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Re: Lewiston/Clarkston trip ID/WA
If you go across the river to the Washington side, then upriver on Snake River Road past Asotin, you can go to Buffalo Eddy National Historic Park. Some nice petroglyphs if you're into that kind of thing. It's a huge eddy on the Snake, and there also appears to be a swimming beach but I would use caution swimming or paddling there. Huge current! On the Idaho side, the petroglyphs are only accessible by boat. And if you've never been down Rattlesnake Grade to the Grande Ronde river, that's worth a look. Boggan's Oasis at the bottom of the grade has famous milkshakes.261Views0likes0CommentsRe: Sandblasting and powdercoating: Les Schwab or dedicated shop
opnspaces wrote: I hear you on the lazy to clean scrape and paint route. But I'll give you my ultimate lazy mans way to deal with this. Below are my wheels from September 2018. I had been meaning to get on top of it for years. And below are the wheels today. It sounds dumb, and really redneck, but it works. Right after I took the rusty wheels picture I went to Walmart and bought a spray can of flat black Rustoleum paint. I unbolted the wheels and laid them on the grass (front lawn to be exact). I took my hand held (not powered) wire brush and quickly knocked off any huge rust flakes. I seriously spent no more than 10 seconds per wheel. Then I sprayed them with the flat black paint. I painted right over the rust, the dirt, and everything. No masking no additional prep, just spray the wheel. I even ignored any overspray onto the tires, it won't show up anyway. I took the picture of the black wheels just now, for this posting. You can see they are dirty, but even after a year of weather they look a heck of a lot better than they used to. If you think about it you really don't have anything to lose. If you don't like the way they look you can still get them blasted and painted. Well, those look pretty good in the "after," and the "before" looks worse than mine. I think I want to at least try to get the rust off, though. One spot of rust looks like it's in a weld and a spot that would be difficult to get a wire brush into. I'm thinking I will probably take them to Les Schwab.1.1KViews0likes0CommentsSandblasting and powdercoating: Les Schwab or dedicated shop
I want to take all my 2004 TT's wheels off this winter and have them sandblasted and powder coated. The rust is getting pretty bad, and I'm too lazy to clean and paint them myself. The local Les Schwab store will do them for $35 a wheel. I called a couple of dedicated shops, and they quoted me $55-$65 a wheel. I'm guessing that the dedicated shops will do a more thorough job, but I wonder if I really need to spend that much more. It's just a trailer, after all. I could buy new wheels for $55-$65 a wheel. Anybody been down this path?4.2KViews0likes14CommentsRe: Weight distribution hitch removal and storage
happy2rv wrote: I got tired of having to lift and carry my weight distributing hitch around to install and remove it from the truck. It's also quite awkward to store because it doesn't balance well enough to reliably stand up on its own. I looked around for a while and didn't see any solutions. So I began to think about making my own. I kicked around fabricating something out of steel tubing with casters. But I kept putting it off. I ran across an ad from harbor freight with this mechanics seat in it and thought that looked about the right height. So I picked one up with a 20% off coupon. It's working out pretty well. I assembled it per the instructions except I replaced the seat on top with a 2x10 that I had in the garage and cut a slot just wide enough for the shank of the hitch to slide in. It would be nice if the height were somehow adjustable, but this works out to just the right height when my truck is parked in my driveway. I will probably add a bungee or some type of strap to hold the hitch in place, but for now its just sitting there and is pretty stable. Now I just roll this up to the back of the truck, slide the shank into the receiver, install the locking pin, and roll the cart away. When I'm done, I reverse it and roll the cart with hitch on it into a corner of the garage. Side benefit, I don't end up with nearly as much grease on my hands and clothes because I don't have to lift and maneuver that beast. You, sir, are a genius. I am getting one of those carts very soon!562Views0likes0CommentsRe: Real towing advise please
Scubydg wrote: Long story short, I had a 2017 Tacoma, bought an RV (Travel trailer), "they" said oh yeah, it will pull it, just don't go over 80% of towing weight (about 7000lb). Done, but we were kinda close to the 80% weight. LOADS of sway and scarey moments...Bought a 2018 Tundra (SR5 w/ Tow weight of 10K). No more sway and everything is fine. Now I want to upgrade RV. 80% of tow weight is 7900lbs, RV is 7200lbs (by my calculations).. I feel I will be back at the SWAY and SCAREY area again...Thoughts? Been there, done that, (but not quite so heavy) with an 01 Tacoma then up to a 2011 5.7 l Tundra. The Tundra with an Equalizer hitch tows my 4,200 lb. trailer as if it wasn't back there. The Tacoma, not so much. They made fun of me at the dealership when I told them I wasn't sure the Tacoma could tow it. Sure, it towed it but it wasn't fun. Edit: There are a lot of variables you haven't included, such as whether you have a WDH, your tire ratings, how much stuff you put in the Tundra, etc. But generally, I will stick with my opinion. My opinion, I wouldn't go much over 7,000 lbs of trailer with a Tundra. The trailer you have now is about the limit.545Views0likes0CommentsRe: Spare Tire Rack Failure - Third trip out with new RV.
rbpru wrote: I would be curious how many often that happens. I never have had an issue but I know others have. It happened to me, only I wasn't lucky enough to spot any broken welds first. My walk-around in Cooke City, MT after going through a construction zone in Yellowstone revealed that my spare was someplace along the road in the park. This was on the FR in my sig.666Views0likes0CommentsRe: Outdoor "mudroom" to prevent cat from door-dashing?
bartlettj wrote: There are some trailers that have a two door plan where the second door opens into the bathroom. If you kept the inner bathroom door shut and just entered that way, you wouldn't have to do anything else. I think we have a winner!657Views0likes0CommentsRe: Outdoor "mudroom" to prevent cat from door-dashing?
This isn't really an answer to your specific question, but I have thought about this problem when daydreaming about rv-ing with our two cats. One of ours is a door-dasher, so I understand your problem. I haven't done it, because my door-dashing cat is older and will never adjust to rv-ing. However, I thought that the way to do it if I could would be to get a "bunkhouse" model trailer, and convert the bunks into cat "jails." It would be a simple matter to use something like the snaps you described, or velcro, and some kind of netting to keep the cats in the bunk area. You could even build a stowable ramp if the bunk is up too high for the cat to jump up and down. Setting up and breaking down would be a lot easier than what you described. Then, when you plan to go out, put the cat in jail. When you are in the trailer and sure you're not going out, the cat can come out of jail. You would have to be aware of not letting temperatures get too hot inside the trailer when you're gone and the cat is inside, but you would probably be doing that anyway. A drawback to this idea is that there may not be many bunkhouse model trailers that you could tow with an SUV. Lance comes to mind; they have a smaller, lighter bunkhouse model I believe. My $.02.651Views0likes0CommentsRe: Just picked Her up! 2020 Outdoors RV 21RD
I'm jealous! I've been drooling over that model on their website for quite a while. Unfortunately, DW says we can't afford a new TT. I was skeptical of the big rear window, because I would think it would get pretty dirty from a lot of the roads I tow on. But I've come around to think it's not that big of a deal. Enjoy!521Views0likes0Comments
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Prefer to camp in a travel trailer? You're not alone.Apr 19, 201944,027 Posts
