How a $4 part can ruin your trip!
Bear with me, it’s been a long week, just thought I'd share for a laugh.:B All this past week I had to keep reminding myself that RVing is fun, but I can do some dumb things and other things just ...
Forum Discussion
My maiden voyage this year was dry camping at the Sebring 12-hour race for a week. Little did I know that:
1. On the drive down, a nut on one of the front sway bar end links spun off. It was windy too, which didn't make me suspect anything was wrong. It was a huge chore to keep between the stripes. Discovered that one a few weeks after getting home. One new end link and pair of nuts later, ($40 at the Ford dealer!), all was fixed, with a healthy glob of threadlocker and breaker bar applied torque on the nuts.
2. Getting out the grill the first evening there, I find a floody mess in that storage compartment, which is also where the water pump lives. It turns out the pump strainer fitting has a crack and a resulting drip about every 15 seconds. Since I was dry camping on concrete, the drip had only dropped about a gallon out since I'd filled the tank 6 days before, and I had a water source, I just took the drain plug out of the compartment floor and let it keep dripping. IIRC, a new strainer via Amazon was about $8. Fixed that one a few weeks after getting home too.
3. Now paranoid about water, one morning during the week I happen to go outside shortly after taking a shower and notice a small water puddle on the concrete under the rear of the RV. Uh-oh. See it is coming from the top of the frame rail right at the rear cap, and that in turn is being fed from somewhere above in the house. Take off all the rear storage compartment panels,and get access to under the shower and to the plumbing in the wall behind it. I never found exactly where the leak source was, but caulking every shower enclosure and faucet seam, and making sure all faucet and shower hose connections were tight took care of this one too.
All those Go RV'ing TV commercials don't give you one clue on what an adventure it can be. :-/
1. On the drive down, a nut on one of the front sway bar end links spun off. It was windy too, which didn't make me suspect anything was wrong. It was a huge chore to keep between the stripes. Discovered that one a few weeks after getting home. One new end link and pair of nuts later, ($40 at the Ford dealer!), all was fixed, with a healthy glob of threadlocker and breaker bar applied torque on the nuts.
2. Getting out the grill the first evening there, I find a floody mess in that storage compartment, which is also where the water pump lives. It turns out the pump strainer fitting has a crack and a resulting drip about every 15 seconds. Since I was dry camping on concrete, the drip had only dropped about a gallon out since I'd filled the tank 6 days before, and I had a water source, I just took the drain plug out of the compartment floor and let it keep dripping. IIRC, a new strainer via Amazon was about $8. Fixed that one a few weeks after getting home too.
3. Now paranoid about water, one morning during the week I happen to go outside shortly after taking a shower and notice a small water puddle on the concrete under the rear of the RV. Uh-oh. See it is coming from the top of the frame rail right at the rear cap, and that in turn is being fed from somewhere above in the house. Take off all the rear storage compartment panels,and get access to under the shower and to the plumbing in the wall behind it. I never found exactly where the leak source was, but caulking every shower enclosure and faucet seam, and making sure all faucet and shower hose connections were tight took care of this one too.
All those Go RV'ing TV commercials don't give you one clue on what an adventure it can be. :-/
