Shake Rattle and Roll

Saturday June 1 Wasatch Mountain State Park, Utah

tripometer - 3903

Exactly one month on the road so far!

Our current campsite

We are 6 days into our 12 day stay at Wasatch, about 30 minutes outside of Park City, Utah.  It’s lovely here and there are outdoor activities galore, including hundreds of miles of biking and hiking trails.  Everywhere, including our campsite, we hear the sounds of creeks rushing, brimming with snow melt from the surrounding mountains.  We are camped at 6000 feet. It's lovely to be around so much water again.

Shake Rattle and Roll - The trials and tribulations of traveling with/living in a 1965 Airstream travel trailer.

As any homeowner knows, one always has a list of repair and maintenance items for one’s house/property.  When you add a couple axles to your home and drive it thousands of miles on highways that are in various states of repair/disrepair, your maintenance items tend to multiply.  We’ve been pretty lucky so far and “knock on wood” I hope it continues.

A few years ago I remember reading a blog post from a full time RV’ing family who were driving/living in an old Class A motorhome (a big RV that you drive, not one you pull) - I think it was one of the first Fleetwood Bounders, made in the mid 1980’s.  In the post the husband was relaying a conversation he had with a long time RV’er who asked him if he was a “wrench turner”…and the old timer said that if he wasn’t, he needed to be.  I remember thinking to myself at the time - “man it must be nice to have the knowledge and confidence to fix your own rig, to be a wrench turner, but I’m surely not one”.  At the time we had a Mercedes Sprinter Camper Van and all the components seemed both so high tech and expensive that I was afraid to do any fixes myself.

I’m pleased to report that I’m slowly becoming a wrench turner.  The lovely couple that renovated Koko the Airstream during the pandemic led the build with a deep knowledge of boat building and the KISS philosophy…keep it simple, stupid. I feel empowered to work on the airstream…plus “figuring it out”  is really the only viable solution when small to medium sized issues arise on the road.

Speaking of Koko’s renovators, they are an inspiring couple.  Here’s the build story in their own words and pictures.  https://skipperandflipper.com/2020/06/28/meet-our-new-home/

And if you want a deep dive into the incredible amount of energy they put into the build, here is a time lapse:  https://skipperandflipper.com/2020/11/03/1965-airstream-renovation-timelapse/

Back to these little fixes.  It’s my best educated guess now that we started the trip with too much air pressure in the trailer tires - especially given Koko’s age.  If you look online you will find a million different opinions on the matter…but suffice it to say that once we dropped the pressure from 75 down to 55, she seems a lot happier.  I think the air pressure was a contributing factor to the trouble we had early on with the solar panel nearly detaching.

Here are a few other “mechanicals” we’ve had on the trip:

Fire extinguisher went off by accident inside the Airstream!  Luckily most of it shot into a blanket - but what a white powdery mess!

Nail in truck tire - Costco fixed this for $14

Solar panel nearly tore off its brackets, twice - we did a temporary fix in Kansas and then a rebuild in Denver and all seems well now.

Toilet - I believe this was related to the tire pressure being too high.  In short, the wood framing for the toilet started to come apart and needed to be rebuilt.

Tore off grey tank valve - In an odd twist, we stopped at a hardware store to get parts to fix the toilet framing and there was a big dip between the parking lot and getting back on the highway.  We heard a scraping sound and thought the trailer hitch bottomed out but once we got to our next campsite we realized we’d torn off the grey tank release valve from the back of the Airstream. Ooops! The grey tank is where all our used shower water and kitchen sink water gets stored until we dump it via the valve.  It was empty at the time as we always dump it before traveling.  Luckily the tank itself wasn’t damaged.  We ordered the parts, had them sent to the campground, and installed a new valve.  It’s the lowest hanging part under the airstream and we will surely be more careful moving forward.

Screen door has a broken spring loaded latch - I’ve tried to find it at Lowes but it looks like it may be a special order.  We have a good work around for the time being that still allows the door to fully function.

Water pump  - We replaced the water pump before we departed as the original one had deteriorated inside the pump and began to leak.  In the past month we have learned its best to leave water in the lines while traveling as the new pump (same model as the old one) seems to be finicky and needs to be re-primed to get pressure back in the system if you don’t constantly keep water in the system.  Not the end of the world but a bit of a pain to re-prime when it needs to be done.

We have added more rivets to the under layer/belly of the Airstream as a few have popped during travel.

Reinforce steel belt that holds up/supports the grey water tank - a couple of the self drilling steel screws that hold the grey tank in place have broken off.  Quite possibly from when we bottomed out at the hardware store.  I have steel drill bits but they aren’t robust enough to drill through the parts of the screws still broken off inside the steel framing.  The tank is attached “OK” for now but I’d like to see it stronger.  I’ll look for a better drill bit in the local town this coming week and see if I can get it repaired before we travel again on Friday.

There is a small grey tank leak where the hose from the shower/sink meets the tank.  I tried a silicone caulk fix about a week ago but there is still a slow drip when the tank starts getting full.  I will work on it again today.