Monday, September 4, 2017

Summer is technically over... Camping Trip!

Now that we're back home and getting ready for the first day of school, again, it's great to know the RV behaved well up to the campsite and back this time! After the crazy side trip to Camping World's parking lot in Liverpool, NY the LH2 is back up and ready for action as noted by the previous post.

I did do some other minor fixes before heading out. One of them was to help the driving behavior on the highway. The Allegro is not so great in a crosswind but even in just a light wind shes' a bit of a two-hander to deal with. So, I ordered a Gabriel RV steering damper and some MOOG urethane sway bar bushings to help the ride.

A stowaway no more! The original useless steering damper.
 This first photo is of the old, OEM? Steering damper. Right. Not much there and it didn't do anything except hang around for the trip. No resistance or anything. Could have worked better as a slide whistle. Getting the part out required a pickle fork (which I found in it's tool box!) and a hammer to pop out the tapered pin/bolt. The other end needed some "Thrust" and my 1/2" impact wrench to undo the 2 nuts locked on the end attached to the cross member. I also needed a pipe wrench (yes, you read correctly) to keep the thing from just spinning with the impact wrench. Right tools= easy job!
 With a couple of trips under the RV the new, very yellow, steering damper was in and ready to go! Now for the sway bar bushings! Moog ones but I'm still a bit skeptical about the fit. I ordered the largest ones and still have a bit of gap on them. I did go the hardware store and picked up all stainless bolts and nuts for the install to replace the bent and rusted ones holding onto the old bushings. That impact wrench smoked the old bolts but did get them off.

There's some new colors in town! Bit by bit, the RV is getting retrofit... Hey! I made a rhyme!
 The only real issues I had was me working the impact wrench under the rig. First I wound up getting the wrong bolt in the bin from the store (someone dumped one in there...) that jammed a nut on it. Then after that I had a nut in the socket and wound up driving 2 nuts onto the bolt and getting that all wonked up. Had to break out the sawsall with the carbide blade to cut that out and redo it. But with all jobs, the right tools= easy job! Okay, now onto other projects that have been lingering on....
The side door always leaked in a big rainstorm. The water would just drip inside and down the door to the floor, making a big puddle on the step that was carpeted. The old drip edge was plastic and completely brittle and shot. You know what? Aluminum drip edge you buy to redo your roof on the house is exactly the size you need to install! All you do is cut off one tab that is used to nail the drip edge onto your roof edge. The rest is bent to fit. I  just cut it to the width and punched in the screws to fit. No caulking or anything. This trip it kept the remnants of Harvey out of our RV on Saturday night and Sunday.

We headed out a bit late after getting everything set for the drive and arrived at the Natural Bridge/ Watertown KOA http://koa.com/campgrounds/watertown/

Gettin' a fire goin' in the Adirondack Campground fire pit! Even cooked two dinners on this one!

A nice pile of old and dry firewood courtesy of Ed at KOA!

Some of the old and outdated playground equipment the new owner's removed from the KOA. Oh, Charlie Brown!

Working and stoking the campfire on Saturday before the remnants of Harvey swooped in and rained for almost 2 days....

The campsite is great with most of the spots being a wooded location under Eastern Hemlocks. The "new" owners have been working on upgrades and fixing things that were left a bit undone by the previous owners. We never had any issues with water, electric or sewer while there. They moved us to a great spot in the middle of the campground (#28!) right next to Ed and family that help them keep the place in shape. Ed even offered to get us some old firewood to stock up our fire pit for the weekend! Everyone was friendly and despite having rain on Saturday night through Sunday all day and night we had a good time.

Now to plan the "after summer" camping trip. Where to go and what to do....