 |
| Essenhaus, Middlebury, IN |
 |
| Riverwalk, Elkhart, IN |
We got out of Luray, VA last week just fine. Nothing after that went as planned. Hence, that's why we tell you, "That's the plan...until it changes"
We arrived at Bedford, PA Wednesday of last week at about 12:30 PM and got the trailer off the truck. At that moment, we had a complete hydraulic failure on the trailer. Third time in 10 years when you count both 5th wheel trailers that we have owned. Lucky for us, only the front legs were extended. Most trailers have a backup where you take a drill and turn the hydraulic pump to move things. It's painfully slow and can take several hours to pull everything in/up as necessary for safe travel. In our case it took about an hour and three people to move two legs: One to run the drill turning the pump, one to hold the button on the controller to open the solenoid so things can move in the preferred direction, and one (in this case, Bob from the campground's maintenance staff) to confirm things are moving in the desired direction. We put the trailer back on the truck and had everything stowed for travel about 3 PM. We decided to take the trailer all the way to Howe, IN where there's a hotel with a parking lot where we can park the rig and spend the night. We arrived about 11:30 PM Wednesday night. We'd made phone calls along the way trying to get appointments rearranged and moved up to see if we could get the hydraulics repaired first.
Now, with our current trailer's layout, when everything thing is stowed and slides are in, you can't reach anything. Only one door of the fridge can be opened, no clothes, no access to the bathroom & toiletries...you get the idea. We took the hotel's complimentary razor, shaving cream, toothbrushes and tooth paste, turned the trailer's refrigerator off, and called it a "morning" about 1 AM (Thursday). After a few hours sleep, we found that there were no rental cars to be had until that afternoon, and Lippert notified us that they couldn't help us until our planned appointment on May 1st - a week away. Indiana Interstate Enterprises (from here on called "Paul & Kay's) couldn't help as they couldn't work on the trailer until the hydraulics were repaired (though they helped immensely as you'll read below). We decided to run the generator some to try to save the frozen food in the freezer and begin to see what food could be saved from the fridge area via the one door we could open.
Once we got the Samsung refrigerator to turn on (Samsungs are notorious for being hard to restart after several hours of begin off), we found that the fridge area had only dropped to 42 F and the freezer was at 31 F. Having lots of experience with taking the fridge apart several times last year to defrost it until we could get it repaired, that experience came back to pay dividends. With one door fully open and the other door opened maybe open an inch, we took the interior apart which allowed Donna to removed all the food. Donna was able to save enough food from the trailer's fridge to fill our little fridge in the hotel room. She also crawled around in the back of the trailer where she could and grabbed a few creature-comfort things she could reached.
After that, Donna decided to make a reservation for a rental car, and that worked to our advantaged. By a little after noon, we had our choice of four cars to choose from. A trip down to Paul & Kay's to vent our frustrations and make a plan and set priorities of what to repair on the trailer when they got it. (Keep in mind: we're missing our planned appointment there, and they are booked with future appointments - what work gets done depends on when they can fit us in vs. when we have to leave for Wyoming.) As we went through the repair work to be done after the hydraulics are repaired, they told us they had a spot where we could park the truck & trailer, not block anything and plug into power so that we wouldn't lose the frozen food. Now things are really improving! After moving the trailer down to Paul & Kay's shop, we were off to Walmart for laundry supplies, toiletries and wardrobe to get us by until the hydraulics are fixed. And that's how we rolled until 4:40 AM Wednesday morning when the alarm clock went off and our day to have the hydraulics repaired at Lippert in Goshen, IN began. (OK, we did make a couple of trips back to the trailer from time-to-time and took a bunch of things from the pantry.)
Work at Lippert could not have gone better (notwithstanding a low tire pressure reading on one of the truck tires). Made two new friends. By 4 PM all hydraulics were repaired (new pump, electric motor, wiring harness and touch pad controller), we could move everything as needed. We planned some additional work for Lippert to do when we're in the area in September, and headed to one of the campgrounds in Shipshewana to sanitize the holding tanks so we can have them worked on at Paul & Kay's shop. We're back at Paul & Kay's by 6:30 PM and plugged into a 15 Amp extension cord Paul & Kay have left out a door for us to plug into to keep the fridge running. Things are looking great and we're emptying out the storage area to make it easier for Paul to work on the trailer's electronics until I notice the inverter is still carrying the fridge. It's that stinky piece of "ground fault" &*%$#$%^&&*()(*^^% **&%$. REALLY??? WHY???? WHY NOW????
Four resets of power to the trailer didn't solve anything. I remember that Paul had told us it could be the transfer switch. I took a rubber mallet and tapped (Yes, I tapped. Yes, I wanted to take a sledge hammer to it and boy did I want to take a sledge hammer to it, but I really did tap - ask Donna) and we had good shore power for the fridge when we tried another power reset. We'd save frozen food for one more day! This morning they moved the trailer into a bay to start repairing what they could.
(Trivia question: Now that the hydraulics work and we can open all the slides, what do you think we got out of the trailer? A second pair of shoes for me. We've gotten so use to our emergency wardrobe from Walmart, that we decided to just keep wearing it.)
Things are going well. We got the truck tire repaired this afternoon. Take a guess which wheel? Go on, guess! Passenger side, inner rear dual wheel. It's always the passenger side, inner rear dual wheel. We had one nail go into one tire on our F450 the whole time we owned it. Which tire? Passenger side, inner rear dual wheel. Had a low tire reading on the new truck two years ago which happened the first time we experienced that stupid *^%$%^##*&% "ground fault" gremlin. Which tire? Passenger side, rear inner dual wheel. It's always the passenger side, inner rear dual wheel. ALWAYS!
Movin' on: Truck goes in for service tomorrow as we now have unplanned time to do that. If we're lucky, it'll stop raining/snowing, and we'll have good weather for the weekend. We don't bother Paul & Kay. We need to leave by May 9th to make our May 15th arrival date in Jackson, WY. There is no plan - just a "it'd be nice if..."
Thanks for dropping by and reading about our adventures! Until next week, David
No comments:
Post a Comment