NL 35

Dec 2000

Yuma to Home at last

Folks,

We made it to Yuma but not without incident.  The bearings on the trailer were heating up much worse than before and were getting hotter to the touch.  In addition, a crack has appeared on the wall of the rig where the bedroom slide is! 

It's small and goes from the bottom front corner of the opening to the bedroom slide, about three inches downward at 45 degrees! 

We decided to re-pack and inspect the fiver's bearings.  Since bearings were the latest malady with our rig, we also decided to do the truck's bearings too-5k miles early!  Hey!  We were gonna make it home.

We were at the SKP Park in Yuma, and a fellow SKP, Glen offered to help me R&R the wheels on the rig.   He was very familiar with trailer axles and I appreciated having two sets of eyes on this job.  (If ya ever get lonely in an RV park, just raise the hood of yer truck or start fixing something on the fiver.  Before ya know it, there's a crowd offering everything from help or tools, to stories of how it happened to them, and of course, opinions on how ta do it right!  LOL!) 

The bearings and races were fine but the grease was burned up from leaking all over the brakes!  The seals on all four had gone out and were a mess.  Fortunately, there was plenty of grease left on the bearings.  We cleaned the grease off the brakes and backing plate, and found that the factory had left welding slag from assembling the axles on the surface where the grease seals rode!  The slag had cut all the rubber seals!  We used a dremel tool with a light stone to resurface the axle ends, repacked the bearings, replaced the seals, and decided we'd have a discussion with Hayes about what we found.  (We took video and close-ups) 

The ends of the axles on the driver's side were the worst.  They were cut on the ends at an angle, halfway into the surface that the seals contacted!  It turned out to be more than just rust burning off.  Had I brought it to a shop they might have missed the slag and the problem would have happened again!  Axle problem solved! (I thought)

We got the truck bearings repacked the next day, and prepared to make it home.  It was a relief to find that all but one of the wheels were dead cold on our first check and the one that wasn't was barely warm, which is normal.  I figured that the newly clean brakes were adjusted a tad tight on that one and would seat in just fine.  We stopped at a rest stop a second time just outside of Gila Bend Arizona to check them again, expecting all of them to be fine.  They weren't.  The passenger side rear rim was almost too hot to touch!  Accck!  I pulled the wheel right there in the rest stop thinking that maybe the axle nut might be a tad tight.  Because of the size and weight of suitable jackstands, I don't carry them.  Instead, to be safe and to protect the brake drum and backer plate assembly in case my bottle jack (6 ton) slips, I put the good wheel up on about six inches of plastic leveling blocks, and chock the tires on the other side of the rig.  This brings the tire I need to change or remove to almost off the ground.  I crack loose the wheel nuts and then with little effort, and only a few pumps of the jack, the wheel is removeable.  Should the jack slip, the suspended axle end would not drop to the ground, and is easy to jack up again. 

However since very little weight is on the jack, that is unlikely.  Of course never jack the trailer up by the axle as that could affect the camber and cause alignment problems.  I use the flat plate below the axle that mounts the u bolts.  I have seen RVrs using a small floor jack on the axle and straining mightily without jackstands or raising the other tire with leveling blocks!  This is against my religious beliefs, which generally protects me from having careless accidents.   Seriously!  My religion? I am a devout, practicing, coward!  LOL!  (Just kidding!)

Anyway, I found nothing wrong with the brake adjustment, the seal, or the axle nut tension.  I did however get some curious looks with the axle end disassembled in the rest stop.  I do carry high temp axle grease and tools.  By the time I finished, it had cooled down again, and since we were three or four miles from Gila Bend, decided that since I had my second shot at it, it was time to go to a mechanic and see if he could find whatever we missed.

We pulled into Borst's garage in Gila Bend, after consulting with the manager of the truck stop as you come into town.  They stopped the job they were on and pulled the offending wheel.  The bearings, races, and seal were fine!  Of course, they had a solvent tank, which we didn't when we did the bearings and seals.  (We had to use spray cans of brake cleaner with a pan underneath to catch the mess, and a piece of carpet under that to keep the ground from getting stained) It stumped them as well.  I was right about the brake adjustment it was perfect.  Bruce took out a micrometer and started checking the drum and the axle spindle . . . nothing!  Then he took it over to the tank again and after a few more minutes hollered "Found it!" 

The inner large race had been installed cockeyed at the factory and was about 1/32nd of an inch away from being seated straight!  How the bearings and that race came out OK without burning up is a mystery to me! (G.A.'s maybe?)  But they were fine!  We missed that.  We'd never removed the races (neither did they-they took a brass tool and seated it correctly,) just inspected them for cracks, burns, and grooving.  It was another factory assembly mistake!  Even totally cleaned in the solvent tank that was a hard one to see.  Again, we avoided a potentially serious problem just in the nick of time.  And again the small town mechanic found and fixed our problem at minimal expense.  That wheel was fine from that point on, but the axles still have those cuts on the ends, and are not trustworthy for another extended trip.  But they were safe enough to get home, and to a Challenger dealer, which they ended up doing just fine.

This first "shake-down" trip with the new rig has been frazzling, to say the least.  But not totally unexpected.  Every RV has some problems that need to be fixed after they go on the road for the first time, and I knew this.  That's what a warranty is for.  Even the best, most expensive makes have some units come off the line with lots of problems, some with a few or none, with most falling somewhere between the two.  (Normal manufacturing bell curve).  Since it is out of the original warranty I got the Good Sam Extended Warranty before we even hitched it up the first time!  I will also be getting with the manufacturer about some of the problems, since they didn't break till the rig was actually used under a load for the first time. 

My appointment with the local dealer is for the first week in January.  I have a list.  A lonnnnnng list!  I'll let ya know how that comes out later.  I hope Keystone lives up to its good reputation with customers.  In addition, we'll see how good the Good Sam extended warranty works.  I sure didn't expect to find out this soon!  Accck!  But since our last experience with our insurance coming to the rescue of a broken rig, I bought it just in case. 

Lessons learned?  A used rig with no miles on it that is like new, and is out of warranty, is a real gamble.  I will never get one again that hasn't had the original owner put at least a few thousand miles on it, and has had all the "shake-down" problems already broken and fixed by the factory or dealer.  You would think the opposite-the less miles the better.  Not so.  Unless it's still in warranty.  There is a lot we like about this rig, don't misunderstand that.  LOL! 

So was the whole trip a downer?  No way!  We found the right folks to help on the way, and met a bunch of plain ol' honest people that confirm our belief in the abilities and honesty of the people who still make this country great. 

An example.  We decided to stop about two hours from home to avoid arriving at night.  As we started looking for an RV park off I-20 between Canton, Texas, and Tyler, we saw a sign for the Willow Branch RV Park.  We exited and followed the signs to one of the nicest little parks we've found yet!  It is all shaded and old growth trees with long pull through spaces.  Peggy, the owner and manager had decorated it for the holidays, and being just two hours from home, made us finally feel some Christmas spirit.  She has the largest swap library I've ever seen and it is one for one!  It fills two large walls, and then some, and is all arranged by type and author!  She also had an extensive video library for rent for only a dollar each!  There were lots of newer videos as well as classics.  Peggy stayed past her dinnertime to make us feel welcome.  That seems to be her style rather than an exception.  There's a nice clubhouse, pool and cabanas (of course drained and closed for the winter), as well as a nice laundry room.  All for under $15.00.  They had a lot of fallen branches that had just been cleaned up from the ice storm that had swept through the area several days before, but that didn't detract from the charm of the park, or the hostess.  If ya stop by there sometime, you'll see what we mean. 

The park is close enough to use for the Canton "First Monday" town wide flea market, (billed as the world's largest.)  Of course, that's her heaviest weekend and no discounts apply for that weekend only.  We plan to stop by there on the way home from now on, whenever we find ourselves coming in late.  If ya do stop by, say Hi to Peggy for us!

Our love of traveling this great country of ours is stronger than ever.  So we will have to do the four-letter word . . .you know . . . the "W" word? (W..k! LOL!)  For awhile longer than we expected to be "w...ing."  Then we will be back on the road again as soon as possible, (when our balance is out of negative units) with a (hopefully) dependable rig.  We will be coming out of retirement from our DJ business and doing R&D on the new satellite Internet systems to see if we can get it easy to use on the road for RVrs.  However, we had to get here to do it.  My group of friends and family here include prototype fabricators and design folks who will be helping with the R&D and testing.  OK, we will be having fun so it won't seem like w..k!

We hope your holidays were joyful, and that the New Year brings joy and love your way, along with everything you need.

RV/dg, Lynn, and Bogart The Wonder Dog