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Friday, January 3, 2014

Dreary Traveling Day and Mr. Murphy Tagged Along

Location: Pelham, AL (High 53, Low 27)

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The main story of the traveling portion of yesterday was rain and dreary skies. We were lucky that it didn’t outright pour, so it wasn’t a difficult trip really. But really dark – I so much prefer sunny skies!! (I suspect I’m not alone in this!) But other than that, we had an uneventful trip.IMG_0262

 

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately, Mr. Murphy showed up when we arrived at our overnight stop. (Who invited you along??!!)

 

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Every once in a while we just have a challenging set up day. We averted our first issue yesterday by having gotten a little smarter as we have gotten more experienced. You can see in this picture that large tree behind the truck. That was the site they originally put us in. And although it probably would have been fine, we would have been stressing all night about having to turn out of our site into the road around that tree. So I trotted right back in and asked if we could move over one site. Yay! We’ve finally learned to think about things like that before we get into the spot, instead of after!!

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We were glad that we arrived early because we just had a lot of other small issues. Nothing we haven’t encountered before – just irritating things that make it not fun to be setting up. The angle in the front of the site meant the jacks couldn’t extend enough to level the rig, so we had to hook back up and put the wood cribbing under the front jacks.

We also had an issue getting the jaws of our hitch to open, which also tends to happen on sites with a slope like this. Harry has learned how to get them to release (eventually) by moving the truck back and forth, but it usually takes a few times, and it’s frustrating until they actually open up. Especially when it’s cold!! 

And we’ve had a new issue to deal with over the past few months. Over the past several years Heartland owners with the Level up system have had to deal with an issue that they lovingly (or not so much) refer to as the Lippert pop. Last summer on the forum they started talking about a “fix” for the pop which involved adding some additive to the hydraulic fluid. We picked it up at a CAT parts store in Vermont last August. Harry added it to the hydraulic fluid and ever since then we’ve had a bit of an issue with our slides and jacks “pausing” a bit when we move them. We believe that it’s because the additive hasn’t fully mixed with the hydraulic fluid, and I don’t think all this cold has helped either. It seems to be affecting our Level Up system a bit as well because when it “pauses” the system times out, or something. It’s hard to describe but we had that issue yesterday too.

We did finally manage to get unhitched, set up and leveled, but we were very happy when we were all done and sitting in our chairs yesterday!!

I am hoping that both today’s travel AND set-up will be uneventful!! Mr. Murphy can just stay right here!!

7 comments:

  1. Yes the more you travel the more you will even think of setting up in difficult conditions.
    Hydraulics are temperamental and work more efficiently when warm to hot. In an RV they have little time to do that as they are only used for setting up and closing up. In the Industrial plants Hydraulic pumps for production units were often times left running 24/7 so they would not falter at the start of a business day. The problem is not the additive.
    Also remember that your trailer is now officially three years old and just like our bodies they don't work like they did when new.
    Keep up the travels, Be Safe and Enjoy!

    It's about time.

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    1. I have no doubt the cold is making the situation worse, but the "pause" has been happening since we put the additive in, even back in August and September when it was in the 80s.

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  2. We have days like that also. Just little things that don't go quite right or it takes us several tries to get into a site when normally we can do it on the first try. The rain and cold sure don't make it any easier. Hang in there.

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  3. Mr. Murphy has visited with us too! Trying to leave the frozen tundra of Indiana this morning and our rear jacks were frozen to the boards that were frozen to the ground. I finally got them loose with a pry bar and hammer. Then the brakes on the M/H were frozen and would not release, had to beat them with a hammer too. Got as far as Indy and the interstate was gridlock from a bad accident, backed up for miles! We finally made it to Cave City, Kentucky and I went to dump the black and grey tanks, both were full and both were frozen! I had to put a heater into the compartment and let it run for over two hours on high before they thawed out so I could dump them. I hate cold weather! LOL

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  4. Did you miss Campbellsville today? Sorry, just a silly thought I had reading this......

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  5. some days are just like that! sounds like the two of you made the most of it in the end!!

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