Tag: junk

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It Never Ends….

So, the theme of this trailer is seems is “whenever you look under or in something you find something else wrong”. You’d think by now I’d have seen under everything, but there are a few corners still waiting for me.

Original base mounting
Original base mounting

So, my wife wanted a different toilet, for reasons I won’t go into. So we bought a nice new, ceramic toilet. There were some issues with the old one. For one, it creaked, every time we moved. Two – it came partway off the toilet base – but that wasn’t the fault of the toilet. One of the bolts popped lose – and I managed to get it hooked back on but realized the only way to lock the toilet down was to turn the whole thing about 10 degrees to the right. I surmised that the base had not been properly lined up.

Two screw goofs.
Two screw goofs.
Two screw goofs.
Two screw goofs.
Correct installation showing bolt position.
Correct installation showing bolt position.

Well, this week was swap the “johns” week so I pulled off the old unit and sure enough, the base was not properly lined up. Worse yet there was a one screw that had been driven in half an inch away from its countersunk hole. AND there was another hole where the installer had driven a screw in – in the wrong place – then pulled it out and screwed it into the countersunk hole.
So think about that for a moment. Someone’s job was to screw the base plate in – line up the slots,
drive 6 screws. They missed the lineup and only got 2/3rds of the screws in right the first time and then refused to correct one screw that was wrong. Are they pushed that hard on the manufacturing line? It’s covered up, right? Why fix it?

I was able to turn it to the appropriate alignment, reinstall the screws in their proper place and install the new toilet.

Electrical box, revisited

Right Turn Signal Wire Crimp fell off.
Right Turn Signal Wire Crimp fell off.
Crimp wasn't sufficiently crimped.
Crimp wasn’t sufficiently crimped.

 

After the toilet, I started to install a new TPMS system.  This one has a repeater unit with it that should be mounted under the trailer, near the front.  Since the taillight circuit is present in the electrical box there, that was the obvious choice for location and to tap into power.  I open the box, and carefully pull out the wires to access the right one – and a crimp connector falls off and lands on my face.  The brown wires in the picture are for the right turn signal.  Didn’t need that, did we?  You can see all the way to the bottom.  I don’t use that type of crimp, but I’m pretty sure it is supposed to be crimped with a special pliers.  It looks like it was just squeezed with a standard pair of pliers and none-too-hard at that. Its a wonder it stayed on this long.

Post winter wonderland

Two "door alignment blocks".
Two “door alignment blocks”.

So, we are working on the trailer again, getting ready for a trip and we notice some of the inside cabinet doors no longer close properly – noteably the kitchen counter doors by the back door and the left pair of doors on the bedroom closet.  Its as if the cabinet frame shrunk or the doors expanded.  There isn’t room to move the hinges outward (I’d have to move far enough for the screws to have a secure hole).  I may have to pull and bend the hinges slightly.  Either way, the spacing on the doors was just too small.  Our outside rear door was also hanging.  We’d unlatch and it didn’t want to open.  Pull hard enough, and click – it would pop open.  I noticed a worn spot on the door sill – and sure enough, there was a plastic block with beveled front on the bottom of the door – presumeably this was someone’s failed idea of how to make sure the door closes in the right position after the hinges wear.  All it did for me was hang up on the sill.  Upon looking closer I realized there were TWO blocks.  One under the other on the same screw.  Someone was trying to fix something – but that wouldn’t have fixed a warped door……

 

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What else?

So

Remember, I said we ordered double pane – Thermopane windows? EVERY reference to these windows said “Thermopane windows”. Not “some Thermopane windows”, not “mostly Thermopane windows”, just and only “Thermopane windows”.  So we start looking over the trailer and discover the large front window, OVER the bed is single pane. “Oh, that window isn’t included in the Thermopane windows” we are told.  No explanation other than – “you just don’t get what we told you, you get”.  There is an outside cover for that window, primarly to keep rocks and such from hitting the glass that adds a tiny bit of insulation.  But its “really hard” to see out the window with that cover on and the cover can only be opened by going outside, climbing on the trailer frame, loosening three cheesy latches, then pushing up the cover and tightening two flimsy bracket wing nuts.   So “Thermopane widows” = “¾ Thermopane windows” + “screw you”.  In case you don’t remember, this is a Forest River, Flagstaff Trailer.  So, go ahead and ask the dumb question:  Does XXXX mean I get XXXX everywhere or only some XXXX?

"Stowed" chair jammed against kitchen cabinet.
“Stowed” chair jammed against kitchen cabinet.
Alternate Facing chairs (wider in front than back) jammed together.
Alternate Facing chairs (wider in front than back) jammed together.
Second chair jammed against wall. Rear door unusable unless you are willing to crawl over chairs.
Second chair jammed against wall. Rear door unusable unless you are willing to crawl over chairs.
Soft wood, improperly placed staples, no glue or screws in critical areas. Cheap vinyl cloth - in other words: CRAP,
Soft wood, improperly placed staples, no glue or screws in critical areas. Cheap vinyl cloth – in other words: CRAP,

Chairs….. This trailer normally came with two recliners for the living room space. We wanted the rocker swivel chairs that were an option – but we hadn’t actually seen them at any show or dealer.  (there was a reason they were never shown).  So, we ordered the trailer with them.  BIG MISTAKE! We should NEVER have ordered something we didn’t actually see in place INSIDE the trailer.  In order to put the rear slide in – the chairs needed to be wedged in between the back wall and the kitchen counter. When I say wedged, I mean WEDGED. The chairs were made slightly wider in front that rear and they had to be turned one each way to even fit – and then it was so tight that after just a couple of cycles and a few hundred miles, the chairs fabric was chaffing off from the cabinets. With the chairs stowed, the rear door couldn’t be used at all. Even with the slide open and the chairs by the window – it was difficult to get past them to use the door. THEY JUST DIDN’T FIT. No other explanation. Whomever put those on the catalog could not have ever actually stood in a trailer and looked at them.

AND THEY WERE CHEAP CRAP! That is the only way to say it. They had some screws in their construction, but mostly they were stapled. Sloppy joints with just staples, in the wrong places, not a drop of glue. We took the chairs out of the trailer to have room to work, and after only a week of light use in the house, one of them collapsed. The other was near collapse. Both had to have the bases rebuilt (which I did) or thrown away.  It wasn’t so much the original design of the chairs was bad – the manufacturing was terrible. Whomever was putting them together didn’t understand where to put staples and where they should have been using screws or anything about the concept that some joints JUST HAVE TO BE GLUED!  We donated the chairs.

Menards padded patio chairs.
Menards padded patio chairs.

Menards padded patio chairs.

The sleeper couch – seemed to sit ok – not great, but ok. BUT when it was folded out – the bed became three uneven levels with gaps and the head lower than the feet. It was UN-SLEEPABLE. This too we replaced with a much better sleeper couch, which was the same weight and size that used a REAL mattress, of course, at considerable expense to us.  The couch and chairs were donated.  We found two really nice, light aluminum frame swivel rocker chairs at Menards in their outdoor furniture department.  My recommendation, (and some people have done it), is to order your RV without furniture. They won’t discount you enough to cover the cost of real furniture, but you’ll like what you pick out a whole lot better and it won’t likely break in the first week or two of camping. Just make sure it will fit through the door. Standard sized couches and chairs won’t. We found some real nice, light, comfortable patio swivel rockers at Menards. We found an identical sized sleeper couch at a local furniture store (but we had to order what we wanted from the factory with a month long wait).

Warped outside doors.
Warped outside doors.
Warped door - dewarping. Don't do this at home!
Warped door – dewarping. Don’t do this at home!

Warped Doors….
My outside doors have been difficult to latch from the get-go. I knew this on pickup day, but presumed it was an easy adjustment.  It wasn’t.  I tried adjusting the latches – but I finally realized the doors are warped. The latch area is fully ¼ inch farther out than the corners, which means you have to squash the top and bottom door seals completely to get the door to latch. That leads to lots of door slamming.  Apparently dealers are not unfamiliar with this problem.  I was told by a dealer they wedge a piece of wood in the door and close it – to bend the door.  If that doesn’t work – then they get approval and order a new door.  So, the doors are made out of the openings they cut in the sides during manufacturing.  They have aluminum box frames.  How can they be so warped?  Bad manufacturing processes?  Perhaps it is because in many parts of the trailer that I can see, the frame joints are only welded on one side.  Wouldn’t be hard for the door to end up warped, especially if they just stack a bunch of them together in a pile during laminating.  I could make an appointment, haul my trailer 150 miles to a dealer, wait weeks for a repair – but I didn’t.  I straightened them myself.  How will be in another post.  I know someone who got a trailer from the same factory a few months after mine – their doors are perfectly straight.  Did they learn something or Happy Accident?  In case you’ve forgotten, all this fun is on a Forest River, Flagstaff trailer.

 

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