Maintenance is an extremely import thing to keep up with in most every mechanical device and possibly more-so in an RV which essentially experiences an earthquake each time it rolls down the road. My timing for such things is usually less than ideal, but knowing that we had a trip coming up, I need to tick a few boxes beforehand, regardless of the 320 degree Fahrenheit and 700% relative humidity.
I climbed onto the roof and carefully washed everything with a new soap I had and was pleasantly surprised at the results. Following that, I inspected the seems and caulking, noting a couple spots that I want to recheck in a month. Overall, the roof looks great.
Next was to pull the wheels off and re-pack the bearings. This process is generally easy to do, albeit extremely messy. It was even messier on the drivers side because it appeared that whoever assembled them at the factory, used the grease gun to pump about a gallon of grease into each hub so the entire interior cavity of the hub was full. I cleared all that out and repacked them with a bearing grease tool that I picked up a couple years ago… making the process extremely efficient.
Finally, I found the smoking gun for the intermittent brake issue that I’ve had since buying the rig… .I found a brake wire that was not routed correctly in the passenger front wheel assembly, and it was rubbing against the interior of the drum. The insulation had worn off and it was likely shorting to ground each time I applied the brakes. I clipped out the bad spot, joined the pieces together with a butt connector and tidied up the wire routing… voila! no more brake warning in the truck.
I had quick mod that I had been looking forward to completing for a while which was to create pads that the LP cylinders could rest on. A few months ago while at Bass Pro Shop with Ethan, I came across some linkable deck pads that (they’re pretty common on boats in storage locker, etc) and figured I could shape them to the LP tank tray and then cut out space in the middle to allow the LP sensors to sit on the under side of the tank. Originally, the sensors came with little feet that were to be installed on the tank base rim, but they didn’t last long. So I figured this would be a great solution.
I was a grimy sweaty mess at this point. So I jumped in the pool with EJ to cool off. I only wish I had remembered to take my phone out of my pocket. DOH!