RV & BUS REPAIR
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Too many toys in the Toy Hauler?
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Axles Dog Tracking ripping your Hangers to shreds?
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Shore, power working but not making it inside your RV?
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Kubot a Generator continually shutting down and popping Morris Code signals at you?
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Fit under that tree but your Coleman or Carrier AC unit did not?
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Pretty bridge, but did you just knock your mirror clean off at the Toll Both? Take your window with it?
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Put Diesel in the gas tank? Put Gasoline in the Diesel tank?
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Water soaking the carpet by the sofa couch?
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Air Brakes won’t unlock? Hydraulic Brakes won’t lock? Not sure if your Electric Brakes lock or unlock?
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Check engine light on? ABS light on? Please change my oil light on? Call the mechanic light on?
That was fun to write!
You folks are by far the most fun lot to visit. We have been called out to repair just about everything big and small that people as well as animals call home away from home; RV Motor Homes, Toy Haulers, Tour Buses, Fifth Wheelers, Coleman Pop-Up Trailers, Air Streams, Horse Trailers, Gasoline School Buses, Big Boy RV Diesel Pushers, and Even British Double Decker Buses.
Have a look at some of the photos. One photo is a shot of Cal using a laser alignment technique to get an untowable trailer mounted back on its double axles and tracking precisely correct.
Did you know most spring equalizers and leaf springs on newer toy haulers and trailers are designed without lube points? The bushing material used is plastic instead of bronze. In a short while the axles have so much slop due to premature wear that they start fighting each other tracking all over the place. This is called Dog Tracking or Crabbing. As the wear gets worse the force from the axles tracking different directions bend the spring hangers which makes the axles Dog Track even more severely. Finally the spring hangers/axles bust off the frame. Worse yet the frame itself bends. Needless to say we can fix all of it, but replacing an under-engineered CHEEPO $60 kit with a well made $200 bronze/thick steel suspension kit is a whole lot cheaper than bending an untowable Toy Hauler frame in the field.
How did we go from Bronze to plastic? Well there is the “it’s cheaper” answer but it’s a bit more complicated than that. We originally went from bronze to Teflon bushings. Teflon doesn’t use lube grease so there was no need to incorporate lube points on the trailer… hurray, even cheaper! Hey this plastic stuff looks just like Teflon and it’s… even cheaper!! But it’s plastic right? The designers of these UNDER-ENGINEERED SUSPENTION COMPONENTS legitimized this move because the purchasers of these smaller fifth wheel Toy Haulers, Pop-Up Trailers, were categorized as “weekend warriors.” That’s code for letting them off the hook for putting junk on your equipment. I guess weekend warriors use lighter motorcycles, and ketchup bottles. Supposedly this was a smart business practice. Now all the manufacturers’ phone numbers are disconnected. Same story again and again. I think we are getting it though.
Thanks for reading this
Mark