Ok, Time to Come Clean and Admit Our Screw-Ups

[Got_Dirt_]

Admit it - we've all done some pretty dumb stuff in the name of RVing. They say a wise man learns from his mistakes. I say a wiser man learns from other peoples mistakes.

So, here's an opportunity to be an honest man or woman and share our blunders in the spirit of alleviating another from undue suffering and shame.

To start it off here's just one of my recent faux pas.

During off season, I drain my hot water heater and remove the anode (don't ask why I bother, I just do). It rained so much here in California that water got into the opening where you screw in the anode and rusted up big-time. When it was time to get out of Dodge, I couldn't screw in the anode as the opening was so rusted. What a Dumb A$$!

Long story short, went to the homeless depot and bought one of these.


Click For Full-Size Image.

Cut some grooves so the crud had somewhere to go and voila! Home made thread chaser! Now i know this has been done by many before - it was a first for me and it worked out great.

Anyone else care to share?

[georgelesley]

jplante4 wrote:
Brought the Sahara home at the end of a season, so after a trip to the tire shop, it went right into storage. Next spring during the fitting out, I found that the radio wouldn't power up. I couldn't remember if it was working when I picked up the coach so I bought a new one. After re-wiring the new radio, it still wouldn't power up so I spent half a day with a DVM troubleshooting, finally giving up and running a new hot wire to the chassis switched fuse box.

Fast forward to 13 months later, I'm sitting in the drivers seat and looking at the switches. "What's this switch with the musical notes on it???"

Doh!

That is a great one! When I was a car mechanic I spent a day tracing why the turn signals did not work, finally put in a new wire, then I checked the fuse box...........

[jplante4]

Brought the Sahara home at the end of a season, so after a trip to the tire shop, it went right into storage. Next spring during the fitting out, I found that the radio wouldn't power up. I couldn't remember if it was working when I picked up the coach so I bought a new one. After re-wiring the new radio, it still wouldn't power up so I spent half a day with a DVM troubleshooting, finally giving up and running a new hot wire to the chassis switched fuse box.

Fast forward to 13 months later, I'm sitting in the drivers seat and looking at the switches. "What's this switch with the musical notes on it???"

Doh!

[2oldman]

I went for a walk yesterday. When I got back the coach smelled like something was burning. It was. I left a small amount of coffee in a metal pot on the stove with the burner on medium. All the coffee boiled out but the residue was smoking.

It'll take many days to get rid of the smell. At least I didn't burn the place down.

[ctilsie242]

riven1950 wrote:
Don't try this at home. Was draining my hwh to winterize. Forgot to take the pressure off the system first. Glad I was standing a little to the side when the plug / anode came flying past me.

Because draining my FW tank takes too long through the low point valves, I've found that popping the cork on the water heater and flipping on the water pump does a great job at emptying everything out.

[DutchmenSport]

Breaking camp, getting ready to leave. Final flush of the black tank. I left the toilet run to fill the tank. Got side tracked. Next thing you know, water was running out from under the trailer. It took some creative engineering to dry out that plastic underbelly cover lined with fiberglass insulation.

[Mmaxed]

dave17352 wrote:
Dropped the fiver on my truck bed. Of course the other guy said it was hitched. Does that count. 🙂 While driving on the road to the sun after dropping the 5th wheel I got to close to the mountain and hit my mirror. Just minor damage shattering just the mirror because it did fold in. But my pride was bruised!

I've actually bumped mirrors twice on the Sun road. Once when I got too close to the rocks to avoid a small car that thought he needed the middle of the road. Next time bumped drivers mirrors with another Ford pickup. He did not want to get too close to the rocks. Maybe he had already hit his right mirror??? My son said the pickup right behind him had 3 feet of room between his and my mirrors. We do drive the road at least once a year. Much more fun in late Sept. or Oct on the bike.

[Deb_and_Ed_M]

I guess we're lucky that our first RV, a 28' Class C, was only minorly scarred from our "learning curve". Two sets of Quickee Steps; a small ding in the door; and an orange racing stripe down the side from a basketball hoop were the only evidence of our "spacial skillz"......

[SquirrelyM]

Years ago we had returned home from a camping trip. We used the Equal-i-zer brand weight distribution hitch to tow our trailer, and I had removed the hitch during our stay to get it out of the way. We hitched up and headed home. When we got home, I was unhitching the trailer and realized that I'd forgotten to put in the hitch pin. Yes, I towed a trailer for several hours with nothing preventing the hitch from slipping out except the pressure applied by the W-D system. Really dumb, and really fortunate.

[Durb]

Lot of "Robin Williams moments" here. Glad I can't report one myself.

I was not paying attention while pulling away after unhitching and my towing electrical cord hung up on a tie down hook and I proceeded to rip it out of the trailer. Spent a number of hours tracing wires and soldering them back together for the trip home.

[CA_Traveler]

And continuing with my sawed off tree saga:

We moved to another site that had power. Hooked up the dump, pulled the valve and the "shi* hit the fan" due to a plugged dump. After much yelling, etc DW slowly pulled out of the site while I washed down the rig and then me.

Inside the rig still remained ice cold however.

That was the Navajo CG in Cameron, AZ outside of the Grand Canyon in 2004. That CG is definitely on my shi* list!

[Trailblazer87]

Go to pop the cap on dump pipe and apparently I hadn't closed the black water valve completely, you all can guess what happened next... thankfully we have a dump site on the ranch next to the shop where I could get cleaned up.

[CapnCampn]

While backing into my driveway, I needed to get close to the fence at the back of the trailer to not obstruct the sidewalk too much.

I forgot that I still had the bike rack on the back of the trailer, so now there's a hole in the fence. Shoulda waited for the spotter.

Need to fix that sometime...

Another time, I got too close to the fence on the side of the RV pad & tore up the trim on the back corner. That time I did have a spotter, & she thought that she had told me I was too close, and later that I hit it. Apparently not, since I was astonished to see the damage several weeks later when I was out by the camper!

I did fix that one. 🙂

CC

[GaryS1953]

Wow, I don't feel quite so bad any more for some of the stupid things I've done. We have a small fiver, and it wasn't too long after we got it that I went to turn around in our large yard/weed field and cut the turn too tight. New rear truck window didn't cost too much, but that small dent above the glass was there until we sold the truck 9 years later. Next thing I did was park the rig, disconnect the hitch, then pull away without remembering to open the tailgate. No major damage, but left awful grooves in the top of my tailgate molding, also still there on that old truck when we sold it. Finally, at least twice, I've pulled away from campsites and had nice neighbors stop me to tell me I left one of the stablizer legs down.

[sdianel_-acct_c]

2 things when we first started RVing: 1. Made wrong turn on narrow 2 lane road, narrow bridge with dump truck coming other way. Removed driver's side mirror!
2. Didn't make sure sewer hose was properly connected and you know the rest of that story! Ruined DH's brand new shoes!!

[Elizabeth24]

New to RO water system. Closed the valve for kitchen tank. Next morning sink overflowing, computer on desk floating and carpet soaked.

An expensive error.