Utility Trailers & Recreational Vehicles (RV's)

All I have is a 1000 watt generator so I'm wondering if a 750 watt Micro wave will not overload it even on start up? Thanks in Advance

Happen on I86 in Idaho...

I'm not happy with the furnace for the RV for camping. We do a lot of boondocking. Tried the big buddy heater, but not fond of the fumes. Supposed to be safe, but still kinda stinky. So now I've ordered a Nu Way propane heater made for ice shacks. They are vented with 3" pipe. Cheap, $169 to your door. Then you've got the venting stuff. Only expensive thing was the thimble to go through the roof. Got one made for boats $70. Rest of pipe is cheap single wall. Got the 3000 model which is 16,000 btu. I wrestled with going wood. But problem is that the little stoves require constant stoking. Besides, btu storage is already there for propane and the existing tanks…

Trailer has a huge roof with most of it's area sloped forward... We thought all the water would run off the nose. We had a new rubber roof applied (painted on) which improved it greatly. The rubber roof runs up & over the vynal insert in the edge extrusion (screw cover). Undoubtably the camper putty failed but removing theextrusion is a one way street... to the junk yard. I'm really hating this type of construction. We were getting rain water in the window tracks whch I now suspect was running inside the walls, entering the window channels & flooding the window tracks. After drilling additional the drain holes in the window tracks, the window tracks were…

I had to post this up for people... I know there is a lot of guys towing trailers out there and I figure it would be great sticky for the site. http://www.hitchemup.com/statetowinglaws.htm

Just thought I would share our misadventures as yesterday was a rough day in more ways than one. My family and I are moving from Alaska to Utah and began our journey on Monday weighing in at around 22,000 pounds. On day 2 we ran into about 200 miles of frost heaves. For those that don't know, a frost heave is a huge dip or bump in the road resulting from thawing and freezing of the permafrost under the road. Some of them are bad enough to catch air in your vehicle. Anyway, The frost heaves were so bad that our trailer tongue folded about halfway between Tok, Alaska, and Whitehorse, Yukon Territory...truly the middle of nowhere. Once we put the important stuff in the…

When you are camping... Do you find a dumping station before you head home?

Well Gang... I finally got my feet wet and modified my Jayco Eagle my way. I added a battery cutoff switch and a true battery volt meter. It all tucked away in the power cabinet so its out of site out of mind. Bjut the reason for putting the cut off switch in the cabinet was I could take my trailer out to a camp site in the wood and park it and lock it up. I can shut down the power and know when I return that no one has tampered with the power because its locked up inside. Like I've see lot of idea where the battery cutoff is on the battery box but I was looking for a secure way. Also in the design of all this I set it up so if I'm hooked to 120VAC I can still keep t…

So, I recently drove from Oklahoma to Colorado only a month later move back across the country from home in Colorado to Arkansas. It's only temporary for work but hey, I burned a lot a fuel and got to play with my truck. Below is the truck and trailer combo, a 28' cargo trailer bought from some great folks in Tulsa. More info on that in the Garage Section. I was quite heavy (for me) on the way to Colorado... somewhere north of 22,000 lbs total. Heading to Arkansas on the second leg I dropped quite a bit of weight and was under 20,000 lbs. I fought 50 knot winds on the way to Colorado and ended up getting 8-9 combined MPG for that leg due to fighting winds.…

Ive got the opportunity to tow a friend of mine's fire departments breathing air compressor/generator set up for them. It weighs in around 9,000 - 10,000 lbs. About 12 feet long, tandom axle. My questions, as Ive never really towed this much weight for this length of distance (roughly 125 miles @ roughly 65 mph): What do i need to worry about as far as my transmission goes, I do not have a gauge for it yet and wont before the trip. EGT's and Boost, what to watch for there as far as too high EGT's and best EGT/Boost combo to keep it cool. Ive towed many things so towing is nothing new to me. Boats, campers, trailers. But this is much heavy that most things Ive ev…

We are currently doing a waterproof deck so it doubles as a patio cover underneath. Its a water based product called 'Gaco' that you apply to the new plywood. Taking a total of 4 coats and seam taping all the joints and flashing. I would not want to rely on this simple elastomeric Latex paint for a coating over EPDM on an RV. However, I do think that more expensive Polyurethane products might be worth a trial test run by doing a small spot on your RV to see if it peels after it cures. If you need a chisel to remove it and stays flexible it might be just the thing to add a coating more durable than the original EPDM roof. I think it worth a try as anything latex or water …

The family and I went to Lava Hot Springs, Idaho last weekend. In between all of the fun times that we had, the trailer gave us a few problems. The right side landing gear on my Fifth wheel decided to not go up or down with the motor...turns out the gears were stripped. Luckily I have an obsolete set which means the rebuild kit was more expensive that it should have been. I did get that put back together and it now works just fine. The camp ground we stayed in had full hook ups, never did this before. When I hooked up the pressurized water I noticed a steady stream of water coming out of one of the two pipe that hang vertical out of the bottom of the trailer. …

my 5th wheel has been getting hard to stop lately so I went to adjust them and the adjusters were frozen. Last weekend I opened 2 of them up and freed up the the adjusters. Those things were frozen. While I was in there I noticed that either I have pumped to much grease in there or the seal failed and I had grease on the magnets and a little on one of the shoes. I expect to find some thing similar on the other side. I figure they are 10 years old and I am just going to redo them all. I have been looking at parts and it appears new shoes are going to cost about $100 for a 4 wheels. But I have also found the whole assemblies for $50 a wheel. Then I found these on Amazo…

This morning I'm bring the RV over to the guest house to dump the waste tanks. Everyone knows you start with your black tank then switch to the grey tank(s) after the black is emptied. Right off the bat I pull the rod completely out of the black tank knife valve. (Oh Flippin' Great!) I'm off to New Meadows, ID to pick up a new valve and install it. At least I had the luck of the draw and the valve opened and dumped. Instead of yanking the rod out without dumping. (Ewwww! that would be nasty!). Just another adventure of turning wrenches I guess.... Also got to check the wheel bearing I've got one creating a squeak now... Not a good sign...

Here is a picture of the camping spot we had during our memorial weekend bear hunt in the Oregon coast range.As you can see the topography is steep, just not thousands of feet deep. Thats my truck and trailer. Probably not a pic for truck of the month, but maybe camping spot of the month. Also my first pic posting on the forum.

So a guy here locally is selling an Pullrite superglide. He is asking $650 for it with brackets and rail included. It came off his '04 dodge. Here is some pics he sent me: As you can see here, its a 16k hitch. My trailer can rate gross at 16.5k. If I were to get this hitch, would I need to worry about it failing with this hitch? I have a cargo capacity of 3500 or so pounds. I will be full-timing my trailer, but how much does one think they could put in a trailer to make 3500lbs.? I was thinking the hitch would do and would be okay. It sounds like a great price for the hitch as well. Anyone know if the brackets would work for my dodge?

Came across this article and it demonstrates how important it is to know your trucks load capacity and how to distribute the weight . https://www.thedrive.com/news/broken-ram-3500-dually-shows-a-camper-can-still-overload-a-big-truck According to the article the camper was 5000lbs dry weight. Plus gear and such they estimated total payload at around 6500lbs. That's a lot of weight in the bed. Plus while looking at the pics, a lot of that weight seems to be behind the rear axle. It's terrible what happened to this guy's truck, mopar is refusing to cover it under warranty (a $17,000 repair). Can't say I blame them though. Know how to loa…

Okay so old camper new truck time New truck hopefully means we can travel south out of Alaska say the beginning of October and be back like before Thanksgiving. Have grand kids etc have to be here for the holidays but it’s still a 6 week window. And we can’t be gone in the summer time Alaska is to nice in the summer so we need a ac in the old camper. Have a 14x14 inch hole with vent in roof and its wired for ac but didn’t really need one here ever. So a Honda 2200 watt with a Micro Air Easy start and a Dometic Brisk 2 in the roof. What Honda to buy the one with two 15 amp plugs or the one with one 15 amp and one 30 amp. I may have to plug in to a koa or something a…

I snaked the little wires from my installed digital DC volt meter... The display is under the sink on a toggle. The circuit breaker (AC) & fuse (DC) converter is in the kick space below this. I wired it to an open fuse (why is it open... only a few of the 9 slits are in use?) It didn't work. I unfastened my connections, clip lead to the DC mains, it works. Whew! I didn't toast the unit. Yes, same unit with salvage title. We are not RVing with it, we stick to the basics. Lights, fridge, stove, furnace, water. I shut the AC breakers off when I was working... DC shut off is on the bottom of the box on the tongue (3 group 24 RV batteries). I am think…

Well Gang. I created me a awesome RV storage spot under the edge of my spruce tree and guarded most of the summer sun from the south. It took a bit of tree pruning and ground clean up but I now have a awesome spot for the RV and no longer have to worry about the RV baking in the summer sun and moving all around the yard and killing the grass. etc. I still can have both solar power and city power here being the electric rock is under the tree. Solar is a bit limited but better than nothing.