I crawled in and checked dessicant today and for rodent signs. Everything was good. No signs. And only a tiny bit of water in dessicant container. Yeah! I folded and packed all the bedding and towels into a blue tote and a duffle. Ready to go out the door as soon as its nice. Have been searching the web for a screen house for on awning. Think I found one in Lancaster Co for $95. Next up on my list is a BAL leveler.
We opened ours friday night and it is still opened we r packing things in it that the members have told us we would probably use and of course the first thing was pen and paper so we can write down what we forgot or didn't realize we would need plus we r getting familiar with how everything works can't wait for our first trip ever
Kevin
Good move, Kevin! It also helps to keep a notepad handy somewhere in the house where you can write things down as you think of them, especially as you're prepping for your first trip.
We don't take too much out of the camper before putting it to bed for the winter, but I keep a notepad on one of the clipboards in my shop so I can mark things down as I think of them. Sometimes it's some extra maintenance I want to do at the beginning of the season. This year it's the extras I need to do to the new-to-us Niagara that we used just one time at the end of last season.
John
We opened ours on Friday at the campground we stayed at over the weekend. 🙂
A few weeks ago after some heavy rain storms, I opened the front bunk to find a little water sitting in between the folds of the canvas, and fortunately no sign of it anywhere else. I know it was definitely put away totally dry too. <sigh> It's the dreaded HTT leaky front bunk problem, or at least a variation on it. I suspected we might have problem, but this was the first hard evidence of it. Our bunk doors have two seals, one that is attached to the outer edge of the door, and another that's attached to the inner part of the frame. Any water that might get past the outer seal should be stopped by the inner one, run down the channel between them and out the bottom hinge area. After a quick examination, the primary culprit seems to be that the outer seal is sitting right on top of some screwheads, and therefore not sealing. I added an additional weather seal just inside the outer seal, more or less doubling the width of the outer seal, and that seems to correctly make full contact with the bunk door frame. It still doesn't explain why the inner seal isn't doing its job, so some further investigation is in order but i have a few ideas.
The good news is that I found it nice and dry when we opened it up Friday, despite some heavy rains earlier in the week.
My big question is why did no one at Palomino stop to think how placing a seal right on top of some screws heads might affect the outer seal's water stopping ability, but given the myriad other small/medium fit/finish/quality problems I've had, I'm not entirely sure they have a QC department to catch these sorts of things.
[quote author=twstdpear link=topic=1392.msg10963#msg10963 date=1329707828]
My big question is why did no one at Palomino stop to think how placing a seal right on top of some screws heads might affect the outer seal's water stopping ability, but given the myriad other small/medium fit/finish/quality problems I've had, I'm not entirely sure they have a QC department to catch these sorts of things.
Given all the minor (and not so minor) things we found on our Flagstaff (same parent company as Palomino) I'm fully convinced that there is no QC department!
John
Went over to my parents where I'm keeping my camper today to try to clean more of the canvas. Boy is it scary standing in a PUP when the winds outside are 20-30 MPH with gusts up to 40MPH and being under lots of old trees! At least I wasn't getting most of the wind since it's set up next to the house.
We wanted to work on cleaning up some of the moldy canvas, but with the wind we decided against it. We hooked up the water for the first time. Boy is the manufactures manual for the camper terrible! We finally came to the conclusion that maybe the camper doesn't have a water pump? OK, I settled at that conclusion, I'm willing to bet that my dad will still spend more time looking for it tomorrow. There are other things that the manual says the campers have that doesn't say they are optional.
We also found out that the clean water tank has a leak. Guess that means I won't be using water at French Creek! No big deal, the big deal is the moldy canvas. yuck!
Your camper may not have a water pump in the sense that you turn a knob and it pumps the water out of your fresh water tank and it just runs automatically. In my Coleman, and I bet yours is similar, there is a hand pump. You pump the handle back and forth a few times and it siphons the water up and into the sink. If I am hooked up to a garden hose, I push down and hold the handle and the pressure from the garden hose just runs through the sink. As for your water tank leaking, if you can find the leak, there are ways to seal it. I sealed a windshield washer reservoir in a car (same principle) with a plastic milk jug corner and some silicone.
I was at a car show with my pup 1 1/2 years ago and it was super windy, rocking us around. That is scary. I pulled in my awning and took down the flea market tents and let everything get wet. Others kept their tents up and it was not a pretty sight Sunday morning. One 10 x 20 tent was flipped up and around a big class A. We pulled our vehicles around the pup so only 1 side was really exposed otherwise I'm sure we would have had some damage.
Hopefully it is a nice day tomorrow so you can clean your canvas.
Matt O 2006 Skyline Nomad 27' travel trailer. Previously owned 1986 Coleman Columbia / 1992 Coleman Senecca / 1989 Born Free Class C RV.
[quote author=MariskaHargitay link=topic=1392.msg11101#msg11101 date=1330216696]
We wanted to work on cleaning up some of the moldy canvas, but with the wind we decided against it. We hooked up the water for the first time. Boy is the manufactures manual for the camper terrible! We finally came to the conclusion that maybe the camper doesn't have a water pump? OK, I settled at that conclusion, I'm willing to bet that my dad will still spend more time looking for it tomorrow. There are other things that the manual says the campers have that doesn't say they are optional.
Yeah, they write the manual for a general line of campers, not for each individual model. Makes it really interesting trying to figure out everything when you're not familiar with it!
You can buy a patching kit for your water tank through Amazon.
John
Opened mine up yesterday to start packing it for trip to FL in 2 weeks. DH had me so turned around with "what else do you want in here and it is too cold and windy to be out here" That I forgot 3/4 of the stuff I wanted to put in there. :- Now it will have to go into the TV until we get where we are going and then can put it in there.
[quote author=Breadbox link=topic=1392.msg10936#msg10936 date=1329662929]
I was doing some painting on the house yesterday and had to move the pup so I would splatter paint on it and I was SOOOOO tempted to open her up. If I didn't need to get all this housework done I would have.
Couldn't hold back any more. No major problems from sitting since September. I forgot the kids spilled something on the rug last trip, so it needs washing badly and there was a little mildew on the counter top. I think the sink drain might have still had a little water in it. I rehung the door mount. When I redid the roof side, I didn't have anyway to precisely locate the door and I got it a little low so the door's piano hinge bowed in and caused the door to bind. Now it doesn't. I also installed the second speaker of the stereo we'll be putting in soon and mounted a new battery box on the tongue so I can finally fix the messed up 12V system (and hook the stereo up the rest of the way.)
I plan on opening mine up next weekend to survey the situation. If I need to make any repairs I will have that weekend as well as 1 more before the French Creek Rally. If no repairs are needed then it will be packed for the trip.
Matt O 2006 Skyline Nomad 27' travel trailer. Previously owned 1986 Coleman Columbia / 1992 Coleman Senecca / 1989 Born Free Class C RV.
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