So many people have been asking about how the trailer is
handling up to the conditions we have been putting it though on our
journeys. So far we’ve gone well over
5000 miles (and one oil change in Idaho) and amazingly have only had a few minor
problems.
The first actually happened on our second day out and it
was with our stove. It worked amazingly
cooking up dinner and breakfast, but come dinner time the flame went out. We thought it was the propane, which was low,
but when we hooked up a new canister – no go.
Unfortunately after some poking and prodding, we managed to break one of
the connections and that was that.
Luckily our neighbors were nice enough to lend us their stove to finish
our dinner, but we had to buy a new one the next day. After a stop in Rome, NY at the local super
crazy large Walmart, we had a new stove and it has been working great
since! Come to find out though, it
probably wasn’t the stove that was the issue, but the connection hose we were
using for the propane.
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| Our first stove from Bass Pro Shops |
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| Our new Walmart Stove - big improvement! |
Our first trailer problem happened on our way to the
Niagara Falls area. We hit some massive
rain storms coming off the great lakes.
With this came the obvious problems that plague all home-built trailers
– leaky doors. We had tested everything
before we left Rhode Island with the garden hose on full blast and we thought
we got all the major areas, but we didn’t account for driving rain when we were
doing 50 or faster down the highway (and wouldn’t you know all of the rain we
have had to dive though on the trip has been on highways!) It happened along the hinge side of the
driver side door but only soaked the corner of one pillow and part of the
mattress. Since it appeared that the
rain was coming in the top corner of the door and dripping down the inside
edge, we added some of the weather-resistant weather stripping we had left over
from sealing the doors (we brought a lot just in case) to the top and bottom
corner of the door.
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| Drying out after our first rain storm |
We encountered one other major rainstorm on the trip
while driving up towards the upper peninsula of Michigan. Unfortunately the rain was even worse this
time and we had more leaks. After an
hour of driving, we stopped to check on things and the same corner of the
mattress was soaked and it was coming in the windows a bit. We noticed that there was a gap in the
weather stripping along the hinge and that seemed to be the issue. We quickly pulled up the mattresses, covered
things with towels and added more weather stripping to the gap. Since that trip, we fold up the mattresses
and sheets up before every drive and we haven’t had wet mattresses and pillows
since.
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| Drying out again, but for the last time! |
The only other problem we have had happened in the same
rain storm on the way to Niagara Falls – we lost one of the wheel bearing
covers on the trailer. I believe when I
hit some bumps on the route, it simply fell off. They are only pressure fit and apparently
that well secured. Unfortunately after
it fell off, a good amount of grease came flinging out of the bearings. Thankfully we noticed it had happened because
with the grease flinging out, the bearings could have overheated or seize on us
while we were driving. We drove to a
close-by NAPA dealer the next day, but unfortunately the Harbor Freight trailer
required one of those weird sizes, 2” in diameter, and all NAPA had was 1.97”
and 2.05” or something like that. They
recommended a nearby RV dealer who thankfully had one randomly in the back that
came off some sort of moving dolly that he gave to us for free. To prevent them falling off again, I used
some aluminum tape to hold them on. They
look a bit funny, but they haven’t budged yet!
I also purchased a small grease gun and grease to re-fill all the wheel
bearings.
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| Our campsite at Yosemite - you can see the aluminum tape here |
Other than those minor issues, we haven’t had any
problems since and the trailer pulls like a dream. The concrete highways in the mid-west were a
little challenging causing the trailer to bump along quite a bit at times. The leaf springs that came with the Harbor
Freight trailer don’t seem to absorb any bumps especially since the trailer is
so light – which causes things to fall out of the cabinets frequently. I’d love to change out the axle in the future
to a torsion axle which would help things a lot.
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| Giving the trailer a bath in Wyoming |
Knock on wood we
have also had no issues with the electrical.
The driving lights have turned on every time and the solar is working
better than we had hoped! We have been
able charge the laptop, charge our phone, run the fan and have the lights on
without even denting the battery. And
the weather this summer has been perfect for it – lots of sunny days.
Comfort wise it has also been great. The mattresses are quite comfortable and even
on cold nights, we have stayed warm under our down sleeping bag. The kitchen is also wonderful without having to set everything up at each site. We have had to re-learn how to organize our cooking by
preparing as much as we can before pulling out the stove since it’s hard to
reach around it when it’s on. The food
has also migrated to different locations as we go and we are finding out what
foods last the best without any refrigeration.
Rebecca will do a longer post on cooking and living when we have some
more time.
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| Grand Tetons National Park |
