Category Archives: Airstream

Some trailer maintenance

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After the fall trip, I knew that I had at least a water leak to find, remember this picture?

This was an obvious leak, other clues were the water pump cycling on and off (losing pressure). I wasn’t too concerned since I didn’t see any water inside the trailer, coming under the wall where the pump is. One time I saw liquid coming from under the wall, we were traveling east to Klamath Falls, OR. We stopped at a pull off and I saw it. I was not happy. When we got to our nightly stop, I investigated. There were no other symptoms. I pulled up the closet floor (you will see more later) and found an old potato that had gone so bad, it was liquified. That was NOT the issue this time.

We were headed to California for our holiday visits with family and I wanted to fix it by then. So I removed the floor in the closet and found the leak. The blue arrow shows the water drops and the red arrow shows where it was going, then out the bottom of the trailer:

I made a replacement segment of pipe and replaced the bad section:

Airstream, in its’ infinite wisdom, pretty much must have placed the floor of the closet on top of all the components underneath. I guess they thought no one would put any weight on the floor, even if it is the largest storage area in the trailer! Once replaced there was no leakage but the floor still rested on the pipes, even more so now since I made it just a hare longer. I stopped the leak but did not address the cause. Since we were leaving later on a short trip, that didn’t need too much in the closet, I just did a quick and dirty fix, with the plan to do a better fix later. I put a small vertical support piece and two 2x4s to elevate the floor over the pipes.

Our holiday trip came and went without event. Well, a minor event. Pulling out the trailer from our son’s backyard, the gate was not secured well enough and the latch introduced itself to the back panel.

Ouch! Oh well, it is just cosmetic and shows we do use our trailer.

We had an upcoming trip starting in June and I had a few projects to get going on. Here we go.

I had both 30amp and 50amp outlets set up at home but they were on the same pole. We had a carport, for the trailer and truck, on order for quite a while, and in anticipation of that, I had to move the 50amp outlet close to the carport. The source of the electricity was south of our garage on the power pole next to the house. I had to get the wires to the back of the garage on the west side of it. Since it was 50amp, the wiring had to be 6/3 and I opted for direct burial. 6/3 wire is really thick and very stubborn. I knew our son was coming to visit so I needed to prepare it for him to help me.

The first stage was to get the wire from the power pole into the garage. Trenching ensues. Now I might not have buried it deep enough but shoveling is not fun.

I did use conduit to get into the garage and from the power panel.

Here you can see the conduit coming from the breaker box and the current 30amp outlet (for guests).

When our son showed up to visit, with his family, I put him to work. I got the wire into the garage but now we had to go up the inside wall (not sheetrocked), over the rafters, and down another inside wall. This was non-trivial with that stiff wire. Eventually, the 50amp outlet was in place.

We had a carport installation scheduled for right after we came home from the holidays, the first week of January. We got a call on the way home that the crew was sick and they needed to reschedule. OK. Everyone that they couldn’t get to would get pushed back a few days or a week. Nope, that is not how the company decided to do it. They pushed us back a full month! Not very fair for them to do that but what can we do? Eventually, it was installed, and here is a picture of it with its normal inhabitants.

Next! We had an air conditioner replaced a little while back and installed a Soft Start component to that A/C. This component allows the air conditioner to take less amperage to start up. Starting is the biggest electrical jolt when running an A/C. These devices should make an easier life for the A/C and allow operation on less amperage, possibly even with a generator.

I saved the Soft Start from the old A/C and purchased a new one for the second A/C we have. This way we are covered on both. The first installation on the 2nd A/C went perfectly and helped quite a bit (you can tell by the sound). The second one was going well until I had to remove a connector from an existing capacitor. I pulled off the soldered multi-connector on it. I was able to get a replacement from Amazon.

Here is the box that contains the Soft Start circuitry.

The next step was to get the A/C’s running on generators. I already had a Honda EU2000 but that wasn’t big enough. Sams Club had a bigger one for a good price, but it wasn’t big enough either. So we run them in parallel. You can connect two generators together to combine their power. It did work and we could run one A/C with them, I didn’t try two but that might work.

When you run two generators in parallel, you connect them together with a set of wires (you can get that a Harbor Freight) which is simple enough. However, you also have to connect to the separate ground connectors that are on each generator. Quick disconnects might have worked but the Honda had a difficult connector. I found, on YouTube, another way to connect the ground. By using a standard outlet connector and only connecting the ground wire, you can simply plug the ground into any of the available power outlets on each generator and it works just like the ground screws externally. This shows the parallel cables and the streamlined ground connector.

On to the next one. This had to do with stabilizing the floor that created the water leak. The temporary fix was OK but it didn’t allow me to put any weight on the floor. I needed to be able to use that area. I created a framework to support the floor. Under that framework, I supported it with 4 simple posts (down the middle), to support the cantilevered part (to the top), I secured it under the side wall (to the bottom). It is very sturdy.

To secure the floor to the new frame, I used some Tee Nuts and countersunk screws.

One thing we both like when traveling is ice for our drinks. Roxie really loves it. We don’t have enough room in our freezer in the trailer and it is inconvenient there so we carry a Yeti 45 with us. We purchased it in 2017 in Pennsylvania when we started full-timing. I normally put it on a couple of milk crates in the back of the truck which raises it where I can reach it over the truck tailgate. The issue is that it will fall over and slide around since nothing holds it there. I decided to build a platform for it. I wanted it the same height as the milk crates but with a lip around to hold the chest from tipping and sliding. I also wanted to ensure a toolbox or other item would fit under it. Here is the result:

We are preparing for a trip to Alaska with our friends, George and Marcia. On the last trip, we took in 2019, the only real issue we had was one of our winterizing valves cracking and leaking. The story is here. I thought I would do something to protect that part of our trailer, along with our freshwater drain. I also noticed I was missing part of the belly pan below. Here is the unprotected view:

I decided to get a piece of aluminum flat bar and make some protection.

I attached them with VHB tape and covered that with aluminum tape. I didn’t want to use screws or rivets due to putting a hole in one of the tanks under the belly pan OR having part of the belly pan ripped open if I hit something. This way if these hit, they would be ‘sacrificial’. I also covered the hole in the belly pan. We will see how it goes.

There were a couple more minor fixes. With our ’92 trailer, I put in a SHUB. This is a shower door that retracts into itself. It was much nicer than the accordion folding plastic door that was original. On this trailer, when the shower door broke (not under warranty) I replaced it with a SHUB also. It has worked great for 8-9 years. Recently it started leaking under the front edge. I solved it by recaulking it according to their instructions. The caulk was really old. Here it is cleaned before caulking:

One last one and then we will go. This trailer has a really nice storage area under the bed, accessible from the outside. However, since the trailer is now so old, the locks are no longer available for this door. Naturally, one of them started failing. There is, however, are kit that replaces the old locks with the new, readily available ones and fills in the gaps caused by the difference between the two.

As an aside, I was able to grind down all the Olympic rivets that I had replaced around the trailer so they look much nicer now, like above.

With that, we are on our way to Montana to meet our friends and start our trek.

Fall Colors – Part 5

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We turned our trailers back west and started the trek back to our respective homes. We were going to travel together for a while and then take separate paths and timelines after that. We were still going strong to our first stop for the night in Greenwood, VA at Misty Mountain Camp Resort. It was very adequate for a single night stop, no disconnecting needed!

We drove along some beautiful back roads with great colors to our next stop.

Some hitchhikers were discovered.

We drove avoiding (or trying to) the plethora of toll roads in the east and moved into West Virginia and it sure looked like what I pictured the mining areas to look like! Actually, our stop for the night was in Beckley and we stayed in a campground at the Beckley Exhibition Coal Mine.

This campground was very rustic and had the steepest approach I have ever seen anywhere. It was a steep left-hand turn up a hill with wet leaves all over the drive. I knew it was coming, due to looking at it on Google Maps, so I made sure I had enough speed and we only slipped a little bit. We then had to back into the spot, which was terraced along the hillside with the others, downhill to the right side. It had been raining so the sides were muddy. We made it in and were anticipating the exit the next day. That night we went to a Texas Roadhouse in town (Beckley is pretty big).

The next morning we did the mine tour before we left, we actually camped right above the mine. We had been on other mine tours, like Bisbee AZ, but this was the first coal mine tour we had ever been on. Even sitting in the mine car and being driven, I had to watch my head.

I really liked that area and would like to come back sometime and spend some more time, especially since there is so much to go see and do. But we had another destination on our minds, we were on our way to Kentucky. We headed a bit more north out of Beckley and then turned west again. I remember in Charleston WV, we were on the interstate (64) and we crossed the Kanawha River 4 times! Interesting what the geography makes you do in those hills.

We ended up at Carter Caves State Resort Park in Olive Hills, KY. This is a beautiful park with caves, trails, camping, lodging, whatever you want. We took a few hikes there (George and Marcia more that we did) the night we arrived. We took a few more the next day before we left. We saw a large cave the river carved out and a small animal that we saw at least a couple of times that day.

We left Carter Caves, remembering to stop again sometime. We took non-interstate highways today since it was only 150 miles to our next stop, the last one with George and Marcia. We drove through the local town, Olive Hill, and I saw the city sign that says it was the home of Tom T Hall. No one else saw it.

We skirted north of Lexington, KY, looking at all the HUGE horse farms all along the road. Went through Georgetown, KY, where Toyota has a manufacturing plant. I didn’t know this until we were past and may have stopped as we were looking for a RAV4 to purchase. We ended up at Still Waters campground, north of the capitol, Frankfort. That evening we took a jaunt into the Capitol to investigate. We saw the capitol area and a famous burial site.

The next day we visited our primary destination here.

This is the Ark Encounter. A full-sized replica of what Noah’s Ark could have looked like. It is huge. It is interesting and it was pretty busy. Roxie and I have wanted to come here for a long time and we drug George and Marcia along since we were ‘nearby’.

I am glad that we went as it is very impressive. It took about 10 months to build the actual ark with modern techniques. I could not fathom doing it with only hand tools and humans. We don’t have to worry about this on our list now.

Another thing I learned from the pictures above, I should start wearing sunglasses outside.

The next day was the time to part ways. We traveled with them starting on 9/22 and now, a month later, we were continuing on a southern track and they were going to do some more visiting with friends and relatives to the north (actually just north in Ohio).

We took off west into Indiana and had lunch at a great burger place in the old Greyhound Bus depot in downtown Evansville. Our stop for the night was pretty close, on the Illinois border.

We left Indiana, crossed the river into Illinois for a while, ate lunch at a great steakhouse (Colton’s) in SE Missouri, and ended up staying the night in Arkansas. It was pouring rain for the time we were here so we didn’t have many extra-vehicular excursions.

Oddly, we were just north of Wynne, AR. This is where Roxie’s mom was born and where we visited, with George and Marcia, just 2 years before.

We headed on to Conway, AR, and Toad Suck SP! We like Toad Suck, it’s right on the Arkansas River and a very nice Corp of Engineers campground.

We were staying there for 2 nights because we had to do laundry on one of the days. So the night we got there we went to Petit Jean SP. The main reason to go there is we had some friends/relatives to visit there. We knew that Jamie and Brian worked there, Jamie is our granddaughters’ aunt and they got out of California less than a year ago (good for them!). The State Park has a restaurant at their lodge so we decided to eat there and visit with them.

We said goodbye to Arkansas but not before having lunch in Fort Smith. We found a great little pizza place (Larry’s Pizza). This was a pizza buffet (hard to find anymore) and it was in a huge old dance hall. They had at least 20 different pizzas to choose from, some very odd combinations. The twist was someone would walk through the seating, calling out what pizza they were carrying and you could get a piece or two from them directly. It was very nice and refreshing to see. Our night was spent camping by Eufala Lake in Oklahoma.

Oklahoma City was due west of us but I sure didn’t want to go through there and there was an ulterior motive for staying in southern Oklahoma. We drove a bit north of Blake Shelton’s area, Tishomingo, and ended up at The Point campground near Sulphur OK. This picture is from the next day as it was raining really hard the night before.

Since we were in Oklahoma heading westbound, we were going the long way and were still in Oklahoma for the next night. We drove through Lawton, again. The last time was 2019 on our way to Alaska but we were heading north/south that time. We stopped for the night near Altus, OK, and stayed at the Mountain Shade campground overlooking Tom Steed Lake. Altus had a Toyota dealer that I had contacted about a RAV4. We went by and looked at them and test-drove a used one. We ended up putting down a deposit to hold one if it came in and was what we wanted. Also, they could register it in our home state of Texas! Here is the campsite:

The next stop and next day was Amarillo. We weren’t house hunting this time, we were here to do laundry, get a truck and trailer inspection, and see a movie. A bit of downtime. We stayed at a newish RV park south of town that is just starting out. It was adequate but just like most northern Texas parks. We did our chores and continued west.

Back on I40W, not much choice around here now. We stopped at Santa Rosa Lake SP, as we have before. I started noticing a water leak under the trailer and the water pump cycling a lot. Oh good, another project! We did see another Airstream at Santa Rosa but never saw the owners.

We were starting to hit some cold, stormy weather and it was evident when we stopped at one of our normal spots, the Casino at Sky City. The next morning, the leak was very evident.

I40 had some severe snow that night and we were concerned about passage through but the next morning all was OK for us. We did see numerous semis on the side of the road, some actually on their side. We were planning on stopping for a couple of nights in Holbrook to go to the Petrified Forest but the cold weather had us stop for a night at another old standby, Homolovi State Park. The next day was home, almost 2 months later. We were able to knock a few more states off our map after this trip. Remember I only count a state if we spend the night there.

Our next adventure is projected to start in June 2023.