10-26-2019 Fort Flagler
Camping with David this weekend. It’s pretty cold. 50 during the day and lots of wind. Need a knit cap to keep my ears from hurting. We have full hookups so I brought the electric heater from home. Works great for keeping that little space warm. Nice enough for a state park. Open field camping. The view is really nice. The bay, the Juan de Fuca, and Port Townsend across the way. The big ships make a lot of noise, which i enjoy. I saw a little boat cut off a large ship, the large ship sounded her horn angrily several times. That really got the little boat’s attention and she maneuvered sharply.
The fan clutch is making a world of difference in temperature. Sat in dead stop traffic through Tacoma for an hour and it stayed steady at 1/3. Usually its hanging near 2/3 and giving me heartburn. Very pleased with engine temperatures this trip.
I replaced the fan motor in the propane heater heater. It had been making a really loud squalling noise for a couple years. An easy enough job, did need to move the mounting bolt pattern slightly. I left it on over night this trip set at 65. It wasn’t very noisy and heats very well. Old man Bowser said they put in the catalytic heater because the main one used a lot of propane. I dunno how much it used, but for a weekend trip there’s no problem. Didn’t even switch over to the second bottle. It will be nice to have as an option for those colds nights on quick weekend trips. For the spring trip it might consume too much gas. But it would be nice to have an option that keeps the moisture down. We didn’t have near the problem with condensation this weekend.
The water heater needs a little work. It won’t stay lit without several attempts. The mixing tube, or maybe the thermocouple thing at the end of the mixing tube is probably the culprit. You can hear the unsteady ignition. Maybe the tube is rusted enough that its creating too much turbulence. I’ll try replacing the tube first.