to take with me to the parts store, I could have sworn it was pointed towards the rear of the engine, but the new one, when I put it on the next day, was facing the front of the engine. Well, hell, the things are keyed, so it's not like I could have put the new one on backwards.

But...what if the old one was on backwards? So I dug out the old one (I always save old ignition parts for spares, just in case):



Huh... So the key (the big plastic tab on the left of the hole) is completely sheared off. So it's theoretically possible that it actually was facing toward the rear. Maybe I wasn't crazy after all. But hell, there's no way to make the new one face the opposite direction. And these Chrysler distributors have a simple tab in slot at the bottom end:

So it's entirely possible that the damned distributor shaft is 180 degrees off. Which would mean that my new rotor is now 180 off. Well, not exactly, it could still work - as long as the wires were also 180 off. But if the old rotor was 180 off, and the wires were also 180 off - and it ran - then the new rotor, no longer being 180 off, and the wires still being 180 off...it won't run. Pulling the wires and putting them back right, would mean that the new rotor and the wires are no longer 180 off - but if the distributor shaft is still 180 off, it won't run.

And if anyone was able to actually understand what I just said, you're a better man than me - I have no idea at this point if that last paragraph has any truth whatsoever in it.

So anyway, next weekend, more back to basics. I'll have to pull the #1 plug, find top dead center on the compression stroke and see where in the hell the rotor actually points. Bleh. I don't mind, but that distributor is a bi*ch to get to.

Sure, I could try setting the wires 180 off, and it might run, but screw it...if I have to pull the cap anyway - and I would - then I might as well just do the #1 top dead center thing. The biggest problem with the damned distributor cap is the snap clamp toward the front is buried behind that monster water pump and laying on the engine, with a flashlight in one hand and a long screwdriver in the other, I can barely get in there to pop the clamp off. Getting it to snap back on (several times now) has severely tested my vocabulary of cuss words.


So while I was at it, I studied the rotor a bit more...



Yea...that ain't good. And you can see someone scraped the carbon off. Probably the guy I bought it from when him and his buddy were trying to get it running.



So yea.


Anyway, another thing...

After it had sat a week, when I was messing with it Saturday morning, I noticed that the fuel filter wasn't full of fuel anymore. I figured it had drained back into the tank. But when I was cranking it over, it didn't fill up like it had before. Doh. Bad fuel pump? Possible. Clogged line from the tank...more likely. I had bought a couple of spare fuel filters since I figured I'd have to changed them often at first, so I decided to pull the first one and replace it...



That filter was new, when I put the rebuilt carb on. It has a total of maybe 2 hours of runtime, and 30 miles of driving on it. And it's clogged.

Okay, I expected that, which is why I bought spare filters. So I put in a new filter. Turned the engine over and no fuel pumped up to fill the filter. Geez.

So I fired up an air compressor and blew through the lines back to the tank. Hooked it all back up and still no love.



Well, I was a Boy Scout, and I do, "Be Prepared". In this case, I have for decades always carried an electric fuel pump and spare fuel line, "just in case". This has turned out to be a major boon many many times over the years. I have used it to get engines running when the mechanical pump gave out. I have used it to drain tanks prior to removal for cleaning. I have used it to donate gas to people who ran out. I have used it to suck a coke bottle full of gas out of a tank, to put on wet wood in the rain to get a fire started so I wouldn't freeze my butt off.

The current incarnation of this survival tool, I have rigged with battery clamps from an old cheap set of jumper cables, some wiring from an old extension cord, a remote on/off switch, and some fuel line.




So I dug it out of its hideyhole in the van, hooked it up between the fuel filter and the carb, switched it on, and proceeded to let it suck. Which it did. Eventually, it sucked fuel up into the filter, so I unhooked it and put the filter back on the carb and turned the engine over and once again, watched fuel sploosh into the filter.

Yay! I really needed a win at this point.

 

[dwh]

So, what else?

I messed around a bit with the flipping and the folding. The front passenger seat is on a base that not only lets it swivel, it also lets it raise and lower. The driver's seat also has that. But the passenger seat also has the base mounted to two slide rails:





Pretty simple really, you just stomp on the that big round grey button and it levers up the lockpins on either side. But the lockpin by the wall was stuck. A little liquid wrench and some repeated stomping on the button broke it loose and I was able to slide the seat forward:



One I got the seat out of the way, I had room to play with the dinette mechanism:



Which actually works as intended.




Oh, it's a bit crusty, but it works. I actually kind of like it. At this point, I'm thinking of keeping it. There is a cover piece on the side that hides the sharp metal edges of the mechanism, which I thought was missing, but it's actually in the RV. I'll have to fix the mounting brackets - it looks like someone tried using it for a step and ripped it off, but it's fixable.

I didn't go for the Full Monty and try the full "reconfigure the dinette into a bed" thing. I'll give it a shot eventually, but since the flip and fold is the key, I'm sure the rest of the procedure will work.

 

[dwh]

And a few other details...

I finally got around to removing one of the external hatch locks (from the generator compartment):



So if I can remember to stop by a locksmith this week, I might just have a key to open the rest of the locks by next weekend.


Also, that long 6" square storage bay that runs from side to side behind the front wheels? Well it turns out, there is a top hatch to that bay as well:




Just behind the engine doghouse is a hatch, which I had glanced into briefly, but today I noticed that it actually opens up into that long crossways compartment. I guess so you can get to your skis and fishing poles and whatnot from inside... um... yea, that's it.



That's it for this week's installment of "Rusty and Crusty go to Compton".

 

[ripperj]

If it matters one iota, I’m following along and enjoying the write up. It’s good seeing another perspective, it would have taken me a week to get out of the battery box, you know.... after I made a production of sandblasting and the powder coating and gold plating and all


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[westyss]

ok so did I miss something there? did you get it running again or just get fuel to it? focus man!

that battery isolator that's in there looks similar to one I had on my backhoe, well it doesn't look like it right now but it did a while back before it caught fire and spewed its contents in a blow torch like fashion that didn't want to extinguish very easily without a full extinguisher was used on it.....so I don't trust those things!

Anyway, keep up the good work!

 

[dwh]

If it matters one iota, I’m following along and enjoying the write up. It’s good seeing another perspective, it would have taken me a week to get out of the battery box, you know.... after I made a production of sandblasting and the powder coating and gold plating and all

Glad you're enjoying it.

Oh, I'll get to the cleaning and detaling and painting eventually. For now it's all about just bringing it back to life.