Category Archives: repairs

Score – Ikea: 1, Airstream: 2

Posted on by

In a previous post I talked about the things I have done to the trailer with some Ikea products.  Here is an update on how they have gone.

The clear winner at this point, and the way that Ikea got its’ point, were the fold up hooks.  These are wonderful and we will be adding more around the trailer for everyday living.

Ikea: 1, Airstream: 0

One issue we had was with the Ikea storage unit (the ‘pantry’) that we put in the wardrobe closet.  Underneath the wardrobe ‘floor’ are many components for the fresh water system including the water pump.  There are also many different wires, etc.  Since there are items that might need access the ‘floor’ is not secured.  I actually had to remove two knobs, that are used to lift it, to allow a flat surface.  Obviously I didn’t think much of it.  Until after we had lunch at Kramer Junction:

KJ01

 

In getting back on highway 58 I took a very bumpy route.  It jarred the truck and trailer quite a bit.  I didn’t realize how much until we stopped again and looked inside.

In our wardrobe the ‘floor’ had come off of one edge of the supports (the one nearest the hall) and had fallen into the are underneath.  This caused the ‘pantry’ to lean forward to the point where it almost was whacking the mirrored wardrobe door.  The preliminary fix was to empty the wardrobe, reseat the ‘floor’ and put everything back.  I knew it would happen again.

It did.  I now needed a fix and before it broke one of our doors.  The solution was in Salome, AZ.

The path I took was kind of remote and the towns were relatively small.  I decided a couple of screws through the ‘floor’ into its’ supports would do the trick.  Alas I brought no screws or phillips bit for my drill.  Family Dollar store #9045 came to our rescue.  I was able to buy a screw set and a multi-tip screwdriver.  I used 3 screws and one of the tips from the screwdriver in my drill.  Nice and solid and no more problems!

Ikea: 1, Airstream: 1

The final Ikea issue was the toilet paper holder.  If you look at the post mentioned above, go ahead I will wait, you will see that we were not happy with Airstreams toilet paper location.  We got a holder from Ikea and I mounted it under the cabinet in the bathroom.  We found two issues with this.  First is that we could not put anything on the counter under or in front of it.  It blocked easy access.  The second item is that it came off during travel.  We were putting the roll back on every time we stopped!  Here is our new location:

TP01

We haven’t road tested it yet but I hope we don’t hit bumps bad enough to pop this off!  We will see soon however as we will be back on the road to Alumafiesta pretty soon.

Final Score:
Ikea: 1, Airstream: 2

 

Alumafandango trip – Days 13 & 14

Posted on by

I will put these days together in a blog post since they were both pretty much travel days and I don’t have any photos!

As previously mentioned I was worried about having enough diesel to get to a fill up.  I figured I would get as far as I could and then call AAA to bring some more.  However there was another issue that we noticed when arriving in the park.  Our hitch was making a horrendous noise.  We have an Equal-izer 1000 hitch.  We are told they are supposed to make some noise when turning.  We did hear that when we first got it and I greased it up pretty good so the noises when turning sharp in a campground were minimal.  According to literature, by greasing what I did would counteract any sway control the hitch would provide.  I don’t have an issue with sway before or after greasing so that did not matter.

On the way to the park we heard no noise from the hitch but we were only making gradual turns.  When we got to the campground and made tighter turns it sounded like metal gouging metal!  Terrible.  Prior to hitchup I checked some of the nuts on the hitch and they appeared to be a bit loose so I tightened them up and greased the HECK out of that hitch.  Result, no noise.  I am happy for now.

We started on the downhill and oddly enough the fuel gauge did not move much.  We comfortably made it to Klamath Falls and fueled up there.  We also got some groceries and headed toward the ultimate destination, Reno.  Actually more like Lake Tahoe but I could not find anywhere to stay and not being familiar made it harder to find something.  Crater Lake NP to Reno is a longish haul, 308 miles.  A bit more than we want to do in a day on this trip, except the first and last legs.  I decided to go to Susanville and we could spend the night there.  That was only 222 or 257.  Why the difference?  Choice of routes.

Once you get to 299E you get to choose if you go down State Route 139 directly to Susanville OR head east to Alturas then south on 395.  The latter route is longer but might have been the better choice.  Here is why.

139 is an OK route for a single vehicle, it requires a lot of concentration with a trailer.  The worst part is the last hill into Susanville.  About 4 miles of 6% grade that is pretty curvy.  A lot of braking, engine braking with tow/haul mode and a lot of turning.  I don’t think it was the worst downgrade I have ever been on with a trailer.  That title goes to old route 66 just east of Oatman, AZ.  Roxie’s worst are the New Priest Grade near Groveland, CA.  She also does not like CA 180 down from Kings Canyon NP.  We made it down as we always do but shortly after that we got a check engine light!!  Great!  Something else to worry about.

After we setup the trailer at the local RV park, did some laundry and I stopped at the O’Reilly auto parts.  I asked them if they rented the OBD II code readers.  They said no but if I went to the oil changers down the street they would do it for free.  OK.  Now a project for tomorrow.  We had a dinner at Lassen Steaks and a nice conversation with the owner of the establishment.

The next day we stopped at the Oil Changers to get the code read.  The technician cheerfully came out, read the code and erased the code.  It turned out to be some innocuous code related to the downhill.  I felt MUCH better.  I gave the tech a bit of cash and told him to help buy lunch for everyone that day.  We hooked up and headed to Reno.  A nice easy 395 drive.  We ended up at the Boomtown KOA for 3 nights, at least that was the plan…