Sunday went pretty much as planned – I watched a lot of TV. First up was the Formula One race from Singapore, then it was NFL action for the rest of the day. Before I got through the race, we had a problem though. I was putting the awning out when I heard a sharp snap followed by a loud bang. I could see the rear support arm wasn’t extending like it should.

Upon inspection, I discovered that the pin the upper end of the gas strut is mounted to had come off. The pins used on the awning supports are held in place with thin clip washers with a serrated inner circumference. These are forced over the end of the pin and grip it, holding it in place. Well, the clip washer had broken off, allowing the pin to come out.

Upper gas strut mount broken

To get the strut back in place and insert the pin, I had to compress the strut. This is easier said than done, the pressure in the strut is amazingly high. With a little ingenuity, I was able to extend the awning support arm and lever the strut in place. Then it took several attempts using a large screwdriver as a pry bar to align the upper strut mount with the holes in the awning support and insert the pin. Once I got the pin in place, I temporarily wired it so it wouldn’t back out. One of the spacers is also missing, but the wire job kept the strut in place.

I need a bigger hammer

Temporary wire job

After I got the awning back in, Donna took advantage of the nice weather and walked to Sprouts to do some food shopping and also walked to Ulta. Then she rested her shoulder and read a book – one of my favorites – Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

On Monday morning, we were a little more ambitious and went to the Genoveva Chavez Community Center here in Santa Fe to play pickleball. We played for more than two hours and I think I got nine games in. I played much better than I did on Friday as I lost some of the rustiness from going months without playing. Donna’s shoulder issue is on her left shoulder. She’s right-handed so playing pickleball was okay for her.

I had another project in the afternoon. Our toilet seat cover is deteriorating. The toilet seat and cover are made from molded pressed wood particles and covered with a urethane finish. The urethane is flaking off in a few places and I can see raised areas where it’s separating from the pressed wood.

Old toilet seat cover

I ordered a new seat and cover from Amazon on Saturday. Tracking showed delivery to the RV park Monday afternoon – how do they do that? I walked up to the park office and asked about the delivery. I was told nothing came for me. I saw a flat box in the corner and walked over to look at it – sure enough, it had my name on it.

The new seat and cover are similar to the old one, but it has a soft-closing feature. When you lower the seat or lid, some kind of friction device lowers it slowly so it’ll never bang shut. Getting the old parts off and installing the new one was harder than it should have been. Obviously the seat and cover were put on the toilet before it was installed in the coach. I didn’t want to remove the entire toilet to change the seat so I had to be a contortionist to get to the mounting nuts behind the toilet. It took a little time and effort but I got it done.

New seat and cover installed

I have a gripe about the new cover though. Typically these are installed with nylon bolts through the mounting tabs and nylon nuts underneath the toilet to clamp the mounting tabs in place. Some whiz-bang engineer thought it would be wise to come up with a new way to accomplish this. The new nylon bolts have a circular shoulder with a groove around the circumference. The mounting tabs have plastic fingers that are forced into the groove when the mounting tab cover is snapped in place. These plastic fingers and groove are what holds the seat and cover to the toilet.

What were they thinking? Bolts, washers and nuts are clamping devices. The age-old method of using them as such to hold the seat works fine. With the new method I have problems. When the soft-closing feature has the cover slowly lowering, the leverage it has puts a large force on the mounting tabs. One of the tabs has popped out of the groove in the bolt several times already. Using the shoulder of the bolt to create a friction fit of the fingers in a groove is just plain stupid. I reinstalled the offending bolt this morning, we’ll see if it holds or if I have to come up with something else.

We’re expecting a high in the low 80s today. The weather guessers say there’s zero percent chance of rain. I’ll go to the hardware store and see if I can find a suitable clip washer for the awning – we’ll want to shade the coach with the awning today. Tomorrow we’ll leave Santa Fe and move to Albuquerque where we’ll be for the next 19 days.

*Just so you know, if you follow one of my links to Amazon and decide to make a purchase, you pay the same price as usual and  I’ll earn a few pennies for the referral. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!