Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Learning to live together

Spending the evening, the night and the early morning next to the Pacific Ocean near San Quintin in Mexico, the lungs are finally able to be filled with clean and oxygen rich air.
During the many weeks in Riverside, California, USA, where the pollution is a horror and a serious attack on one’s health, the body would almost refuse to fill the lungs with air.
Now, finally, deep breaths can be taken what is important because letting the air go from the lungs is a very good yoga exercise resulting in a relaxing release of tensions.

After a peaceful breakfast and answering e-mails, the bottom side of the Fuso Santek was inspected again to have a new look at the “tank breather hoses”.
There are two water tanks and each tank has three “tank breather hoses”.
However, they are a mere 20 centimetres (7,87 inches) long and mounted at the same level as the top of the tank lengthwise.
This makes them not breathing air but spilling water.



The movement of the water in the tank is mostly back and forwards due to acceleration and braking actions of the truck.
The hoses are exactly in the line of this water movement.
This explains that when the tanks are filled and the truck starts driving, 40 % of the water spills out.

Not having much equipment or parts on board, a temporary solution has been performed.
The idea is to simply close off the 6 hoses and when the water tanks need filling again to do this very slowly so that air can escape from the filling opening.
Once a hardware store is reached, hose connectors and extra hose will be bought and the six current hoses extended with their openings far above the tanks.

The temporary solution:



When a morning stop was made to eat a grapefruit, suddenly a weird feeling took possession.
The Fuso Santek is equipped with a round container in which one's carry a blue, flexible hose to connect to the grey and black tank exit pipes, for emptying the content of the tanks in a sewage dump.
The feeling, as a strong intuition, said that no blue, flexible hose would be found in the container.
Quickly it was checked if the intuition was correct.
It was….
There is no sewer hose in the container.
This is difficult to understand.
In the past every single camper purchased, in total 6, had standard the sewer hose.
Maybe in this case the policy is different but then one may wonder why it was not mentioned.
It is not a real issue: it was either forgotten or it was forgotten to mention it so that customer could buy one himself.
But what is an issue is that in Mexico these sewer hoses are nowhere to be found.
It means that for the entire coming months spend in Mexico the tanks cannot be emptied in the obligatory way.
That is a pain in the neck.

The FUSO SANTEK stopped for lunch near Catavina.



Another issue is the XM-radio.
Two new cradles were purchased for the XM-radio.
The one already in possession was mounted in the Lazy Daze motor home and left there for the new happy owner.
One cradle was mounted in the cabin of the FUSO SANTEK and the other one in the camper box.

The cradle in the camper box:



The cradle in the truck cabin:



The one in the camper box, as of two days, started to malfunction.
The sound was not continuous but interrupted.
Today it stopped completely.
The screen of the XM-Radio says: “No signal”.
After testing it was found it is the cradle.

An XM-cradle cannot be opened and repaired.
Nor can a new one be bought in Mexico.
It means that in the camper box XM radio is not available anymore.
That is hard to accept because it was listened to so often and with so much pleasure.

For everything though is a solution.
When parked in one spot for a longer time, the cradle from the truck cabin will be dismantled and temporarily mounted in the camper box.
For now though it stays in the truck cabin because every day about 8 to 10 hours are spend there driving south.

It may seem the FUSO SANTEK is fallen apart and that not much is good about it.
This is a very wrong impression.
Every single thing works fine.
It is an indescribable pleasure to travel and live in a FUSO SANTEK.


The FUSO SANTEK stopped for the night.
At El Tomatal, next to the Pacific Ocean.
About 40 miles north of Guerrero Negro.



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4 comments:

Mike said...

If you need, I could purchase a sewer hose and XM cradle for you and ship it to you, maybe a po box or a friend's address? Then again, you could just order one on line and have it shiped there? let me know if you need any help with supplies

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the Great images of the Fuso today. The pluging of the water tanks might be a problem if you don't crack the fill cap while showering, a vacuum could accumulate in the tank and cause the pump to cavitate or collapse a water line or the tank, just a thought. I also would be willing to purchase and ship any needed parts. Your problems are minor and expected, your Fuso is an amazing motorhome. I look forward to reading your blog daily, Thanks, Robert Hill

Anonymous said...

One probably should have spent more time near the factory for the "shake down" period after taking delivery. These problems are inevitable, and should be taken into account when planning.

Anonymous said...

I too, was thinking a short shakedown journey would have been a good thing, but sometimes our schedule gets in the way. As a random thought here, why not buy Ms Tioga's hose when you visit George. He's heading north in a few days so he could get a new one back in the States.

Your Santek-Fuso is awesome! Isn't it so nice to have a purpose-built vehicle? Have you had it in 4WD yet?

Ken