Finishing Up Our Successful Florida Trip

We left Saturday on our sojourn to Florida for repairs.  We decided mid day on a Saturday would be fine to go through the middle of Atlanta, but when we checked traffic just before, all of mid town was stopped with several accidents, and since the western side of 285 was closed for construction we detoured and went down outside the west side of the city like I used to drive to work.  That worked out fine and we had fine sailing to our stop for the night in Elko, GA, at Twin Oaks.  We pulled in and then I made a very bad decision still unknown at that time to run the leaking slide out one more time.

Got off the next morning at a leisurely pace, after all we were just going to a spot at the service center, Josam's, outside their gate so we didn't feel we'd accomplish too much by getting there early.  Pulled in the slide and off we went at about 10am.  All was fine until we stopped for lunch, Jan went out to stretch her legs and when she came back in noticed that the front of the leaking slide was out a couple inches.  Hmm, so I tried to pull it back in and it popped farther out, maybe 6 inches!

Then I decided I'd run it all the way out and bring it back in, all that accomplished was to make it a bit worse, we tried physically pushing on it to no avail.  So we decided we'd just have to drive with it like that and deal with it later.  Thankfully it never moved.  We finally pulled into Josam's at 6pm after spending an hour in stop and go traffic all through Ocala, made for a very long day, but we persevered with a drink and a cigar:-)

Looks pretty idyllic, right?

As we enjoyed both the drinks and cigars we were entertained by huge lizards on the wall and building!

And the slide at least was stable, no changes.

Barry got us in the shop first thing in the morning, and the first thing he found was the ABS valve was not leaking but there was a PPV, a pressure prevention valve that was, so that was replaced and 3 new brake lines installed, and we were out the door before 10am!  Then off to Classy Motor Coach Custom RV Repair in Mulberry, FL, just south of Lakeland.  We pulled into their yard at 11:20am and were met by Sonny and Dustin, and after we got the truck unhooked I backed into their workshop.  They were a little surprised as they knew we were coming with a leak but not an askew stuck slide, but they took it in stride.

They checked things out, agreed the leak could not possibly be in a worse spot, and the first thing Dustin did that amazed us was he released pressure on the synchronizing cylinder and the side of the slide that was sticking out miraculously just moved back in!!!  

The synchronizing cylinder lives in this compartment just above the fuel tank

Incredible, but now the slide would not move at all.  It was then discovered that our leak was much worse than we thought as we found the reservoir for the hydraulic fluid (ATF) was almost empty, we got that filled up and bled and voila, the slide moved, on to the leak.  We had thought initially, wouldn't it be sweet if it was just a loose connection instead of a bad ram or worse, no easier to reach, but wow that would that be sweet.  And that is exactly what it was, a loose connection almost impossible to get to, but they persevered, and with a bit of jury rigging and combining several different tools and extensions and going through all sorts of contortions Dustin was able to get it retightened and leak free.  They moved the slide in and out several times after cleaning the connection up and left it pressurized overnight just to be sure and no leaks at all in the morning!

Maybe I can get in there from here

No this way works better

After a pleasant quiet and completely dark overnight and after checking one more time for the leak, we all called it good and then they called our attention to several places on our belt line both bottom and top where it was pulling away from the wall which can lead to leaks and all kind of problems, so we opted for them to repair those.  Turned out they had to repair about 16-18 feet of belt line, all good to go now.  They even recaulked all our slide toppers, and above our door awning.

While they were working on the repairs, there were two things on our list to do since we were in Lakeland, yeah we have spent quite a bit of time in that area over the years.  One was to get pho at a very favorite restaurant, Saigon Bistro, we still think it is the best pho we have ever had anywhere, saying a lot, and the other especially for me was to get the best strawberry milkshake in the world at Parksdale near Plant City.  So while they were working we were keyed up to go do those two things, but guess what, both were closed on Tuesday, grrrrrrrrr!

Oh well, you can't win them all, and we were so pleased with our repairs, the shop, both Sonny and Dustin, our experience was so good and we can't recommend them enough.  So it was worth missing our pho and me my shake:-)

We will be back in Atlanta Thursday, we are expecting our revised plans later today, and will forward them to the builder and see if we can't kickstart this deal by next week.  Continue keeping your fingers crossed for us.