Week two at the park

Another update to the blog is overdue and here is a recount of last week. Our RV Park’s free wifi has only a hotspot at the office building and not throughout the park. For the few months that we are RVing we decided to forego a subscription to a wifi provider for the USA, so that means when I want to use my iPad or the MacBook I have to walk to the office building and park myself at a table in the community room. But there is one major drawback; the park management does not permit streaming or the use of Skype. Shoot, I like to talk to my mom in Germany every other day and to make that happen Benno loads me and the dachsies into the pickup for a ride to Yuma’s Home Depot parking lot to make use of the store’s superb strong free wifi signal thus joining the odd RVer there too who is longing for the Internet as well. Yep it works! But back to the RV Park’s hotspot wifi, it is good enough to sit in the community room to do email, search on the Internet or read blogs of interest etc. Benno spent a good portion of time to Google and search for info on travel trailer tires and to locate the best rewarding tire brand and the best price for them. We had to replace all four tires of our Jayco White Hawk 24 trailer. One tire from the blowout just before Tucson, AZ and the other three, which got damaged when the forward axle springs broke and the wheel wells were riding on the rubber at the West ramp to the Interstate 8 at Gila Bend AZ. That adventure turned into an eleven hundred dollar setback there, I mean US dollars not Canadian Dollars for us snowbirds!

Benno nailed his search for new trailer tires down to the Goodyear Endurance brand of tires, which seem to have good reviews on the Internet and have been made in the USA since 2017. Hey, time will tell! Last Monday we went to Yuma’s Goodyear Tire dealer to get our Jayco travel trailer new shoes! The tires were promised to come in the next day at noon and at the promised time we were there with the rim of the blowout tire and another wheel from the curbside of the trailer.

The previous night, with all the rain we had here, Benno had removed the wheel and had secured the forward axle with a 12-ton bottle jack and a 3-ton axle stand while the rear axle was still having the spare tire. Wouldn’t you know it, we didn’t bring any jacks and axle stands with us, they are nicely stored at home, so we had to get new ones from the famous Harbor Freight store in Yuma, both items were on sale, thanks God!

The Goodyear Tire dealer installed the new Endurance tires to the rims and balanced the wheels. Back at the RV Park after a quick lunch Benno mounted the tires and started to remove the two wheels of the trailer’s roadside, secured one axle with the spare tire and the other with the axle stand and bottle jack, having now gained plenty of tire changing experience, voila! 

Back into the truck and a quick drive to the Goodyear Tire dealer to get the other two Endurance tires mounted and balanced. The mounting of the tires to the trailer later back at the RV Park Benno managed to do still at daylight. The spare tire found its way back to the bracket on the rear bumper and is ready for new action, which hopefully is not going to happen!

While Benno fitted the new tires, he noticed that Petey, our roadside service chap from Gila Bend, who had removed the broken leaf springs and installed the new springs, had caught an electric brake supply wire at the rear axle with a U-bolt and squashed it between axle and U-bolt. Oops! This explained the error message on the truck’s dash display “check trailer brake wiring“, which showed up several times on our drive between Gila Bend and the RV Park. Benno had planned to search for this problem on a warmer day, as he would be laying in the dirt under the trailer.

After Benno noticed the messed up brake wire, which he swiftly fixed, (after a quick trip to the "you know which store" to get what he needed) he thought that Petey had worked hard from morning until evening and in the dark with a flashlight, he may have been pooped out, so decided to do a thorough inspection of Petey’s work. Good thing he did, because after further inspection he discovered four fine thread nuts that are securing four spring bolts, being loose. They were only hand tight and were screaming to become a big problem down the road to Canada. Petey had forgotten to use his impact wrench to tie them up. Oops again!  

To fix this, you guessed it, another trip to his favorite store Harbor Freight to purchase a set of impact wrench sockets (he needed a 11/16 and a13/16 socket, the impact wrench socket set was cheaper then the normal socket set and on top of this, they are of stronger steel as to Benno’s explanation). In addition he purchased a half-inch drive ratchet, extendible to 18 inch for extra leverage, luckily both items were on sale again. More tools for the tool collection, HaHa, lucky boy!           

All this fixing was done mostly by Benno laying on his back on top of an piece of cardboard while handling tools as a light breeze was blowing cooling Benno down, maybe a little too much, because my hubby now has a sore back or pinched nerve and is unable to stand up straight ;-(

                                          

                  

And yes, the travel trailer finally got washed by the professionals, but we could have had some help from above for that because it rained quite a lot for a couple of days afterwards.         

So our planned sightseeing trips didn’t happen this past week, but I think we saw enough of tool supplies and such.  On one of our return trips from Yuma I spotted this Mexican riding his bike along Interstate 8, probably on the way to Mexico.

Oh, and because of the cool temps we had I put our two doggies into t-shirts, which they seem to like wearing when outside.