What did you do to your camper today?

[carl.swoyer]

John, living in Florida, I would drop the nose of the trailer down with the hopes that there would be less wind pressure under the front cap when we had a tropical storm or mild hurricane coming. Do not know if this is correct by engineering standards.

Don

I live in Florida and during Irma I put the nose to the wind front hydraulics all the way down.
Then I placed blocks under the remaining four hydraulics and manually lowered them until secured. I also filled my 100 gallon fresh water holding tank.
We had 70 to 80 mph winds

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[JohnD]

Made it through day one...got another day of strong winds today!

There is a wildfire (started as a prescribed burn two days ago) west of here, so had smoke in the air as well!

I thought about lowering the front of the Prowler, but I didn't want to extend the scissor jacks on the back further as they tend to get shakier when they are cranked down a long ways, so I just left the trailer level.

As strong as those winds were yesterday and last night, I was surprised at how the truck backed up against the rear bumper kept the trailer from rocking a lot.

Once in awhile the wind shifted and came from the south, which gave me a little side-to-side rocking, but not bad.

Matter of fact, it is almost rock solid from the mostly western gusts, plus I wanted to keep the truck from getting sand blasted...which for the most part worked!

One of my neighbors asked why I didn't hitch up the truck and trailer for stability, which I thought about doing, but for whatever reason, the way this storm was coming in, this idea just made more sense to me at that moment.





Supposed to be much cooler today so hopefully I won't have to run the AC much today...got up to 90 here yesterday, so the AC ran most of the day!

By the by...my fresh water tank is about 1/2 filled, but didn't want to put the hard ground water in there as I still have pretty clean water from the NRA campground where I was at last week.

I did, however, keep my black and gray tanks almost full for ballast!

 

[Pokiejoe]

Hang in there John that is a bad part of the state ti be in this time of year but the wind will die down soon,15 to 20 on the east side today will see you soon. Pokiejoe

 

[travelin2]

Because today was the first nice day since arriving home from TX, I permanently mounted the WiFi repeater I bought in February. Until today the antenna was temporarily mounted on the ladder with the cable routed in through the back window. Now it’s on the roof. The Airway is mid-ship just inside the entry door
https://www.jefatech.com/products/jefa-tech-wifi-repeater-xr-plus

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[carl.swoyer]

I reinstalled the original factory steps. I had a welder touch up two cracked corners of the top step. I had put on a staircase by flexco, they were junk. So the original stairs had a face lift.
And while under the rig I noticed that the bolts and washers used to attach the plastic belly skin had worn out the plastic. Now I have to fix that.
Then I looked at the driver side forward leaf spring it looks flat.

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[carl.swoyer]

I reinstalled the original factory steps. I had a welder touch up two cracked corners of the top step. I had put on a staircase by flexco, they were junk. So the original stairs had a face lift.
And while under the rig I noticed that the bolts and washers used to attach the plastic belly skin had worn out the plastic. Now I have to fix that.
Then I looked at the driver side forward leaf spring it looks flat.

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Any insight on the leaf spring.?

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[porthole]

Because today was the first nice day since arriving home from TX, I permanently mounted the WiFi repeater I bought in February. Until today the antenna was temporarily mounted on the ladder with the cable routed in through the back window. Now it’s on the roof. The Airway is mid-ship just inside the entry door
https://www.jefatech.com/products/jefa-tech-wifi-repeater-xr-plus

How does it work?


Yesterday I checked my wifi ranger, seems I was not getting the monthly "health report" from my Nest smoke and CO detector.

Sure enough the Nest was working correctly.
And the wifi ranger was on and connected to the house wifi.

The Nest was connected to the ranger

And yet the ranger, connected to the house wifi, and showing it was online, had no internet connection.

And this morning when I tried to access the forum here I had no connection.

I guess since I re-booted the ranger, my laptop decided to connect to the ranger, which is probably 70 feet and 4 walls and aluminum insulated garage doors away.

WiFi Ranger - $650 of frustrating junk

 

[carl.swoyer]

Yesterday I thought I posted on gvwr, Gross vehicle weight.
My first question is, if my gvwr is 16280 pounds what size axel should I have?
Second , what is your opinion on the leaf spring in the attached photo?
Thanks, hopefully someone can chime in.

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[cookie]

It looks like your trailer is sitting on some pretty uneven ground. That could account for that spring looking a little more taxed than the others. If it were my trailer I would not be too concerned but would keep an eye on it.
I think your trailer should have 7K axles. A GVWR of 16,280 should have at least 20% pin weight which would be 3,256 pounds. Most are above 20%.
Anyway, the 3,256 taken from the 16,280 will leave 13,024 on the axles. 7K axles = 14,000.
JMHO

Peace
Dave

 

[carl.swoyer]

It looks like your trailer is sitting on some pretty uneven ground. That could account for that spring looking a little more taxed than the others. If it were my trailer I would not be too concerned but would keep an eye on it.
I think your trailer should have 7K axles. A GVWR of 16,280 should have at least 20% pin weight which would be 3,256 pounds. Most are above 20%.
Anyway, the 3,256 taken from the 16,280 will leave 13,024 on the axles. 7K axles = 14,000.
JMHO

Peace
Dave

Thanks for the input. I'll be able to make it to the seriville rally.
I feel better about the leafs and now the 7 k Axel's and pin weight makes sense.

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[travelin2]

How does it work?

Works well!! I’m in the BH using the repeater connected to own house WiFi about 100’ away. The house signal has to pass through at least 1 wall and maybe the front windows of the house. Oh and the BH is parked behind the garage with the antenna below the garage roof peak so there isn’t a “clear line of sight”! Excellent signal strength.
When logging on to select the house WiFi the repeater detected 2 dozen other neighborhood connections. And we don’t live in a packed small lot development. Everyone here has acre lots so we’re fairly spread apart.
And BTW my phone doesn’t recognize our in house WiFi router from in/where the BH is parked.


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[Candie]

Because today was the first nice day since arriving home from TX, I permanently mounted the WiFi repeater I bought in February. Until today the antenna was temporarily mounted on the ladder with the cable routed in through the back window. Now it’s on the roof. The Airway is mid-ship just inside the entry door
https://www.jefatech.com/products/jefa-tech-wifi-repeater-xr-plus

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Check out this site for a good wifi installation: https://www.fulltimefamilies.com/rv-kids/learn-how-you-can-have-free-wi-fi-in-your-rig/

I really like the way he has mounted the wifi antenna to the TV antenna.


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[travelin2]

Check out this site for a good wifi installation: https://www.fulltimefamilies.com/rv-kids/learn-how-you-can-have-free-wi-fi-in-your-rig/

I really like the way he has mounted the wifi antenna to the TV antenna.


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I’ve seen installs like that but newer rigs like ours no longer have a crank up antenna


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[Candie]

I’ve seen installs like that but newer rigs like ours no longer have a crank up antenna


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Interesting. We just came back from the RV show in Toronto and I never noticed the deletion of the crank up antenna. We never use our crank up TV antenna in our current trailer because we most use satellite. But it looks like a great place to put a wifi antenna, so I went ahead and purchased the bullet and antenna. I'm just waiting for it to stop snowing and warm up a bit so can get on the roof.

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[travelin2]

Interesting. We just came back from the RV show in Toronto and I never noticed the deletion of the crank up antenna. We never use our crank up TV antenna in our current trailer because we most use satellite. But it looks like a great place to put a wifi antenna, so I went ahead and purchased the bullet and antenna. I'm just waiting for it to stop snowing and warm up a bit so can get on the roof.

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That would be a great mounting location. Just remember you’ll need to crank that baby down every time you move!!!
See our stubby King Jack antenna? Our ‘14 had the crank, this ‘17 does not. Plus I had to mount this where I did because it’s a solid antenna (no flex, it’s an upgrade for improved reception) and it’s 15” tall (higher than the front AC). By mounting it further back the roofline it’s no higher than the front AC so I can maintain the same overhead clearance

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[JohnD]

Yesterday I thought I posted on gvwr, Gross vehicle weight.
My first question is, if my gvwr is 16280 pounds what size axel should I have?
Second , what is your opinion on the leaf spring in the attached photo?

Thanks, hopefully someone can chime in.

This is what flat springs look like:

 

[carl.swoyer]

This is what flat springs look like:

View attachment 57352

View attachment 57353

John ,Are these photos of your leaf springs?

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[MCTalley]

Been a while since we've done any mods of significance to the Big Country. I guess getting a new hotspot would arguably be a mod for a full-timer. Picked up a new Netgear Nighthawk hotspot based on recommendations from others. Have noticed negligible difference at our current location (Nashville near the Opry and a lot of tourists), but are anticipating better performance down the road.

 

[JohnD]

John, Are these photos of your leaf springs?

Those were mine...on my previous Heartland Trail Runner TT.



Ironically, it was three years ago this past Saturday (day before yesterday) that I traded it in while it was at an HOC Campout in Denver for my current Prowler.

 

[carl.swoyer]

Today I replaced the four way Anderson valve. Start to finish about 10 minutes.
I guess the first sign of failure was it became difficult to turn.
What I found upon removal of the old one was a crack in the o ring and another one had disappeared. So no more intermittent running of the water pump. Problem solved.
No more filling up the fresh water holding tank while on city water.

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