Well, that didn’t last long . . .

See What Happens When You Tease A Frog!

A week or so ago I installed a new lift motor and lift mechanism in our bathroom Fantastic Vent fan. The original one lasted for ten years, the replacement I installed in 2009 lasted for five years, and the latest one lasted for 11 days. Based on that timeline, I expect the next one to last for about a minute, 45 seconds.

But we’ll see.

The problem is that the motor doesn’t seem to be connected to the driveshaft anymore. When you try to open or close the lid, the motor runs but it doesn’t move the lid. The manual knob turns while this is happening but it’s obviously not turning the lift mechanism shaft. At this point I can turn the knob manually while the motor is still running, and lift the lid that way. But once the lid is all the way open or closed, the motor never stops. It just keeps running. I think this tells me the clutch inside the lift motor is broken. The manual knob is connected directly to the shaft on the lift mechanism. But motor has to be connected through some sort of clutch so that when the lid is all the way open or closed, the motor stalls down and then shuts off under the load.

I talked to Fantastic Vent (Attwood) this morning and they’re sending me a new one. Hopefully it’ll get here before we leave Friday week. Otherwise Brandi will have to track us down and send it on.

They didn’t say anything about having to send the old one back, so maybe I’ll be able to take it apart and see how it works, maybe even repair it for later use.

About 3:30 Jan and I made the 30 mile trip up to La Grange to have dinner at Sealand Seafood again. This is our 4th or 5th visit during our 6 weeks on and off here at Colorado River Thousand Trails, and hopefully we’ll get in at least one more visit.

One thing Jan and I noticed on our drive north was that the farther we went the more bluebonnets we started seeing again. I wouldn’t have thought that that small a distance would have made that much difference. So maybe that bodes well for our trip up to the Brenham area on Friday.

Jan and I ordered our usual 2, 6, and 6. That’s 2 pieces of catfish, 6 shrimp, and 6 oysters, and of course battered French Fries.

On the face of it, $19.99 for this platter plus a salad, might seem a little expensive. But we both find that we can only eat about 1/2 of it. Plus we always get more seafood than indicated on the menu. In my case, I got 3 pieces of fish, 8 shrimp, and 9 oysters. That’s what I like, under promise and over deliver.

So we both have plenty for another meal at home. As I told Jan, since we had eaten until we were full, and had plenty left over, we got All You Can Eat Seafood for $10. Not bad at all.

Coming home we stopped off at Wal-Mart for supplies and HEB for gas before getting back to the rig a little after 6pm.

Tomorrow I’ll make another attempt to install the new shear pin in the slide mechanism.

Or maybe not.
______________________________________________________________

Thought for the Day:

“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.” – Albert Einstein

fgsdfgsfdg