It's been a busy couple of weeks lately. Without our first camping trip right around the corner, @mrsbozz and I have been working to make sure everything is ready to go. I wrote a post a bit ago about how I repacked the grease in the bearings of our travel trailer.
Meanwhile, my wife has been organizing and cleaning the inside of the trailer to ensure we have everything we need and are completely comfortable. I still have a couple of things I need to do on the outside of the trailer like lubricate the slide out and condition the seals on the slide out so that it doesn't leak and works as expected each time we use it.
In the midst of all this routine maintenance, a couple of unexpected issues popped up that required my immediate attention.
The first had to do with the spare tire on my truck. A short time ago my friend @a4xjeeper and I hauled some cars from a couple miles away for a client. While getting ready for that job he noticed that my spare tire was loose underneath the bed of my truck.
It looked like I had the tire upside down, so I just needed to lower it down, flip it over, and then lift it back up.
One small problem.... The hoist to lower it down was not working properly. I couldn't get it to budge and I could tell I was starting to strip the nut on the hoist.
Definitely, not good. If I were to ever get a flat tire and be on the side of the road somewhere, I wouldn't be able to get my spare tire down to replace the flat. I knew I had to do something about it, but I wasn't quite sure what. I did some research on Google and I discovered that these hoists seizing up is actually a pretty common occurrence.
I decided the easiest fix would be to cut the existing cable, lower the tire, and then replace the hoist. It looked like they were about $80 USD new, so I didn't think that was too bad.
It took a lot more work to cut the cable than I thought it would. There simply wasn't any clearance to get to the cable and I was afraid the heavy spare tire was going to drop on me. I ended up putting a floor jack under the truck with a board to catch the tire so I could cut the cable and not worry about getting hit.
I only realized after the fact that I should have taken a picture of my setup. It worked really well.
As you can see from the photo above, the cable was still in pretty good condition, but the other piece was so rusted that it just hung up on the mechanism.
With the tire out of the way, it was just a single bolt to pull the hoist down and then I took it to the auto parts store to order the replacement.
One day and one bolt later, I had my spare tire mounted back up underneath my truck snug as can be. Although I had some struggles, it was a quite simple repair. The new hoist works really smoothly and the connection between the wrench and nut is tight with zero signs of stripping.
If you own a truck that stores the spare tire under the bed via some form of hoist, I encourage you to periodically lower it and raise it back up to ensure it is working properly. The last thing you want is to be stranded somewhere with a spare tire available, but inaccessible.
That first day after I cut the old hoist, I decided to check out the gas lines on our travel trailer. Usually, this consists of turning on the gas tanks, then crawling under the trailer and spraying all the connections with soapy water to see if there are any leaks. If there is a leak, the soapy water will bubble up.
I pulled the cover off my gas tanks, and twisted the knobs, when suddenly I heard a whooshing sound and could smell the unmistakable smell of liquid propane.
I looked around at the connections to see where the leak might be, and totally overlooked the hoses that connect the tanks to the pressure regulator.
As you can see from the photos, not one but both of the gas lines had deteriorated over time and were dry rotted and cracked. I am guessing it is just a combination of the heat and age that made them fail over time. I've actually never had a line do this before.
Thankfully, it was a pretty easy fix. I took one of the old lines into our local RV shop and they were able to get me a couple replacements for right around $15 USD a piece.
With these old lines thrown out and the new lines in place, I turned on the gas and was relieved not to hear that same whooshing sound I had heard before. I used a small meter I have to test the gas tanks to see how much gas they had in them.
I was a bit surprised to find that one of them was completely empty. I pulled it off and let @mrsbozz know I was going to run down to the local hardware store to get it filled. With a full tank, I put it back in place and reconnected the new hoses and I was good to go.
A quick check underneath with my squirt bottle full of soapy water indicated there were no further leaks.
As I said, I still have a couple more small maintenance things to take care of, but we should be good to go for our first trip of the year. Although it is a bit later than normal for our first trip, it is still relatively close to home, so if we do run into issues, we won't be too far away.
At seven years old, the Fun Finder is still providing us lots of enjoyment and I think she still has a lot more miles to be put on her. I'm looking forward to taking us on some trips outside of the state before too long.
Sports Talk Social - @bozz.sports
