RE: Opinions on front window option
In my opinion, a window in a rearward slanted front wall of a travel trailer is asking for leak troubles. I have seen water standing in the window frames of front wall windows on dealers' lots, and I have seen evidence of leaking inside below front windows, also on new trailers on dealers' lots. These leaks can probably be fixed satisfactorily, but a front window in a rearward slanting wall will multiply the chances of a leak. Which is why I won't have one. We did have a front window in our Trailmanor bi-fold travel trailer which we owned for several years, but that window was on a forward slanted half-wall, and never caused any problems.
RE: refrigerator lights
Suzanne, the plug for the fridge is behind the outside vent cover, directly behind the refrigerator on the outside of the trailer. Most trailers have the upper vent on the roof, but some popups and trailers with the fridge in a slide room will have another identical outside vent higher up the wall. You usually remove the vent by turning the two little square fasteners on the top 90 degrees, then pull the top of the cover out. Most of them will then release the bottom "ears" and will pull completely off. To re-install it, place the little "ears" in their appointed slots, close the cover, then turn the little fasteners 90 degrees to lock them.
It's not all that uncommon for any trailer with panels that move, such as popup and HTT bed ends, to develop a leak. You need to find out where the moisture came from as soon as possible. Try sraying water from a garden hose on the roof and walls of the trailer above the spot where you found moisture, and have someone watch inside to see if moisture appears again. If your converter, or "circuit box", is under one of the bed ends of your HTT, it may be that it only leaks when the bed end is closed, so you may have to close it to find the leak. At any rate, find it as soon as possible, as a water leak can ruin your trailer. If the flooring and/or wall is wet, use a portable electric heater and/or fan blowing on the wet spot to dry it as soon as possible. It took 3 days with 2 electric heaters and a fan, with the A/C running on it's coldest setting (the A/C dehumidifies the air) to dry out my refrigerator compartment when a tree branch tore the caulking on my roof vent, causing rain to pour into the compartment and an adjoining cabinet.
Failure to dry wet wood out quickly can rot your floor and/or walls, and can cause the luan backing on the fiberglass exterior to rot away or the glue to let go, and delamination of the fiberglass will occur, which is expensive damage. Failure to dry it up quickly will also cause mold and mildew, and your trailer will begin to smell "musty". Once it starts, it's almost impossible to stop without replacing the wood that is rotting.
Have a great weekend. We're also going on a family Thanksgiving outing at Lake Belton, with 4 TTs, from Wednesday to Sunday.
EDIT: Suzanne, try to make sure that moisture is not falling or running into the converter. This could cause a fire, or at the very least, hopefully it would trip the 110-volt circuit breakers or blow the 12 volt fuses to kill the power before a fire could start. It could also ruin your converter.
By the way, if you didn't have lights in the trailer before you replaced your 110-volt adapter with a good one, then your trailer battery is dead (the lights should operate off the battery even if the trailer is not plugged in). After being plugged into 110-volt electricity overnight, unplug the trailer, then turn on the lights to see if your converter has charged the battery. The lights should come on. If they don't, or are dim and quickly go out, then you probably need a new battery. You might want to take care of that before you leave. Should, God forbid, your trailer come loose from your tow vehicle while traveling, your breakaway brake (the little silver cable you hook onto your tow vehicle frame when you hook up the trailer) will not work, and won't apply the trailer brakes to stop the trailer. The breakaway brakes depend on the trailer battery for power.
ANOTHER EDIT: If your trailer has an LP gas alarm (the thing with the green light that's always on), you must pull the 12v fuse for the alarm out before storing the trailer without being plugged into 110-volt power, or disconnect the trailer battery, or the alarm will run the trailer battery down until it is stone, cold, dead, and not able to take a charge (ruined). That is probably what ran your battery down while your trailer was in storage, and your battery probably is history. We are leaving Wednesday morning, but feel free to send me a private message if would like, and need more help or info.
RE: Help me with a electrical problem.
As T-bone says, you might want to start by disconnecting the battery and killing the entire system for a few minutes. If the problem is in a computerized control system, pulling the plug and then re-energizing the computer will often cause it to reboot and go back to working normally. If not--the switch contacts may have arced and may have been damaged. Nearly everything electric on my '03 GMC works through the computer.
I used to get a "brake" warning light on a 1990's S10 pickup when someone drove it besides me. My mechanic told me that the antilock brake computer "learned" how I drove it, and when someone else drove it, it read the different driving technique as something out of the ordinary (read "trouble"). He told me to disconnect power to the computer for 60 seconds or so, and the computer would reset. It would clear, and then be fine until the next time my wife or daughter drove it. Wonderful things, these computers!
RE: Removing Carpet
Sorry about your misfortune. There may be vinyl floor covering under the carpet, but even if there is, wooden carpet strips have probably been nailed through the vinyl to stretch the carpet onto and hold it in place. You would have to seal the holes in the vinyl covering somehow, if you remove the carpet strips. You'll probably ruin the vinyl trying to get the carpet strips off, anyway.
Use fans, heaters, and even your A/C, set as cold as it will go, to try and dry the flooring, walls, etc. out as quickly as possible, or you will soon begin to smell mildew and rot.
I ran two electric heaters and a fan, as well as my A/C unit, for 3 days when my roof-mounted fridge vent developed a leak and soaked the fridge compartment and a cabinet. This was a nearly brand-new trailer at the time (tree branch tore caulking off the fridge vent). Fortunately, I cooked and dried everything out in time. No musty odor and no visible rot--still smells like new inside. Fortunately, there was vinyl flooring under the cabinets and fridge compartment.
RE: refrigerator lights
Suzanne, check the circuit breaker for your fridge, located in the converter panel. If the breaker isn't tripped, and you still have no green light on "Auto" setting after cycling the breaker off, then on, pull the outside vent cover off, unplug the fridge, and use a voltage tester or a plug-in lamp to see if you have power at the 110-volt outlet that the refrigerator plugs into. The "check" light is on because the unit isn't working on 110v A/C, and you have the gas shut off, so it can't light on LP gas, which is what it will automatically try to do in the "Auto" position, if you lose 110-volt AC power.
RE: The bad thing about TCing
While you're out there, fire up the furnace, throw back the bed covers, and take a nap. Maybe that'll give you enough of a TC "fix" to last you until the next week. Then shovel a path through the snow to the TC and do it again!:W Happy Winter!
RE: Mr. Clean Auto Dry Car Wash
Mine works fine for the truck and SUV, but I haven't tried it on our travel trailer. (I use a sudsing attachment and special pre-soak detergent on my pressure washer to soap the trailer down, then pressure wash it on a wide fan, then take off down the highway with it.) Like Gunship Guy says, the filter is the key to spot-free water from the Mr. Clean system.
RE: backup camera
Bill, like bfast54 said, there are times you may not want the monitor on. You can wire the 12v to the backup light wire through a toggle or rocker switch on your dash or console, so that you can kill the camera if desired.
RE: updating to lcd tv
Haven't seen any 12V LCD HDTVs yet. You will have to plug your new TV into 110V. If you won't have hookups, and don't have a generator, you can get a 12VDC-to-110VAC inverter. Just be sure you get one large enough to handle the load. Check the wattage on your TV (should be printed on a plate on the rear of the TV, or cast into the plastic cover), and make sure you get an inverter that supplies somewhat more wattage than the TV takes. Otherwise, the inverter may get very hot, if it's delivering it's maximum wattage continuously.
RE: I miss camping all ready!!!
We're having a camping Thanksgiving with our immediate family from Wednesday through Sunday at Lake Belton, near Temple, TX. (4 RVs). It is supposed to rain, and a freeze is forecast for the end of the week, but that won't stop us. I often end up winterizing our trailer several times, as we do camp occasionally during the winter. We have an enclosed and insulated RV garage, but it isn't heated, and if the weather drops below freezing for several days, it will drop below freezing in there. If there's any month that we likely won't camp in, it's usually January. We bought our present trailer in FEBRUARY, 2007, and camped in it the day after we brought it home and loaded it.
If I lived in Idaho, though, I probably wouldn't camp from December through February, either. I know a lot of the campgrounds shut down during the winter up North. Our favorite campground in Colorado, near Pagosa Springs, shuts down the last week in November, and the owners spend December through February in Mesa, Arizona.
Sorry you're temporarily shut down!
RE: Towing the untowable
The subject has been covered many times before here, but I see no reason why I can't answer your question. You can have a pump installed in the trans cooling lines that will circulate the trans fluid while the van is being towed. You can also use a tow dolly and tow with the van's front wheels off the ground. Some just crank the toad, place the trans in neutral, and tow with the toad's engine running to circulate the fluid. That wouldn't be my personal solution, if I had a motorhome and toad, but it's cheap (except for the gas burned by the idling toad), and it works!
RE: $700.00 the hard way
I've installed two receiver hitches in my 34 years of towing, on pre-owned vehicles, and although they took some time, I didn't find the jobs to be particularly difficult. But I was a paint & body technician in my younger years, and I have a LOT of tools, including air rachets and impact wrenches. All the other tow vehicles I've had during that time were either ordered with, or already were equipped with, factory HD towing packages which included the hitches. $700 does seem quite high to me, though, since you already had the hitch and were just paying for installation labor. At $85 to $90 an hour for labor, installing the hitch shouldn't cost more than half that amount, in my opinion.
RE: GFI Trips In Garage
I agree with the other posters; find out if the GFCI trips if you plug your MH vacuum cleaner directly into it. By nature, GFCI's are very sensitive devices, if they weren't, they wouldn't protect you from electrocution. It takes very little "leakage" current to trip them.
But I suspect that your GFCI may be on a 15-amp circuit with 14-gauge wire, and the starting current on your vacuum cleaner, in addition to the current being used by anything else in the motorhome which is drawing current, may actually be pulling more than 15 amps of instantaneous current through the GFCI when the vacuum starts.
I would suggest you try Don Wilcox's ideas in his last sentence, and add a 20-amp circuit with 12-gauge wire, or a 30-amp RV circuit with 10-gauge wire, or plug your adapter into a 110-volt outlet which is not GFCI-protected, if you have one nearby.
RE: Laredo vrs Artic Fox
AF, but be forewarned they are heavy and will tax even the stoutest of trucks.
Agreed. We had one in our extended family for several years. The quality was great, but the trailer's weight caused our relatives to upgrade to a diesel tow vehicle not long after they bought it. Their 3/4-ton gas truck felt like it had a house tied to it's tail. :)
RE: Newbie trailer/towing questions
As others have said, you would almost certainly overload the manufacturer's recommended limits with the hybrid TT, and really strain your vehicle's drivetrain, too. However, if you don't want a canvas-sided popup, there are other alternatives.
Trailmanor makes models that would be towable by your Honda. Trailmanors are very light weight, in comparison with equal length TTs or hybrid TTs. They also have the added advantage of being about the same height of your Honda when folded down for travel, insulated hard walls, a bathroom, and you can store it in your garage. Compared to a canvas and/or vinyl-sided popup, Trailmanors are a breeze to set up, and can be set up or folded down in the rain without getting the inside wet.
We had a 3326 Trailmanor (33' long when raised, 26' long when lowered), the largest they make, for several years, and it was the easiest towing TT I've ever pulled. At about 3500 lbs. unloaded, and 5' high when lowered, our 1500 Suburbans hardly knew the thing was back there.
The only disadvantage would be cost; they aren't cheap. It costs more to make an extremely light trailer with walls that move than it does to make a heavier trailer with fixed walls, but the advantages of owning such a trailer, when you have a "towing-challenged" tow vehicle, outweigh the costs for some. And you probably already have a place to store the trailer--your garage. A folding tongue is an option which allows the trailer to fit in a garage slightly less long than the trailer is. It won't hurt to look at them, using the link above.
Most people tow Trailmanors without sway controls. With our Suburban/3326 combination, it wasn't needed. But a weight-distributing hitch was. With your Honda, I think I'd want one, anyway. A Reese Strait-Line hitch with included Dual-Cam HP sway control, or an Equal-I-Zer brand hitch/sway control, would be your best bet if sway control was needed. With these hitches/sway controls, you hook up your sway control by simply hooking up your weight-distributing bars.
You have done well; you're intelligent enough to realize that your tow vehicle is weight-challenged. Now check into lightweight, hard-wall alternatives to hybrid TTs. Your Honda will thank you.
If you have questions about Trailmanors that the web site doesn't address, feel free to send me a PM. As a former Trailmanor owner for several years, I feel that my knowledge might be useful.
RE: unplugging a television
Plug it into a power strip with a switch on it. Then just switch the whole power strip off at night.
Just what I was going to suggest. I have everything in my entertainment center plugged into two power strips/protectors, which allows me to cut power to everything with just the two rocker switches.
RE: I hate storing the TT
We do camp in cold weather, even though our TT doesn't have an underbelly or furnace-heated tanks. We've even camped at 8000 ft. in Colorado in November snow, although most often we are at Lake Whitney, SW of DFW, which is only 15 miles from home. Stick-on tank heaters, disconnecting and draining your city water connection in freezing weather, etc., can help you cope with cold weather camping, if you REALLY have that urge to go. However, I suppose many of the campgrounds in your area close down for the winter months. No problem.....come to TEXAS! :W Many "snowbirds" do!
RE: 2006(LBZ) Chev 3500 SRW CCLB bumper pull TH question
Even with the quads on the Diamondback cover, I would think that the tongue weight on the Octane would be within Chevy's recommended limits for a C3500. I would look at the door sticker to see what the maximum weight is that the rear axle is rated for, weigh the rear axle with an empty truck, then add the weight of the cover, the quads, and the hitch weight, to see if the rating would be exceeded. You would also need to estimate any other weight you would be carrying in the truck bed or passenger compartment.
Sometimes the truck suspension is capable of carrying more weight than the axle weight rating, but the rating is limited by the capacity of the tires installed from the factory. This is the situation we have with our TT--the axles are rated for over 1000 lbs. more than the tires the factory mounted on the trailer are. Airbags might keep the truck level, but they would not add any capacity to the tires, which is what usually gets to the limits first. You will also need a really beefy weight distribution setup, too, considering your empty tongue weight. Once loaded, your tongue weight would probably exceed my 1200-lb. capacity WD bars. You need to be able to transfer some of the quad's weight to the front axle, too, so you will really need a stout hitch and WD setup.
To get started figuring, weigh the empty truck's axles ASAP. Happy Trails, and welcome to the wonderful world of RVing!
RE: Just curious
Home now, have 5 days reserved at Lake Belton Thanksgiving week. Probably will make at least 1 one-week outing to nearby Lake Whitney sometime in the first two weeks of December. Depending on the weather, we may go out for a week in January or February. From March on thru November, we average one week of camping out of every three weeks. I don't mind re-winterizing the trailer. I usually wind up winterizing at least 2 or 3 times through the winter.
