On The Road Again

We took 3 days to tear down our site this year.  It was so hot, we did a little bit each morning before it got unbearable.  Any time we travel, we usually make it a point to move in the morning, that way any issue, problem, or unexpected turn of events doesn't impact you as much.  But this year our first stop was a service call to Josam Frame and Alignment in Orlando, in which we had an early appointment on Thursday, so were only going to spend the night beforehand, and it was only 120 miles, so we waited and left around 1pm.  Out on the interstate northbound and what do we find, the entire northbound side closed!  We were able to detour around it, but we also needed to get fuel and it almost looked like we weren't going to arrive before they closed for the evening.  Luckily we made it with about 30 minutes to spare.  Lessons learned.

  

In for the night

Our appointment was for several items, rotate the tag tires to the steer and vice versa, install Balance Masters on the steer and tag, change the air system desiccant cartridge, and check for air leaks.  So into the shop first thing in the morning and man o man, bad news!  BUT, what we found was our drag link was bad!  Really bad, and had to be replaced.  So bad that we felt it wouldn't be safe to even drive 25 more miles.  This link was replaced back in 2013 with the OEM part, the only available part at the time, too expensive, 3 weeks to get, and only had one replaceable end.  It was a total fiasco at that time, so we were astonished that it was bad again.  Good news and bad news, there is a much improved, stronger design available now with replaceable ends, but it is made in Oregon.  And this is Thursday, we have all sorts of reservations and doctor and dentist appointments and could be in a real time bind.  Luckily they had one when we called when they opened and were able to overnight it so it should arrive tomorrow and be installed tomorrow, so we will hopefully only be one day behind.  Keep your fingers crossed.  Then we found out we had unusual wear on our tags which were planning to move to the steers, so we bit the bullet and are putting 2 new tires on the steer.  Also, they felt the unusual wear on the tags was caused by an alignment issue, and checking records we had never had the drive or tag aligned.  My bad, thought we had.  So onto the alignment machine and sure enough the tag was toed in way too far causing the wear.  But they were able to fix it by heating the steel and bending it.  Sounds scary, but they do it all the time.  

Getting aligned

These are the Balance Masters, they are steel discs that have a liquid substance in the tubular edge that automatically balance the wheel and tire.  I've done quite a bit of research on them and people seem to love them.  I have always used beads in the tires, but more recently we haven't been as pleased.  This will be a new experience for us in which we will report back what we think after a few thousand miles.  Right now we only put them on the tag and steer, later we will put another pair on the drive.

All unexpected, but better here and now and not on some windy, twisty, narrow two lane high in the mountains with a catastrophic failure.  Oh yeah and I forgot to mention when we pulled into Josam's we noticed the windshield on the truck was broken!  Looked like a rock caught the top of the windshield and cracked about a foot.

What a nice surprise

They also checked for air leaks and found quite a few, all fixed, but in the morning after sitting overnight, our auxiliary air pump which provides air for our leveling ran numerous times, obviously, we still have a few leaks.  They will look again this morning when the pit opens up.  Now we are biding time waiting for the drag link to show.  As an aside, yesterday it was in the 80's here, hot and humid, this morning 48df and windy, wow, what a difference!

Fantastic update!  The drag link arrived at 10am, woohoo.  Installed by 10:30.  It is a brute, hopefully this is our last drag link:-)

Our new brute of a drag link

Installed

Then they checked for air leaks again, and sure enough we had several more.  You have to realize we have probably hundreds of connections and fittings, and they all leak a little bit, the air compressor on the engine can keep up with most of them but air provides our suspension support and our brakes, and in a motorhome like ours the air leveling system we use when parked.  A tech shoehorned himself under the rear of the coach and was able to repair all the leaks they had found, although it took a little longer than planned as they had to source an unusual fitting they didn't have in stock.

Getting the last of our leaks fixed

But even so, we pulled out about 3:30.  We had changed our plans when we had to spend the extra night there and instead went to a very nice park we like a lot and most importantly was only 60 miles away, Grand Oaks Resort in Lady Lake, FL.  It has huge sites, very quiet, amidst an enormous equine center, even a restaurant on premises.  We'll chill here two nights before we head up to Atlanta.

Our much better view from our site at Grand Oaks:-)

We also have decided that in the future, any service appointment we make will be no later in the week than Wednesday, running it any closer to the weekend is asking for trouble, we lucked out this time, a little lighter in the wallet, but feeling very confident we made the right decisions, and very happy they found a potentially dangerous situation and took care of it.

The Final Countdown

Really counting it down now.  Trying to get those last few things done, last few restaurants visited, and plans made for our ever-changing itinerary.   And speaking of that, when we did our brake light fiasco, we were reminded how bad our molded side panels are in the driver's area.  They were shabbily made as we've come to find out and have been shrinking and moving with all the years.  Hard to believe our coach is 14 years old.  But when I installed our new battery system and its new switch and then had to take the panel back out when messing with the brake light, it really made itself known how bad they looked, pulling away from the wall, and not supporting the switch panels, etc.  Then the lower sub panel is broken and getting worse.  All this started our minds working, always a bad thing:-)

You can really see the big gap between the lower panel and the main panel
and it is bad along the wall as well

This lower panel has been ordered new, as it is broken and we 
plan to modify it to make it shorter.
Also you can see the gap very clearly

The passenger panel is in much better shape, but we don't
use the cubbies or need the fire extinguisher mounted there

We talked about it some and let it fester in our brains for awhile, managed to get out to lunch a couple times with Tom, being full vaccinated now has certainly given us much more confidence in getting back closer to normal.  

We had fun making delicious homemade pizza one evening, it was yummy!

Then slowly a possible idea started to come to us, since we already had 2 weeks reserved in Missoula, MT, how far is that from Oregon, specifically Junction City where Scott and Amazing Creations are located.  Scott has done a lot of beautiful work for us in the past and we knew he was capable of reworking our panels in cherry that would be sturdy and good looking.  But could he, would he have time, would he have an opening in his schedule?????  So after a call and some pictures texted and some info back and forth, we are now going back to Oregon this year, who knew?!?

Jan found time to wash and wax the truck, and BIL Tom was tickled to be able to get his jab when Florida lowered their age requirement.  The weather has been up and down, really hot and humid, then glorious for awhile, back and forth, our daughter Kelly sent us some awesome insulated glasses for our cocktails that really come into their own when it's hot and humid, actually they are amazing!

Much nicer than fat plastic glasses and no sweating at all!

Then before we headed north to Brooksville, Fl to Stone Vos / TalinRV to get our awning fabric replaced, we met Tom for lunch in Sarasota, and after a great lunch we went to Walt's fish market and picked up some jumbo lump crabmeat for, you guessed it, crab cakes!

Almost gone before remembering a picture:-)

Then on Sunday we picked up and went to TalinRV, spent the night in anticipation of our awning appointment.

Our spot for a couple nights

And then to make the most of it, first cocktails and then an awesome shrimp salad Jan put together.

After a peaceful night, at about 9am our two techs, Dustin and Mike came out and started right in on our slide toppers.

Off comes the first slide topper fabric

On goes the new

First one done

We popped out for an early lunch and by the time we got back they were ready to tackle the window awnings.  We worked together on each one, I had the job to press the button to operate the awnings in or out when they needed it.  

Opened all the way to get the old fabric off

Pulling the new fabric on

As the day wound down they had completed everything except for the last window awning and the door awning, and told us they would be back first thing in the morning to take care of those.  Jan took the time to make a delicious pot roast as it had been a cool day.

Delicious!

They were concerned they might get there too early and I explained we were very early risers and there was no chance they could be there too early:-)  So right at 7am, almost still dark they showed and by 9am, they were done!

Last one

I just want to say if you need awnings, awning fabric, or any quality work done on your coach, we can't recommend TalinRV and Stone Vos any higher.  From the first contact through the estimates, appointment setup, and the entire installation, the communication was frequent, clear, and concise, and the attention to detail by these techs was wonderful and refreshing.  There are few shops all across this country that provide quality service and this is one of them!

Back to Nokomis for our last week.