The weather was much like yesterday, but with less rain, so I was able to finish wiring the new muffin fans on the little Bronco's refrigerator. One of my original complaints was that the old fan was too noisy, so I know that problem has been fixed. Still, I think the cooling problems the refrigerator had mainly was the little Bronco not being level enough while I'm boondocking, and It's going to take some experimenting to find out if that's been fixed.

If I take the little Bronco on my winter travels, I had always planned to remove the two 12 volt batteries from the little Bronco and replace them with the Arctic Fox's lithium-iron batteries, and there are a couple of reasons for this.

The most obvious is I would have the battery capacity that I'm used to living with in the winter, so I know under normal circumstances I should have plenty of 12 volt power even if I have several days of cloudy weather.

The other reason is a little less obvious: I don't want to leave my rather expensive lithium-ion batteries in the cold of a Colorado winter. I couldn't leave them in the Arctic Fox because it would be winterized with no heat in it. I couldn't leave them in my daughter's garage because they don't heat it in the winter, so it would be no warmer than the Arctic Fox. And I don't want to leave them anywhere in their house because lithium-ion batteries are a relatively new technology, and I couldn't live with myself if anything went tragically wrong. So the safest and most useful thing to do would be to take them with me.

I might have to make up longer positive and negative cables for the lithium-ion battery bank and maybe extend a few small wires, but I think I can find a place for the lithium iron batteries and get them hooked up without too much effort on my part.

Even though I haven't entirely made up my mind to use the little Bronco for my winter sojourn, I really like the thought of the lack of stress there will be on me as I effortlessly roll down the interstate at 75 miles an hour instead of my usual 60, without worrying about a trailer tire blowing out. Or turning off on a dirt road to a boondocking area without having to stress out about, "will the trailer make it?" Or stop at an RV Park with no concern about whether they have pull-through sites available are not..... I can feel the travel stress melting away the more I think about it.

                                             Theboondork

Walking around my daughter's neighborhood the other day, I took a few pictures of the houses.

They're all very nice, but I wouldn't trade my full-timing life for any of them.

One of my daughter's neighbors has a very nice camping van. And it looks relatively new.

It's been cloudy and rainy most of the day today and looks like more of the same tomorrow. Weather-wise, it's been a pretty poor Memorial day for families out camping and picnicking.

I got my two muffin fans from Amazon yesterday and spent some time this morning between rain showers putting them on the little Bronco's RV refrigerator. Hopefully, this will solve any cooling problems that the RV refrigerator was having.

The next thing I need to do for the little Bronco's refrigerator is find simple ways of leveling the truck when I camp, and put levels in the truck that I can see while I'm sitting in the driver's seat trying to level up the truck.

That was a big problem for me last year when taking my mini-vacations. I would have to move the truck to where it looked level, then get out of the truck to check the levels on the little Bronco, then get back in the truck and move it a little more, then get out and recheck it... That gets old really quick, so I need a way to see my side to side and fore and aft levels while sitting in the driver's seat.

I can use the leveling blocks that I normally use for leveling up the Arctic Fox, including these Andersen Hitches Camper Levelers that I bought a couple of years ago. They worked pretty well, but I usually found it easier to just drive up on the yellow plastic blocks that most folks use.

I've got a feeling that many of my refrigerator problems in the little Bronco were caused by its old-fashioned refrigerator requiring a more precise leveling than I'm used to because it never seemed to work right with me boondocking out in the woods.

Now, if I won the lottery and were rolling in dough, I would buy an air spring kit that would allow me to adjust the level of the truck with a wireless remote to quickly and easily level the little Bronco up. But it appears that the lottery is a very undependable way of getting rich, and I'm far too lazy to get a job and earn some money since what I'm qualified to do would just put an illegal alien out of work. So it looks like I'll just have to keep putting blocks under the tires.

                                                       Theboondork

I mounted and tested the new muffin fans for the little bronco's refrigerator, and both of the fans running together are much quieter than the factory fan was.

And each fan moves far more air than the factory fan did. Now I need to finish up the wiring, but the off and on rain showers are making that difficult.

One of the bunnies that lives in the yard.

Purple flowers?  I of course know the name of these flowers, but I'm forbidden by a top-secret organization from revealing the name or the location of these alleged flowers.

The best way to get the kids to go to sleep at night.... Stand them in front of the television, and make them dance until it's bedtime. It tires me out just watching them.

 I spent some time working on the refrigerator in the little Bronco pop-up camper, but I'm still waiting for Amazon to bring my new muffin fans.

 My experience has been the most common reasons for an RV refrigerator to get cool but not cold is either it's not level enough, or it needs help cooling the heat exchanger coils. These are not the only things that can keep it from working properly, but they are things that the average RVer can do something about without spending a bunch of money.

Leveling is the first thing you should be suspicious of if the RV refrigerator is not getting cold, especially when you're boondocking and camping spots are often out of kilter.

Most newer model RV refrigerators can withstand some amount of being unlevel; your owner's manual will tell you how much, but in general, the more level, the better.

The refrigerator heat exchanger coils, typically found behind a removable panel outside the RV, get hot when they do their job properly and need to be cooled. So more than likely, the factory mounted a small 12-volt fan to blow over the coils to help remove the heat. But often save a few bucks by putting a small cheap fan blowing on the coils, which is loud and doesn't move much air.

A better choice is not to buy an expensive RV refrigerator fan but get one called a muffin fan which is generally found in computers. They come in different sizes depending on how much room you have in your refrigerator's internal workings, but the 120 mm is about average. These will be far cheaper than an RV fan, move more air, and are much quieter. Get the waterproof kind, since it's possible water could get on it if the wind is blowing the rain in the right direction.

So that's what I'm doing at the moment, trying to find an easy way to level up the truck, so the little pop-up camper will be level, and putting some better cooling fans in the little Bronco's RV refrigerator. If these things don't work, then it's time to whip out the checkbook.

                                                    Theboondork

This is where the internal workings of the RV refrigerator is located on the outside of the little Bronco.

This is the factory fan that's doing a poor job of cooling the coils. Quality muffin fans made for desktop computers are dirt cheap, but if you go to an RV place and buy a fan for your RV refrigerator they will call a muffin fan an RV fan, and double the price.