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Saturday, April 2, 2011

Maintenance, Repairs and Upgrades

We have a juggling act going on.  We've become serious Multi-Taskers.  We're handling many different issues at the same time, keeping our house maintained for normal living, taking care of the Journey and ensuring all the required maintenance is completed and getting upgrades and repairs done to the house to get it up for sale.  Then throw in our two fulltime jobs with their stresses and issues and we've got a full plate.

The Journey was due for the 48 month transmission service on its Allison 3000 transmission.  While I'm lucky enough to have the knowledge to do this job, I don't have the facility to do it.  Ergo, I had to take it to the Allison Dealer to get the job done.  It's important, I don't want to have any problems with this big (BIG) bucks component in the Journey, getting required maintenance done keeps my warranty in effect.

I took the Journey to Western Branch Diesel, a certified Allison service center.  A mere $419 later, the job was done.  Allison transmissions use Transynd synthetic fluid, which costs $40 a gallon and the Journey takes 5 gallons.  Two expensive filters and a $123/hour labor rate sucked that money right out of my wallet.  It's better than being stuck on the side of the road with a burned out transmission, though.

Marti and I picked up the Journey and took it back to our storage lot for the week.  Next weekend we leave for the RV-Dreams Rally in Tennessee.


Today we also had some contractors coming in to the house to start on re-tiling two of our three bathrooms and repair the tile in the master bath.  Also, the hardwood floor in the family room was to be sanded and refinished.  We packed in the Element, including Zoe the Wonder Dog and headed out to get some breakfast and do some birthday shopping for our granddaughter Kierra, who will be four next week.

While we were out the contractor called and said they were done for the day and would be back again tomorrow and then finish everything on Monday.  That sounded good so we headed home and found this:


All our family room furniture was stacked up in the kitchen and a large plastic sheet hung from the ceiling to the floor, separating the kitchen from the family room.  The hardwood floor had been sanded and polyurethane had been brushed on.


The major problem was the floor was wet, the polyurethane had not dried.  There was no possible way we'd be able to keep Zoe out of the room and we didn't want her paw prints all over it.

So we went back to the storage lot, fired up the Journey, went over to the campground and signed in.  An unexpected camping night, but we're sure glad we have our Journey.


Thanks for visiting and feel free to leave a comment.

16 comments:

  1. You're doing well, hang in there. The rally will give you so much boost in energy. I'm so glad you're going. We'll be headed your way the middle of May. I'll stay in touch.

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  2. Good idea about the campground. You're lucky you had that option. :)

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  3. Sure brought back a lot of memories hearing about your way too full plates. Not great ones understand but I sure know the feelings.

    But you two obviously have it all under control with your solution.......workmen leave your house a mess, just "go camping". I love it!!

    See you in Tennessee!

    Sherry
    www.directionofourdreams.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  4. Now that's making lemonade out of a bunch of lemons. It's so nice to have an option handy.
    Syl

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  5. what a lovely mess at your house but what a way to improvise!!..enjoy the night in the journey!!

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  6. Welcome to our world. Your first paragraph says it all. All this stuff just makes the goal even sweeter. See you at the rally!

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  7. nothing like a great backup plan...

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  8. Hi again from Stafford! We're a few steps behind you....we're doing the bathrooms ourselves! YUCK! I've given up keeping to a definite listing date for the house....it will get done when it's done. Then we will retire and hit the road in our Phaeton, and it will all be worth it! :-)

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  9. Definitely do not want to miss any maintenance that impacts the warranty.

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