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Tyeger Trails, Defiance, MO (2024)

02/16/2024

Welll;,

So much for regular page updates, our apologies for a delayed update, but our excuse is being busy with Tyeger and either MOUSE or CUB… Basically Tyeger shots 6/23-1/24

06/09/2023

latest Journey ...

12/09/2022

BIBE has been full of changes, high humidity, fog, and a good overnight rain! Great time so far!

12/06/2022

A good sign as we clear the visitors center for the back country, BIBE!

12/06/2022

Rolling along, into BIBE in the am! Where’s your holiday travels taking you, hopefully offroad!

12/04/2022

Tyeger is a rolling! Heading to BIBE, a fine brewery for overnight with OKMex food truck, scrumptious!

09/30/2022

Last two windows, before it gets too cold, and they start to leak, caulk falling out of the joints!

08/30/2022

Some thoughts on living in your Tiger! We have done numerous “little” things over time to make iur interior more comfortable, more useable and or more functional. We have included pictures for illustration.

One example is our bathroom space. We have added a “old persons” handle in front of the commode, makes it easier to elevate in the confined space. Next to it is our “poo” trash bucket, bungied into the corner, above that a marine wet proof toilet paper enclosure, and above that is our wet tray for holding items while we are stationary, the vinegar spray bottle for the commode rinse, and what ever shower necessities we need. We have liberally added suction cup mounted clips with clothes pins on top, enabling towels to be strung open from their hangars (walmart/Amazon) which are command strip chrome looking plastic, and for hanging hand towels on the door and washcloths on the wall above the shower mixer handles. We have changed our plastic shower hose to a stainless one, and added an Oxygenics head with a manual slide valve shutoff between the hose and head handle. Finally, the essential squeegee, last one out of the shower squugees the walls dry, helps reduce moisture and keeps things clean!

We store our personal toiletries in a pair of Sterilite tubs, which fit together in one side of our flip open bathroom cabinet, keeping everything dry, and also fit well on the kitchen counter when we are stationary in camp, using the sink for personal hygene as well as the kitchen!

Finally, as part of our deferred maintenance/upgrade, we fabricated a new teak floor matt to replace our old cobbled together one. The old matt served for over five years, being assembled from two different vintage and style teak matts, one of which was chopped up to fill spaces. It served to keep our feet out of the muck that drains in the shower (days of hiking in various environments make one very dirty!), but was wobbly and offended my fen shui. We will post a seperate article on this build!

We do like our Oxygenics shower head. Low flow, and with both a rain and a firm water setting, we can manage to have two adults take showers, using roughly 2.5 gals each. These are rinse well, washcloth lather and shamppo then rinse well showers, but a daily shower while dry camping in say Big Bend for 8 days is quite a luxury!

What have you done to your rigs bathroom?

08/27/2022

As we announced in July - Tyeger is just over 100K and in year 6 post delivery. When you use a vehicle such as our Malayan, as extensively as we have, there is a fair amount of regular and deferred maintenance you must accomplish. “Deferred” because you either plan it for later because it isnt necessary, or oops, you’ve been aware but its gotta get done sometime, and sometimes’ll catchup with you.

More on that in a moment, but first, a new couch! One part of our interior we have never liked (but lived with - deferred :)), was the 5 piece couch/bed. Too vertical, too squishy, generally adequate but not comfortable - at all! To open and use you have to take down the dinette table, a twist of the top and then a reverse twist of the pole - it goes on the bed; then lift the rear seat pad, place it - hmm on the bed too; pull the rear seat back pad off the velcro - hmm it goes, ugh higher on the bed; pull the long side backrest free and then pull the entire couch seat slide out rotating the back down - all to access storage, water tank cleaning hatch, heater, water pump, solar MPPT controller and water tank drain. . .

So we did a thing, local specialty upholsterer - hot rods, boats, RVs, designed and installed a new couch. Semi-permanent half round rear couch, semi permanent side back, angled, and a smaller, easy pull out - without removing anything other than the dinette!! And sliding the couch seat! Lighter colors, firmer and thinner padding, excited!

Now, the real deferred stuff. Whilst jeepin and dry camping in PA, the passenger side bedroom window showed water intrusion. Earlier this year we had removed and replaced the rear window under the AC, but I didn’t document for y‘all, and knew it was a portent of more windows needing to be done (6 years, all weathers, 100% outside). So today we removed, cleaned, prepped, adjusted rollers, reinstalled and resealed both bedroom windows and added bottom spacers so as to reduce the pinch of the frame pushing on the roller.

It was a good thingq we did, the caulking around the Dometic bedroom windows was very deteriated, actually appeared as though it is disintegrating, and the passenger window had a fair amount of dirt infiltration at the top and behind the gasket.

Malayan (and Siberian) windows are four season, Dometic D4, have integral upper screen and lower reflective blind rollers that clip together and can roll up or down. The design has been changed because when you install the interior frame, your screws into the exterior frame bend and warp the interior frame, impinging on the roller and making it stiff and unable to retract. The new design (Dpmetic D5 - which you can’t get in the US) has an accordian blind for the blackout, clipping to the roller screen - one day we’ll get access to these!

Meanwhile several things can be done, best when you remove the window. To remove and reinstall. After you pull the white caps of the interior frame screw heads, with someone on the ladder outside, back out all the screws, then using a plastic razor, (these are cheap and excellent tools - see pictures) trim and free all the caulk around the frame, and remove both halves to where you can spend some time cleaning - diligently - the old caulk off the frame, and from under the frame gasket. Then run a screw driver carefully around the gasket splines, remove all the dirt and crust from these so they make a clean contact when you reinstall.

To tighten the roller spring, you will need a flathead screwdriver, angled point pliers, and a small phillps - and a second pair of hands! Remove the three spring clips holding the non spring end edge slide trim, so you can lift the end of the roller blind slide top up (held in with a black fishplate with two screws). Remove the two screws from the fishplate holding the non spring end - DO NOT PULL THE ROLLER UP AND OUT OF THE OTHER END - where the flattened end is held in a slot by staples. Carefully slide the flat end down the slot until you can grab it with pliers, then rotate one full turn - feel it tighten, and then slide it back in place, reinstall fishplate, screws and slide clips.

The other solution to loosen the roller and retract eaier, is to put wood blocks between the frame halves so there is something solid for them to clamp onto. 3/4“ trim is slightly too big so I sanded blocks down 10/16 roughly, and put two in place on each window bottom. We’ve never had a screen retracting problem so I chose only to do the bottoms. While I was at the cutting and sanding we made more for the rear, and the two large galley windows, couch and kitchen which we will do next, uhh very soon next. We did both of these to one window, and blocks only to the other.

We had some veneer delamination - about 4” opening at the window frame cut - we chose to fill with wood glue and clamp, otherwise we would need to remove and do the whole wall, thats gonna be a real deferred maintenance for say ‘28?

Hopefully this is helpful for you Malayan and Siberian owners, use Dicor as the new caulk, diligence in cleaning and prep, and we aimed for water tight, not necessarily the best showroom caulk appearance. Happy to answer questions, be safe!

07/29/2022

Tyeger did a thing yesterday, turned 100k! She's a beautiful beast at 5 years 7 months and 22 days, third set of tires, one set of shocks 8 oil changes, one ECM, a different leak, a rear axle seal leak, 4 sets of windshield wipers and new lithium system and 1937 operating hours to cover 36 states, Alaska twice, 5 Canadian provinces including Newfoundland. Expecting a new rear couch in August and the Party Never Ends! Our Malayan has brought us uncountable experiences, multiple friends and made the pandemic liveable by allowing us secure isolated travels!

Heres to the next 100k!

06/17/2022

The heavenly sound of a rebuild starting back up, demonstrating that you got it put back together, AOK!

06/17/2022

Way behind on maintenance, early part of the year occupied out of the country while Tyeger was upgraded to Lithium. Completed the annual cleaning, burner screen and gasket change out on the Espar D5. Love this little piece of essential kit which keeps toasty and in hot water.

04/08/2022

Tyeger gets reliable power! After 96,000 miles, beginning year 6, and lots of living time, our suite of Lifeline AGM batteries were beginning to rapidly decline. We were careful to always charge back as soon as possible after an overnight, we have lived up to 8 days boondocking with fridge, freezer and daily use recharged by solar, but our SOC was generally down to 12.4 at full charge, and we couldn’t make an entire night with heat running without dropping way down to failure mode.

After searching for a bit, we found, spoke at length with, recieved a proposal and engaged MasterTech RV in Elkhart, IN. We dropped Tyeger on the way out of the country, and returned 6 weeks later to pick her up. What did we get?

We selected a Lithionics GTX12V630A-E2112-CS200 module, or purpose built sealed cell, with internal BMS, and internal heater. MasterTech rebuilt the original battery area, in our Malayan, drivers side, forward of the rear wheel, using structural coated ply, insulated and filled around battery with polyfoam, installed a Lithionics Charge controller (actually a Victron built component), and a UL required master shutdown disconnect switch.

The instal is very clean, we went from approximately 600 of batteries to 144 #, in the battery box we have the sealed battery and the controller, all wired to our original busses, the UL disconnect is mounted behind our microwave and reachable by opening the top undersink drawer and a led button to indicate discharge/charge as well the mechanism for a battery safety reset. We now have useable 630A available, both the charge controller and the battery BMS use bluetooth to interface with informative apps.

I am sitting after an overnight at 36* with heat running and am at 85% battery, and solar is starting to charge! We are pleased, the proof will come overtime, but this upgrade truly opens the potential of Tyeger to dry camp for long periods and have power. Its not inexpensive, but we now will be able to use Tyeger through the rest of its percieved 10+ year remaining life.

MasterTech filmed some video, and will have it up on their website link to youtube soon.

10/02/2021

Travels! Hope everyone is well!

07/06/2021

When you have the inside track for a great spot, with benefits (wine, spirits, wine slushies!), Harvest Host for the win! Thanks Deer Run Winery, Geneseo, NY on Conesus Lake!

07/05/2021

Ahyup, on the road for a month of wheelin. And this happened, 80k in less than 5 years!

06/17/2021

Arrived! Mother Ship visit, it's been a month for vehicular finickiness! Tyeger has a new EGR valve, a new 'puter, now getting the driver side lift flap reepoxied.

06/01/2021

Winding up with wildlife!

06/01/2021

More

06/01/2021

More Days

06/01/2021

More days on the trail!

05/23/2021

Tyeger n Mouse have taken us to SE UT again! First couple of days!

04/22/2021

Never know who’s hanging out in camp!

04/22/2021

Never know who’s going to hang around your camp!

04/20/2021

Hanging out where we can have a fire! Clue, where the name Misty, ponies and Fire Departments all come together!

04/02/2021

Mouse winch landscaping after we got home!

04/01/2021

Yepper, thanks Walcamp!

03/24/2021

When you overland, or distance travel, you must be prepared to invest in preventative maintenance. Our Tigers are not off the showrooom floor big corp builds, they are custom, somewhat “one off” constructs. Over the last 4+ years we have learned a lot in how to perform maintenance, some of it planned, other unplanned! Think of your Tiger as a boat with all of the associated needs, you will be in good shape then!

When we returned from Big Bend we had several items needing accomplished, clean up and remove pinstripes, oil change, trans filter/fluid change, fuel filters, all three (there is a filter between our aux tank and main - this went bad on us Aug 2019 enroute to Alaska, subsequent change in ND in a RV park), differentials serviced and fluid changes and lubrication. We had a loose fender and rocks to remove from various places, replace some air system fittings which had become loose and over period of tightening, fractured.

Final piece is the annual D5SW Espar rebuild. If you have an Espar it pays to replace the burner screen, gaskets, clean the coking out of the burner can, inspect and clean the glow plug and sensor head. We have a great source of parts at Espar of Michigan, Esparparts.com. We carry the burner screen kit and gasket kit with us, and as you can see below, we discovered several problems, that likely would have caught us at some point in the near future . . . A phone call to the parts desk at Esparparts.com, and our replacement burner can, for the burner can with the crack, a new glow plug and glow plug holder, to replace the arced glow plug and the bent fuel flow nozzle on the glow plug and we will be back in business Friday!

03/21/2021

Daphne Bennink of Ocracoke's Back Porch Restaurant and co-host of The Ocracoke Kitchen Project teaches how to make Flounder Meunière. (Season 1:Episode 1).Fo...

03/12/2021

Backstory. This was delivered today.

Four weeks before we left for Big Bend, we returned from FL and put Tyeger in storage, winterized w AF. We check on her every month or maybe more frequently. In negative temp. weather this year, the heat (Espar D5 Hydronic - runs glycol exhange loop through air units and a water/ heat exchanger) would not ignite, fan would run for a bit then shut off. Brought Tyeger home and looked at basic systems, power, fuel, air and exhaust. The D5 Hydronic is a great simple unit, consisting of simple metal pieces or sealed sub-assemblies, you just need an allen wrench set, screwdrivers and an adjustable wrench or box ends, and a source of parts.

Externally mounted fuel pump was bad and leaking. Several years before for some reason we were concerned about small parts of an esential (to us) system - heat & hot water. We bought this pump, 2’ section of exhaust pipe and the small exhaust clamp, the D5 rebuild kit (several they were cheaper in multiples and we need to service this every year). It helps if you want to remove the unit and work on it on a bench, to have a set of flexible pipe clamps and a means to scrape the old gasket material. Esparparts.com for anyone that has need of anykinds of auxiliary power units.

Replaced and left with no fuss. Spare one here when we returned.

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