The Stovebolt Site Forums The Side Lot Old Dominion Stovebolt Society (MD, VA, West VA, DC, DE and PA) Campers and $pecial times $$

Most of you in the ODSS have seen my old 87 Class C Camper. My trip to Mike's place a few weeks back was sort of a test run for a longer trip we made last week. THIS WAS quite a surprise filled trip ! We left around mid morning last Wednesday headed for McClure, VA for a Bluegrass festival. We were 20 miles away from home when we heard some hideous banging which turned out to be one of the rear tires peeling off all the rubber. (After, driving to Mike's place, I noticed the front tires were showing cracks so I had replaced them and the back 4 tires looked good, looks were very deceiving). I called around and found a shop in Charlottesville with 3 in stock so we eased on another 15 miles to the tire shop. About $750 later, we were back on the road with only one old tire still in use. We were about to climb Afton Mountain when that last tire peeled off. I slipped through the Emergency turn around spot and started easing back towards home. I called my friend in Richmond at Dyke tire and was able to get 2 more tires ordered for the next morning with the idea of having a new spare tire also. I made it home only to discover that I had just driven 50 miles on that old tire with literally no tread and the adjacent new dually tire was punctured by a piece of the exhaust tail pipe that was wacked off by the flying tire debris. Well, after cutting off the second flattened tail pipe, opening the pinched shut tailpipe, installing two more new tires, and wiring the two tail pipes back into place with several wraps of wire, it was time to go down the road again the next day.
We made it there on the second day and really enjoyed the event! I managed to win a 50/50 raffle on Friday and collected $631 cash ! That really helped take the sting out of the tire surprises. On Sunday, we started back home on the 300 mile Journey and all was looking good from the start. The old camper, with it's old 87 technology, would display a check engine light from time to time and this trip was no different. The check engine light came on and went out several times so we continued on without incident. However, we started to lose power climbing hills on I-81 and were down to about 45 MPH over the top of the next hill. I punched the gas pedal going down hill and could hear the engine coughing and missing. We got to a gas station at the Natural Bridge exit, I shut off the engine, hit the key and only heard clicking so I pulled out the multimeter and read about 11.5 volts on the battery. I found someone willing to give me a jump start. Once the engine fired up, the voltage was decreasing so I felt certain that the Alternator was the issue and we had been running on the other on board deep cycle battery connected in parallel to the one under the hood. There was a nice local Gentleman there that saw our situation and offered to call the local auto part store near Lexington. He gave me a fast ride down to get a new alternator and we were back on the road in about another 45 minutes !
I had made 4 trips to Hershey, several trips to Cape Hatteras, Winchester, Hunting trips, and Maryland with no troubles so I guess I was due for a few surprises, even though I try to keep up with vehicle maintenance !

My recent 1500 mile round trip to the ODSS gathering was something similar. Two days before I headed out from middle Tennessee, two of the tires on my trailer showed some tread separation. $450.00 later, I had 4 new tires, a new spare wheel, and the best of the takeoff tires mounted on it. Halfway across Virginia, a pressure check revealed that one of those new tires was flat- - - -not low pressure- - -NO pressure. Fortunately, there was not enough weight on that axle to ruin the tire. I eased my way to a big truck shop, wnere they installed the spare and refused to take my money. The young man who did the wrench work got a nice tip for his trouble. On the way home, a little old lady (91 years old) backed out of a parking space at Walmart in Dahlgren Virginia and hit my trailer. Her car got the worst of that encounter- - - -a broken backup light and a torn bumper cover. The 6" scratch on my tail light housing will get fixed with some flat black rattle can paint! A quick phone conversation with her care giver determined that we didn't need to file an accident report, which would have probably resulted in her losing her car insurance, and possibly her driver's license. The rest of the trip home was uneventful, and my tire shop determined that the flat was caused by a rim leak. No charge to clean it up and re-seat the tire! Ain't a road trip fun?
Jerry

There is nothing like a good adventure!

Chris

IHardshell, It ain't much of trip if you don't have a story, Pat

Ya'll keep that bad Ju Ju to yourselves. I'm preparing our 5th wheel for a 2 week trip to Florida for our family vacation. At least our trailer is new with Load Range G tires that tolerate speed and heat better than the old Load Range E china bombs.

Safe travels mike!

I just got back from a 10 day trip in Alaska. We flew in and rented an RV and drove 1500 miles. The only trouble I had was with the fuel gauge. It worked just fine for me, but from where my wife was sitting in the passenger seat, according to her, we were always about to run out of gas. It was a mechanical gauge and the needle was quite a ways away from the dial, so from the side you would suffer from parallax.
Try to explain parallax to a sleepy, jet lagged women who has spent the last 36 years married to likes of me and then let me know how that works out for you.
We didn't kill each other over those ten days, so I call that a fabulous trip.
Now I am ready to head out to work with a truck which has no spare, so my bragging about my lack of truck issues in Alaska, and hardhell's post will undoubtedly jinx me and cause me to have a flat tire in a little while.
I will get back to y'all later on to share the story. If you don't hear from me, its been real nice knowing most of you.

Carl
You should have looked me up when you were in Alaska, except I haven’t been there for 2 weeks. You were probably less than 1/2 mile from my house. I’m currently in Montana fighting with my wife in a rental RV that has roof leaks. No issues with the fuel gauge other than it drops too fast. I think we’ll still be married when we get home in a couple days but stay tuned for updates on that.

Carl -- It's been real nice knowing most of them, too.



This must be the week (or two) for tire issues. Had one at work the other other day -- a fairly new tire, too. Still had 17 more holding air, and the excavator on the trailer was a smallish one (only 20K lbs) so we shrugged and went on. Like the NDKid says -- Not a real trip without a story.

Nice catch on the "most of you" part. I figured, the wordsmith which you are, you would be the one to do so.

I should not have read this. I debating a trip to KC, Mongo's. The tires on the truck only have 38000 miles and look ok but they have some age on them. It is garaged in a heated and AC-controlled garage.