Purchasing a new tow vehicle is never a light decision.
1. It has to do the job.
2. Look good with your trailer
3. Goldilocks principle... not too big or too small
4. Be at a good price
5. Durable and long lasting
My dear cousins Don and Judy had a Ford F-550 towing their fifth wheel. Did the job, looked good with their trailer, not too big or small, they bought it used at a good price, it was durable, and yet when they unhooked and drove us to Disney World from the park they were staying in, I very nearly lost my dental work from the vibration, damaged my hearing from the noise, and popped a hip climbing in that sucker. Clearly there are other considerations I did not list.
If you are in the unenviable position of purchasing a trailer before you gave consideration on how to tow it, my sympathies. Even small trailers, when loaded, are heavier than you think. Especially in a head wind (see earlier chapters)
I can't help but think of the movie, "The Long Long Trailer" when the newlyweds do precisely that, buy the trailer first then... with a cue of the circus music.... begin a learning journey of one pitfall after another, which began with buying a new vehicle that could tow the trailer, after the trailer purchase. I have experienced personally most of their mishaps but one, we had a good tow vehicle and we would buy a new one exactly the same.
BUT
Yes, black would be fine...
BUT
We already had a black truck that once went perfectly with our black and turquoise Shasta Compact that sold two years ago, not so perfect was the pairing with our Boles Aero's blue, cream, white, and gold. Truth be known, we actually had a Nissan Frontier long before our first little trailer and it came with a tow package we had never used. The day we purchased that truck, I asked them to take the tow package out, as we would never use it and I did not want to pay for something we wouldn't use. Of course, we did end up using it, a lot!
BUT
It was year's end and selection was low for the current model year and the new ones hadn't been arriving in quantity. Good time to get a bargain, bad time to find the options and colors you want.
BUT
It did not come in blue. Well, there was a blue.... that looked somewhat acceptable in the brochure but upon seeing it in person, I exclaimed, "That's blue? Yeah, the kind of blue you see in a swamp!"
Fortunate people's problems.... just keep swimming....
So, I sat down with dear Dave. I calmly explained how we had spent all the money on the paint job of the trailer, seemed silly if the truck didn't match it. Ergo.... paint the truck the blue of the trailer.... the new truck.... paint a brand new truck.
It was a tough sell.....
I had done the math, figuring we would be using our trailer probably 15 - 20 years and how this could conceivably be our last truck purchase. Plus, if we got a really good deal on our trade, which had been purchased from and serviced by the same dealership, then we could justify the cost of the paint.
Pleeeeeeeeeeeeze! Oh! Pretty Pleeeeeeeeze.......
To tell the truth, I felt a little guilty....
BUT
The feeling passed.
I personally know of many Trailerites with perfectly matching vintage tow vehicles as well as many refurbished trailers. Even one who keeps a trailer on each coast of the country to avoid towing back and forth just to attend rallies. I've got it bad but not quite that bad! Or good, I should say!
We will always have one trailer and one tow vehicle, it seemed reasonable.
The purchase was made, all smiles.
BUT
The truck came from out of town, out of state actually. And when it arrived, the wheel rims were anything but the bright ones that shown in the pictures. Those had to go. I liked what we had on our trade in so, I would order four new rims. It was a given that we would replace the alternator with a high output alternator from Nations Starter that had served us well before powering the inverter and battery bank in our camper while traveling down the highway.
The truck was painted and then went for the alternator, should have been reversed but it wasn't. They gouged the new paint so back to the paint shop. It had over spray that had to be cleaned anyway and the polishing powder had left a haze on everything inside the vehicle. The gas intake was flopping around inside it's collar and had to be secured. and several little interior scrapes on the door panels to fix.
Crimeny.
Stock tires wouldn't do so, we purchased four new Michelins like we had on the other truck. Same size rims and tires we had. Some custom chrome trim was installed on the wheel wells. When we picked up the truck and drove off we heard a puzzling BWERRRRRRP! sound coming from the front but only when turning. To make a very long story shorter, the new tires were rubbing on the mud flaps that were an installed factory item on the new truck that we did not have on our trade in. The mistake the dealership made not considering those flaps led to them purchasing another set of tires in a smaller size and installing them. It had to go back for a new interior door panel that was damaged as well as some console pieces from them throwing the alternator, in it's box, with it's attending metal staples into the passenger side of the cab instead of in the truck bed but I'm just making a shorter story longer!
The results were beautiful but gee wiz...... what you have to go through!
Meanwhile, in a driveway across town..... we were dealing with the drain pipes under the trailer. The shower pan had been leaking, probably all along since the first over rated hands got hold of it, and the latest incarnation of kitchen pipes that included a long section of radiator hose for the drain leading from the kitchen sink. Although it did not leak, it drained really slowly because of it's small diameter and even smaller interior hose couplers. This was not my idea, it was a brain child of another shop and it was destined for scrap.
I will say this, one has to realize with the wisdom of a Monk, a trailer is subjected to forces your house never sees. On a good day your house doesn't move or is subjected to hurricane force winds on a regular basis. Not to mention road debris, bug goo, or irregular surfaces at 60 mph! The stresses on your little cottage on wheels are tremendous. Just think, if you are towing at 60 into a headwind of 30 - 40 mph, your tin tenement is encountering hurricane force winds for several hours, repeatedly during it's lifetime.
Reality check.
Our man Ron, was working with me on the drains and at one point we were eye to eye through the drain hole of the shower. He was in the trailer and I was underneath. Some do-hickey had to screw into the thing-a-ma-bob for the drain not to leak. One shop had installed it and another tried to fix it. The rubber gasket wasn't "seating" was the term used. As I gazed up at the floating eye above the hole I said, "Ron, the wood is in the way, the circle is off set from the shower pan drain opening, badly.... what idiot would do this?" I knew. I picked up my Dremmel and off I went cutting this hole into a larger size to allow the meeting of the parts necessary to prevent unsightly and unwanted leakage. It was never done right in the first place, no wonder here....
It worked! Victory Dance! Well, it was more like a squeal and a wiggle since I was on my creeper underneath the trailer.....
Then, the kitchen drain had to be dealt with. You either now or undoubtedly will find out there is a limited amount of space in which to run the mechanicals in your lovely little trailer. Worse for us, room was never made for running anything. We were forced to cut into walls and create chases where they should have been built in during the framing process. This made for some creative solutions, and a few choice words......
After abandoning the under trailer kitchen drains, I was able to determine enough clearance was to be had under the water heater over the wheel well to run a drain that would connect in the bathroom behind the access panel we had made earlier. The problem was, traditional hard pvc 1 1/2" drain pipe was a dog that wouldn't hunt.
Something had to be out there...
What I found was flexible drain pipe. Not the accordion type but smooth walled outside and in. It could be bent and rounded into the space in the bathroom. It was also made of pvc so all the prep and install is the same as regular hard pvc pipe. This all drains into the holding tank. We even installed a pool diverter valve so the kitchen sink could be drained into a bucket or on the ground when dry camping. The hole in the floor was already there so, win, win.
So excited I was when everything tested water tight. For a while. But after a bit there was a drip, drip, but in a different spot. Good Lord. After testing everything, just water on in the toilet, then the bathroom sink, then the kitchen sink. Then dawn rose, slowly.
Oh no... no, no not THAT!
There was one possibility left, one section of drain inaccessibly located under the shower pan that connected to the toilet stack. This had not been my idea but the first shop's brain fart. Why anyone would put pipes where they cannot be accessed is beyond me but I wasn't consulted. We had already redone all the other drains, except for that section. The nature of the leak is that it's draining through the floor opening on the outside of the toilet stack, onto the top of the holding tank, and eventually dripping off by the frame. This took a while for the water to accumulate which was throwing the investigation off!
I have a solution, after much consideration, and one mishap that led in that direction. This is a very tight space. Ron was gluing the kitchen drain in the wall behind the shower pan when he tipped over the lavender pvc solvent and it spilled into the shower pan. The white shower pan. He wiped it up but the stain was instant and permanent. On a shower pan that was not easy to replace, since it would involve tearing out the entire bath, and that could not be swapped out anyway because they don't make them any more! He began sanding and sanded right through the shower pan in the corner trying to remove the purple. A quick trip to Home Depot presented a pvc patch kit for tubs and showers.
It worked.
And it got me thinking....
The only way to get to the pipes that were leaking under the shower pan was from the top. Through the shower pan, where you like.... shower. But, it was behind the toilet not where you stand so it wouldn't have heavy shifting pressure on it.
We will be attempting this repair next month, I'll let you know how it goes! The idea is to precisely cut out the top of the shower pan then cut through the wood underneath, fix the pipe, then put it all back together in reverse with the last step being filling the seams of the shower pan with the pvc patch.
This needs to be done before another epic trip, this time to The Badlands, Mt. Rushmore, Vail, Moab, UT, Arches National Park, Mesa Verde National Park, Toas, NM, Amarillo, TX, then home!
Late addition !!!
A very nice thing happened recently. If you follow this blog or just read the earlier chapters, you learned that we attended Modernism Week in Palm Springs, CA a year ago. We had really pushed to finish our trailer after so much renovation trouble and we were naturally excited to show our trailer. But, we were also anxious, for the length of the haul, the weather, and fear of being black balled.
We had experienced a lot of hateful comments regarding our problems with one of the vintage trailer restoration shops we used. Some people were very vocal in defense of a shop they had never ran a trailer through which was puzzling to me. This place was and is very connected in the vintage trailer community and had us kicked out of Tin Can Tourists. Sour grapes, I suppose.
But, there it was in the back of my mind when we were at the show. We received a cool reception in the beginning and I got the sense that a few people were baiting us to see what we would say about the situation but I ignored them. We were just ourselves and by the close of the weekend, we had made many new friends and ended up winning Fan Favorite at the most prestigious trailer show in the country.
Toward the end of the day on Sunday at Modernism Week, a man with a large camera came over. I recognized him as the publisher of Vintage Camper Trailer Magazine, Paul Lacitinola, and I said, "We'd love to be in your magazine." He smiled and asked if he could look at the trailer. "Of course", I said. He was very complimentary and made very specific comments about the materials we used and how we used them, how he had seen tons of trailers and there was nothing like ours, and even said, "Now, I paint trailers, and I have never seen a paint job as excellent as this." He took many photos and sent his wife Caroline over to get our contact information. The Lacitinolas said they were putting together a book and would like us to be in it. I will tell you, I was immediately thrilled and wary. I did not know these people, having just met, but we do subscribe to the magazine. My trepidation came out of already being raked over the coals regarding our trailer and a small part of me thought it might be a cruel joke getting our hopes up and then nothing would happen.
Months went by and we heard not a peep, not even a mention in their coverage of Modernism Week or in the other vintage trailer magazine, Vintage Trailer Magazine, who also covered the event. This fed into my notion that we were black balled.
I mused on this for months finally saying to myself, "Oh forget it. You didn't redo this trailer to go to rallies, you did it for travel and sight seeing for years to come."
Then, around August of last year, an artist's release came in the mail from the publishing house to give permission for us to be in the book. Again, doubt crept in as to "how" we would be presented. In situations like this, you really hand yourself over and hope for the best.
The book was released in February 2018 and I will say this, it's a wonderful book even if we weren't in it. But, upon closer inspection, I quickly realized they gave us 6 pages. The only other spread that was larger was the story of the publishers, Paul, Caroline, and their family. That was extremely generous and I thanked them for it.
True to their word and our delight, our trailer is now published and it's a true honor.
The book may be purchased at www.vintagecampertrailers.com
It's a very nice hardbound coffee table book!
