What was your first, worst or most memorible SPUT (stupid pop up trick)?
I will start. I was backing the camper in a friends driveway to turn around and it was dark out. The apron at the bottom of the driveway was more narrow then the paved drive so while backing up, I caught the curb with the rear stabilizer and ripped it off. I was able to buy one and fix it myself but still cost me $50 and a few hours.
I've been extraordinarily lucky so far. My only SPUTs to date involve the roof on our old camper. One of the bikes fell over in the bike rack while I was either mounting or dismounting it. The pedal made a dent in the top, but fortunately didn't appear to break the aluminum skin. The second one was similar. Last winter, I was using a heavy duty shop broom to clear the snow off the roof, it slipped over the edge of the roof and the bracket supporting the pole made a few more dents in the roof, again without breaking the skin.
Give me more time though. I'm sure I'll manage to do something more interesting. 😉
We camp about 10-14 times each year (about every 3 weeks) and I always have one self inflicted wound to the camper each year. Last years was the little darn pine cone behind the front storage bin door.... crraaacccckkkkk.
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The year before was a good one. :- When camping in March, I was at the campground a few hours early before the family and pulled up the the water filling station and decided to de-winterize. I put the rod in the water heater, opened the water heater bypass, flushed and filled the water tank, connected the hose to the water supply to flush and fill the water heater. I come to find out the galley faucet was open, the sink filled up while a full roll of paper towels were in it and the floor got wet. No damage but I didn't know what was happening until I backed into my site and saw water dripping from the door. Thought, that's not good! ???
This one is a good one from when I was a teenager camping with my dad. We had a Starcraft Galaxy 6. We were camping by Moraine State Park in Pa for weekend fishing trip. After setting up camp we decided to go get some bait and head to the lake for some fishing. My dad told me I could drive and I ask him for the keys. He cannot find them and after a search of the car and camper the keys are nowhere to be found. 🙁 We decide that the only spot that they can be is in the trunk of the car. So we take the back seat out of the car and I crawl into the trunk and unlock the trunk from the inside. Once again after searching the trunk there are no keys. :- So we have no choice but to call home and have someone bring the spare set of keys to us. :-[ Later that day my uncle makes the 60 mile drive to us with the spare set of keys. After a weekend of camping we still did not find the keys. We pack up camp to go home and the last thing we do is crank the roof down and guess what was on top of the roof? The missing keys!!! :doh:
Beautiful!
We were on our maiden solo voyage on Thankgiving weekend at Myrtle Beach SP.
I got all backed in, disconnected, popped up and powered... Except no power in the PU.
I borrowed a drop light from our neighbors to check the pole. Yup, power. I scratched my head for about 15 minutes trying to figure out what I'd done wrong.
Eventually I decided I'd call the PO's in WV and explain my problem in hopes of an over phone tech assist.
Mrs PO answers and says, "Don's carving the turkey. Hold on a minute.". Crap, I had forgotten it was Thanksgiving AND dinner time.
Don picked up and graciously reminded me of the small connector on the ceiling that needed connecting.
We've only had it since Nov. I'm sure I have a lot more yet discovered SPUTs in me.
Other than the obvious wheelie the first week we had it and were cleaning it out, we've been fairly lucky as far as damage or injury goes. (For the uninitiated, that's when you either forget or just don't know to put down the stabs and take a step behind the axle while you're inside the pup.) DW and I wound up in a pile on the back bunk, cackling like banshees, with the tongue of the trailer about 11 feet in the air. Talk about instant togetherness...
I was popping up the pup to give her a good cleaning. We have an electric lift and it was after a trip, i wasn't 100% sure about the battery charge but i figured i'd give it a go before plugging it in. I got about 3/4 of the way up when the power started to lag, the lift motor droned and i thought to mysel "o.k., maybe not quite enough juice to do it". I held onto the switch though and the motor came back to life and raised the roof the rest of the way. Now, i didn't hear or see anything wrong during the lift, but when i went to put up the awning i noticed that the "foot" on the side of the trailer that the awning rail sits in was gone. I saw it on the ground, picked it up, and thats when i noticed the green plastic wrap around the safety cord that stops the roof from lifting to high, was ripped apart. Guess it got tangled around the foot on the way up and ripped it right off. Oh well,no major harm done. Some new butyl tape, hole filler and some liquid nails and the foot held up no problem for the rest of the summer. Its probably on better now than from the dealer. Needles to say, if i here the motor lag again, it'll be an immediate stop and walk around to make sure there's no snags.
My first SPUT!!!
On the maiden voyage of our first pup, we tore off one of the stabs while we were entering the campground. In our current camper, our grown son camped with us one weekend and brought along Klondike ice cream bars. About 2 weeks after the weekend he called us and said "Don't be mad, but I don't remember getting the ice cream from the freezer..." Needless to say that ice cream is now banned and my son is not allowed to be in charge of emptying the fridge.
[quote author=Full Circle link=topic=494.msg3064#msg3064 date=1296483712]
I was popping up the pup to give her a good cleaning. We have an electric lift and it was after a trip, i wasn't 100% sure about the battery charge but i figured i'd give it a go before plugging it in. I got about 3/4 of the way up when the power started to lag, the lift motor droned and i thought to mysel "o.k., maybe not quite enough juice to do it". I held onto the switch though and the motor came back to life and raised the roof the rest of the way. Now, i didn't hear or see anything wrong during the lift, but when i went to put up the awning i noticed that the "foot" on the side of the trailer that the awning rail sits in was gone. I saw it on the ground, picked it up, and thats when i noticed the green plastic wrap around the safety cord that stops the roof from lifting to high, was ripped apart. Guess it got tangled around the foot on the way up and ripped it right off. Oh well,no major harm done. Some new butyl tape, hole filler and some liquid nails and the foot held up no problem for the rest of the summer. Its probably on better now than from the dealer. Needles to say, if i here the motor lag again, it'll be an immediate stop and walk around to make sure there's no snags.
My first SPUT!!!
I had that wire guide rip off on mine once. It coiled around the bolt on the lifting arm and snapped. I don't own a pup anymore. I own a hybrid.
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