Paying the maintenance Piper....Post-trip maintenance and upgrades

WilliamA

Now that all the fun and adventure is over for a month or two, it's time to take a broom to the debris field and put things back together. I've spent a week just laying about looking fabulous, having a gin and tonic and perusing my ever-larger photo collection so now it's time to get to work on the carnage done to the trailer.

Having had a major brake failure in Joshua Tree National Park, then a spot of roadside (RV Park) repairs necessary to get home again, I have decided to do a complete brake job on Chuck (wagon), my trailer. Rather than replace (again!) both brake magnets, brake shoes, springs and hardware etc, I've elected to simply remove and replace the complete backing plate assemblies. I can get them from Dexter complete with all of the aformentioned hardware for about the same price as the individual components. While I'm at it, I have ordered the backing plate assemblies with the optional parking brake hardware installed. No more messing about with the insipid wheel chocks. Fix a problem...Create more...That's my motto. While I'm at it, I plan to re-wire the electric brakes so the wiring doesn't hang down under the axle. I'll run the new harness through the top of the backing plate where it's a bit more protected. I have a plan to make the required hardware for activating the parking brakes (actually, I don't. I'll just get the parts and work out the details later) so I'll take that beating when I get to it and it's not 15 below zero outside.

For those interested in why the electric brake magnets fail so often, I've found an interesting video on youtube that is actually quite well done and explains the problem. I've pondered the issue but never taken the time to disassemble one. As it turns out, this guy has. It's interesting and informative. Perhaps the topic heading is a bit over the hill, but it's not actually wrong... Depends on the size of your trailer....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPhhT_383-4

Next order of business is to rewire and modify the water pump. I arrived at Mesa Arizona, filled the water tank and had no water. Sigh.... I pulled the pump, force-fed it a spritz of water to prime it and then reinstalled it. That took about an hour. Most of the hour was spent getting at 2 of the pump mounting screws. I plan to move the pump over an inch or so. Then I can get to the mounting screws easily. I also plan to put in a quick-disconnect for the wiring to the pump. The pump wiring from the factory is quite short and does not allow pulling the pump without having to first cut the wires. It's a pain in the.... I'll simply get a 2 wire plug and put it on the circuit so in the event of future problems, I can remove the pump in a few minutes, force feed it some water ala "Foi Gras" style and get it to pump. As an aside, it's my unscientific estimate that about 75% of all water pumps get replaced when there's nothing actually wrong with them. The various rubber diaphragms and valves simply get dried out and stuck together and need a bit of help to get going. Once I got water into the pump, it took off and I had no more trouble with it the rest of the trip. I'll pick up the connector next time I go to town and get that sorted out. I'll make a post of the process if I think of it.

The last "must do" item on the list is to remove the trailer connector from my Jeep and re-mount it in the bumper. The cheesy connector bracket that came with my 7 way connector has snapped off from vibration, sticks, badgers and rocks. It has been hanging from the wire long enough to cause chaos within the connector so it's time to do what I should have done and drill the steel bumper and mount it up out of the debris where it needs to be. I can do that in the garage so I'll get to that this coming week.

The snow outside is up above the bottom of the trailer so while I need to go under there and put all the loose wiring that came off back on and work out a better fastening system, that will have to wait until the weather gets better or I get somewhere inside to do it.

WilliamA

LuckyJ

I absolutely agree with the paking brake for the trailer. The 10" setup I got that will get installed with the air bag suspension system also have the parking brake lever. For a while now I have been suearching for a hand brake lever and hand brake wires, but I was not succesfull. But I do have a donor X-Nissan X-trail (my dd vehicule) and I will use the cables and hand lever for the TD.

As for the water pump, I have so far never had problem to (not) prime it. Worked firts time I used it last spring. But as for the connector, I would got with the same type as a 4 plug trailer wire, but just a 2 plug type.

Have fun with your project!

rfuss928

I have always considered the parking brake on my DM T@B a very convenient feature. It is an additional benefit of the elegantly simple mechanical surge brake system.
A very worthy modification IMO.
Good luck.
Have fun!
Bob!

WilliamA

Bob,
I've spent a lot of time in europe travelling about and your setup takes me back. I believe that euro-spec trailers require a handbrake and don't know why it isn't standard here. I'd have done it earlier but for my own mixed bag of priorities. Seems a no-brainer. I'm looking forward to getting my components on hand and doing the work.

WilliamA

WilliamA

It's relatively warm (18 degrees) here this morning. We are supposed to get more snow today to the tune of 10 inches or so, so no maintenance chores on the trailer other than shoveling it off. I just got an email from E-trailer that my backing plates ( with parking brake hardware) have shipped and should show up tomorrow via UPS. I don't have a plan yet for installing the handbrake lever and cables so I'd better get to that. I have a couple of ideas but need to get out there with a number snake (tape measure) and collect some data.
I have my water pump rewired and ready to reinstall so I might get that done today. For those interested, while I had my water pump out to rewire it, I pulled the valve body off to see how much ice remained in the chambers and it turned out to be about a healthy tablespoon or so. That's not enough to split the housing but is enough to possibly cause some mischief in the valve body,, so I might experiment with making a simple screw-on adapter so I can run rv antifreeze through the pump and faucet without adding it to the freshwater tank. That should prevent the diaphragms in the pump from drying out and sticking shut, the main cause of lack of pump priming.
Lots to do...

WilliamA

WilliamA

I got my new brake backing plate assemblies delivered yesterday

so it's time to figure out how to hook up a handle on the tongue of the trailer.

After a week of research into off-the-shelf handles, I've decided to make my own. I'll do up a drawing and see how things all line up before I run out for material.

WilliamA

LuckyJ

@WilliamA said:
I got my new brake backing plate assemblies delivered yesterday

so it's time to figure out how to hook up a handle on the tongue of the trailer.

After a week of research into off-the-shelf handles, I've decided to make my own. I'll do up a drawing and see how things all line up before I run out for material.

WilliamA

I am following this for sure!

WilliamA

As I promised myself after returning from the last trip, I decided to get my trailer plug moved and rewired. Since I've returned, it seems that all I've been doing is moving snow and ice or working on the snowblower which, for now anyway, is the most important piece of equipment around here. In any case, I got a few hours to myself and ran to the store for a few things. I picked up some new drill bits so I could hog out a hole in the bumper and then spent some quality time filing it round, more or less. I painted the inside of the hole with touch-up paint and then installed the plug. I've got it all installed and rewired. It has so far, passed the initial multimeter test. Now for a more proper plug-in to the trailer and make sure all the lights and things are working as they should.

Here's the old one hanging mostly off the broken mount. The ground wire had partially pulled out of the wire eye and wasn't making much contact. The plastic ears were also cracked off the bottom of the mount.

Here's the new one in the bumper. The wires are all up inside the bumper and out of the way from anything but a direct asteroid strike. Should be much better. This one has the wires molded into the plug and has a direct 4-way plug as well.

WilliamA

LuckyJ

Nice job!

This is how it should be done, first time everytime. Just can't imagine why so many trailer plugs are installed from a small bracket under the bumpers right there where they can be beat up by the first snow banks, or any other city obstacle, let alone back road anything.

I have seen bad installation on everything, from toyota to american vehicule.

Again, Nice work!

WilliamA

Thanks LuckyJ,
I braved the elements and slogged out to do a proper test of the new trailer wiring. I backed the Jeep up and plugged in to the trailer and everything seems to be working. I've got a dim running light on the left fender that needs looking after but suspect the wiring isn't working under there again. I re-connected the clearance light wiring under the fenders after the tires cut through them but it was still too tight of a wire run, so I'll completely rewire them when I take the tires off to put the new backing plates on. The brake circuit seems to be working fine and although I haven't pulled it down the road, my brake controller says that everything is back to spec. I'm still unhappy with the thin contacts on the trailer-end plug as they get stretched out quickly and don't make good contact so I plan to replace the end with the much stronger (thicker contact material) Reese Extreme duty plug. That can wait for warmer weather. I really need to get the trailer out to the carwash as it's still dirty and has many pounds of ice frozen into various cracks and crevices, but it's still plenty cold here and there is more snow coming. I spent the morning yesterday fixing the throttle cable and a broken wire on the snowblower so we can clean the driveway again this morning. Of all the mechanical animals around here, that's the one I'm most focused on for now. 4 inches of fresh snow to get rid of again today....sigh...
Perhaps this afternoon I will get a bit of time to start fabricating the brake handle but first things first...On to the driveway...

WilliamA

Somemedic

I'm curious gentleman. If a fellow wanted to convert The Hub over to a 6 lug ie like my Toyota how would a fella go about doing that?

WilliamA

@Somemedic said:
I'm curious gentleman. If a fellow wanted to convert The Hub over to a 6 lug ie like my Toyota how would a fella go about doing that?

Try these guys:
https://wheeladaptersusa.com/?gclid=CjwKCAiA2fjjBRAjEiwAuewS_S2zHITPQVlzEYNLj5nJlgezipEvs_7SJ5r5Jp4UWr-dVu7IRYBKnxoCEaMQAvD_BwE

They either make or will make pretty much any adapter you want. I wouldn't go any thinner than 1 1/2 inches thickness. Toyota 6 lug to trailer 5 lug are fairly common on overlanding forums. I've seen them a few times.

WilliamA

LuckyJ

@Somemedic said:
I'm curious gentleman. If a fellow wanted to convert The Hub over to a 6 lug ie like my Toyota how would a fella go about doing that?

Couple of option that would have to be verified. 1st I would look with E-trailer or similar site if a 6 lug 7" drum is available for the 2200 lbs axle (you do have an outback/boondock model wright) with. I do beleive that your toyota probably has a 6 on 139.7 lug patern.

If only the drum is available in a wider drum, you would have to change the back plate as well, but make sure that you mentionned the type of axle you have. Number should still be on sticker on the axle beam under the trailer.

One thing that you also need to mesure is the back space of the wheel you intend to use. Not much space available between the trailer and the tire. So you could have to use spacers like Willam had to use.

Should have tought about this, you could also use adapter spacers that give you the possibility to gor from the 5 on 4 1/4" lug patern to 6 on 139.7 mm. but I am not a very ig fan of adapter spacers. But you could kill 2 birds with one stone and it would be cheaper.

Somemedic

I'm honestly considering using a stock 1st gen tundra rim in case I were to lose a tire. Otherwise I'd have to purchase an all new rim, tire and figure where its gonna go. I'd like to leave that top rack for kayaks n awnings

LuckyJ

@Somemedic said:
I'm honestly considering using a stock 1st gen tundra rim in case I were to lose a tire. Otherwise I'd have to purchase an all new rim, tire and figure where its gonna go. I'd like to leave that top rack for kayaks n awnings

I totaly agree with you on this. You will have to test some of the option I proposed to you. Some might have other option to, I might not have tought or seing the all. But that is a start.

If the drum are available, and it fits you oem wheel back spacing, this would probably cust you about 60,00 @ 100,00$ total. This would be the best way to do it.

Cheapest way would be spacers if available. But You will have to verified final wheel localisation, cause again, according to wheel back spacing, the result could be a wheel that it to much on the outside and not covered by the fender.

And most expensive way but also a good way if wheel backspacing is working, is back plate and hub replacement.

One thing, did you specified if you had a outback/boundock model. Or just a regular T@G (sorry, just do not know how to desigh a regular size T@G) even if it would be a Sofitel model).

Somemedic

It's an off roader. No boondocker or outback badging but it has the big tires and it stands up rather nicely

LuckyJ

@Somemedic said:
It's an off roader. No boondocker or outback badging but it has the big tires and it stands up rather nicely

Ok, so unless you change the axle to the pitched Boundock /outback package axle, the possibility to change the hubs since they would not have drums might be a little harder to do. The oem axle for the original T@G are less than 2200 lbs, so smaller components. But the spacer way should still be possible, cause I do beleive that the hubs are 5 on 4/15" ring circle.

LuckyJ

@LuckyJ said:

@Somemedic said:
It's an off roader. No boondocker or outback badging but it has the big tires and it stands up rather nicely

Ok, so unless you change the axle to the pitched Boundock /outback package axle, the possibility to change the hubs since they would not have drums might be a little harder to do. The oem axle for the original T@G are less than 2200 lbs, so smaller components. But the spacer way should still be possible, cause I do beleive that the hubs are 5 on 4/15" ring circle.

Do no why, but I am not able to edit, even with the cog wheel. So here it is.

5 on 4 1/2" bolt circle of tye hubs.

But like I said, some reaserch and calls have to be done on your side.

Good luck and keep us posted on the result.

Should have mentionned, that one of the reason I wanted to keep a spare for the TD, is that both my TVs have different bolt circles for wheel, and it also allow friends and familly to borough the T@G. But did not wanted the spare u der the trailer or on the front of the frame. So made a side wheel holder that is bolted to the rear corner of the frame right side, just behind the fender.

WilliamA

The major downside to electric brakes over hydraulic brakes is the e-brakes require one-piece hubs and drums. You can't have a 2 piece assembly because there's a friction surface on the inside of the drums where the magnets ride so there's no way that I know of to economically have a removable drum.
As to using wheel spacers, in this case it's the devil you know. I was forced to put them on my trailer because I had tire rubbing in the wheelwells from the factory. Whether I'd modified my trailer or not, there was no other way to solve the problem without going to a thinner section width tire.
I'm with LuckyJ and really don't care for them either as they add a maintenance booger into the hanky of life. More importantly, the reason I don't like them is because they move the wheel/tire centerline off of the center of the hub where it should be. This unevenly loads the bearings and adds torsional stress to the axle. In the case of our T@G's, that's not really a factor because they are light enough to not cause problems with otherwise well maintained hubs and bearings. So long as the wheel spacers are from a reputable company and are properly maintained, I have no problem with their use, particularly on a trailer. Again, I'd not use anything thinner than 1 1/2" thick spacers. Anything thinner is subject to a number of problems.

WilliamA

WilliamA

I trudged out this morning and did a complete, plug-n-play system check of the new gear. Seems as though everything is working to spec. I can put those things to bed and move on to building a fold-down shelf that fits in the space where the A/C used to be.

Next chapter.....

WilliamA

WilliamA

We have been blessed with another 8" of snow overnight. Thank goodness. The old snow was starting to look ratty. I'll go out and attack it with the snowblower this morning, then I'm spending some time on cabinet modifications. My Spidey-sense tells me that when things start to thaw, with more than 40" of snow on the ground the spring will come on with a great and terrible vengeance this year. I want to get my trailer and gear ready for the spring "flood run" down into the Mississippi river valley for interesting photo ops and also to scout some fishing. I have most of my post-trip work done and just some details left, minus the prerequisite cleaning and re-supply. If things hold as I think they will, I'll be back out in the campgrounds by April Fool's day. Seems appropriate. I LOVE early season camping. Can't wait to get out there and enjoy the quiet.
A few photos from past sojourns:

Go....
Do.....

WilliamA

WilliamA

We just got the last round of snow blown off the driveway and are ready for the big thaw. Yeah!

I got the trailer moved out and cleaned off as well as my parking spot. It's all backed in, plugged in and ready to get back to work.
I had my 4' whip antenna break off during my trip to Az in January from ice accumulation so I picked up a replacement a week ago at the truck stop.

This one has a thinner mast and is 28" as opposed to the 4 footer I had on there. I should still be able to get good reception on FM (I like the radio!) in backwoods spots and am hoping it will be more resilient to freezing and thawing. I'll put it on today and give it a try...

WilliamA

CampHub

LOL That looks like the same storm that dumped here!

LuckyJ

Your strom is coming our way! Already began in Montreal and Quebec city, so it is indeed coming. Getting off from work tomorrow morning at 8 and heading west in the snow storm. Hopefully the roads will still be open and only closed to heavy trafic. Many long hills in my neck of the wood.

Might not be over ounce I reach the cabin, so I will make my self a good Irish coffee and light up the wood stove.

Might even start shoveling the hut tub and make it ready for the next 3 weeks at the cabin!

WilliamA

I have put the final touches on the brake project so I'm turning to a list of mundane maintenance items. I took a trip down to Madison, Wi and while I was there, I stopped into Jerry's RV and picked up some stuff. I got two rolls of the white vinyl filler strip that goes into the edge trim. The old stuff is starting to get cracks in a few spots so I'm just going to replace all of it. No problem. I just have to wait until it's a bit above freezing so the vinyl will be a bit easier to bend. Should be able to do that this coming week.

I also ordered some new (finally!) vinyl side stripes through Jerry's. It's the original side stripes to replace the ones that started peeling off of my trailer (and were also a bit crooked). That will have to wait until it's MUCH warmer! A couple of weeks or so.

I also have been relatively unsatisfied with my spare tire mount. Mostly, it's because the tire is too wide and too heavy for my needs. I thought long and hard about adding a brace to my side-mount and then had a flash of brilliance to just instead get a smaller spare. I talked to the guys at Jerry's about it and they sold me a small (4.80x12) spare on a 4.5x5 wheel. I tested it and it fits fine. I put it back under the trailer in the original spare location and I can't even see it under there. It's much narrower and smaller diameter than the giant one I've been hauling around. The new one weighs 1/3rd of the old one.

I also swapped out my FM antenna for the new one. Works great...

Onward and upward. Gotta be ready to get back out there in two weeks or so.

WilliamA

WilliamA

Yesterday I got back from the Dr (Viral Influenza....Ugh....) and took advantage of the fine spring weather. I pulled out the vinyl filler strip on the trailer edge molding and replaced it with new. Boy, it was ratty. I'll try and remember to get some photos today. I'm hooking on today and going out for a car-wash and quick go-around to check the brake work and make sure the parking brake bits are going to play nice. The driveway has gone from icy glacier to 3 inches of mud so I need to get it done today before the frost goes all the way out or it'll be a quicksand bog for 2 weeks. I don't want to rut the place up. I'll get some photos....
Woot!

WilliamA

WilliamA

A few photos of the first sortee out since I started my after-trip maintenance:

I got down to the car wash and got my "precleaning" cleaning done. Man, it was a mess. I'll give it a good hand-wash when things dry up a bit but it's nice to have 8,000 miles of road chum off....finally....

The new umbilical is working great and I'm happy about how it sits up and out of the debris field. I'd still like to replace the trailer-end plug but....in time....

My new diminutive spare tire in its new home. It's hardly down below the frame. I'm lovin it. Total weight loss between the monstrous standard spare tire and mount is nearly 80 lbs. I like that....

A couple photos of the new vinyl strips and a pic of the old one.


Not sure how it got so ratty, but I play hard with all my toys. I don't mind the maintenance. Now to wait for the new side-stripe vinyl to come in, put it on and then re-caulk everything.

There are lots of small maintenance things yet to do but I'll keep working down the list. In the near-term, if the opportunity arises, I can get out of town on short notice again. I'm planning to get down to Hannibal, Mo in the next 2-3 weeks. Depends on the weather....
WilliamA

WilliamA

I spent some time today at the battery shop having my stock battery tested. It passed....barely....but is down almost 30% in the amperage draw category. Good to know. I booted it in favor of a grp 27 Duracell dedicated deep cycle job. My old grp 24 the trailer came with was a marine/RV/starting job. This one is not rated for starter amperage draw but has a higher deep-cycle draw of 25 A as opposed to the 20 A steady rate of the old one. The new one is in and charging now. It read 12.5 V when I hooked it up so it'll take a few hours to come up to full. I also got a new battery box in the deal! Don't laugh...those babies are $10 bucks!
The old one lasted a bit more than 2 years so I am hopeful to get at least that much out of this one....
WilliamA

WilliamA

I said I was finished with the maintenance, didn't I? Well.....No....
I did some serious, pro-level putzing today and got a number of other things done. Some I had planned to do at some point and some I didn't realize I'd better do soon. Here's the story:

I was doing a bit of caulking as I previously reported and decided to get a closer look at the roof vent. It's a good thing I did as it needs some serious tlc. The calk is peeling pretty badly up there. The major impediment to that project was the roof rack. There just wasn't any way I could do a proper job of it without removing the roof rack. So, I peeled it all off this morning with the thought of removing the old caulk and putting some new stuff on.
(Remember the "Later there's running and screaming" comment I made a couple of days back?)
I got the roof rack off just fine and started to thinking that I've been wanting to do some mpg testing without it to see how much it ACTUALLY affects my mileage, so what better time? Right? To do that, I needed to relocate a rather large-ish collection of kipple that's taken up residence on the roof rack. I had 3 lights, my FM antenna, fishing tackle case and my backup camera all pasted to the crows nest.

So the question of the day was to just remove the stuff and store it, or find a different way to keep it up there. My FM antenna was going back on one way or another for sure. Needed to deal with that. I REALLY liked my overhead spotlights up there for fiddling with the generator at night and just general hooking, unhooking etc. That had to stay....at least part of the light collection anyway. The fishing stuff can ride either under the floor on the passengers' side in the trailer or in my Jeep. No problem. My backup camera could go and I'd not miss it for awhile. Taking each of those one at a time, I made room and function back up on the top without losing any of it but the fishing case.

Here's the dirty dog of a roof vent all delaminating and in desperate need of some tlc:

I removed all but one of my spot lights and put that one back up on the roof-rails using the sliding nut and bolt from one of the anchors. Seems to work fine. If I like it, I may put the other one back up on the other rail.

I moved my camera down onto the frame where my license plate bracket used to reside. It seems fine there. I liked it better up on top and also had some bad thoughts about it becoming a shin-spike while cooking, but we'll just have to see.

My FM antenna posed the most serious challenge as it's tall and wobbly and needs a pretty serious bracket to keep it from getting weird. I thought about it for a bit and dug through my sheet-rock buckets of detritus (Jeez....I really AM turning into my dad!) for a suitable bracket. Finding nothing that would conceivably do that job, I set about to fashion something. I bent up a piece of aluminum into a handy bracket that is strong and uses 2 of the roof-channel bolts, plus if I do say so myself, isn't too hard to look at. I pulled this particular design right straight out of my a.....bsolutely fabulous technical design drawing program.......

It's not the space shuttle, but this little bugger had a number of engineering challenges. It had to be tall, so the antenna mount and wire would clear. It had to be solid as the antenna is tall and wonky and moves around a lot. It had to sit squarely along several inches of roof-rail to be healthy and not cause stress to a single point and it had to be at a couple of subtle, different angles so the antenna would sit up straight.....more or less.....

The only detail missing.....OF COURSE!..... is that I had exactly the wrong length bolts....of course. I'll pick up a couple of shorter ones the next time I'm at the hardware store.

Last order of business for the day was to do more prep work before putting the vinyl on. I knew I needed to do something with the holes left in the tub from removing the ever-fashionable carry-on luggage handles. I've been avoiding that for quite awhile. I got around to removing the old screws, cleaning up the silicone around and in them, then drilling the holes out to 3/16" for pop-rivets. I filled the holes with caulk, inserted the pop-rivets and locked them down. Then I took a swipe of caulk to the head of the pop-rivets just to fill the center dimple and put a smear around the outer circumference. If my vinyl gets to that point, I can just go right over the rivet heads with little apparent dimple. It's not as elegant as doing a proper job of filling the holes with fiberglass resin and sanding them down, but a mile better than the odd, mis-matched screwheads that were there. I'll dab a bit of white-out on the heads once the caulk as had a couple of days to dry.

So the only thing I didn't get done today is the thing I set out to do....Remove the old caulk from around the roof vent and re-caulk it. I'll get to that tomorrow, weather permitting......

If it weren't for coffee, I wouldn't bother doing any of this stuff.....Now, where's my cup?

WilliamA

WilliamA

The weather has been cooperative so I got my caulking done around the roof vent and a few other small spots.

I also wanted my front spotlight up a bit so I bent up another bracket for that.

Keep livin the dream...

WilliamA

WilliamA

My new grip 27 Duracell has been in for a couple of weeks now. As spring is upon us with the requisite yard slime, I've been repositioning the trailer every 2 days or so. I haven't bothered to drag the 110V umbilical around which has given me an opportunity to watch the new battery voltage. I'm pleased to say it's holding nicely at 12.8V. I am heading out tomorrow for a spot of day-camping so I'll be using a few systems on internal power. Things look good now however and the hold charge is much better than the typical 12.2V of the old battery. Yeah...

WilliamA