Saturday, August 16, 2008

Its only flat on one side.

Up and outside by 8 AM to mow the lawn. Not the most exciting of tasks, but it needed done before we can leave. The grass was quite high, because we had rain last week while we were at the Lake.

After making some breakfast and cooling back down from the exercise, I decided it was time to go get the Travel Trailer. It hadn't been used since fathers day back in June. Loyce has complained that it is way too hot to go out camping. And it has been up to the 100 degree mark in the past several weeks.

I went to the storage lot and managed to get hooked on to the trailer, even though the battery on the trailer was completely down. The electric tongue jack didn't make a sound. Not even a click. The smoke and CO2 detectors and other devices seem to pull battery current even though you think everything is turned off.

So I went back to remove the wheel chocks, and then I saw it. The flat tire on the back axle drivers side. I could only see the front tire as I was hooking up the trailer. So what do you do now? I got the hydraulic jack out of the front pass thru storage and began to jack.

It was really tight under the trailer, as the tire was completely flat. Not just low. Couldn't move it, or it would ruin the tire. I had loaded the four bar spinner lug nut wrench in the back of the truck out of habit, and it was lucky that I had it. Trailers come without any tire changing equipment.

Once I got the tire off the rig, I unhooked the truck from the equalizer hitch again. I did use the power tongue jack since I was hooked to the truck with the electric harness. But I learned that I didn't have the 12 V air compressor with me. Drat! So I went back home to get it all back together.

After filling the tire with air, I went over and over it with the garden hose to find the leak. Can't find one. I checked the valve stem core for a leak and tried to push it in and make it leak, nothing. So I have no idea why the tire went down.

Driving back and installing the tire was routine, and another fellow that is often at the storage lot helped me get it back on. Then he guided me to back under the ball on the first try rather than the "I'm all alone method" of getting in and out of the truck and moving not enough, and then too much to get aligned.

So late in the afternoon, I have the trailer back at the house. I connected the electricity and ran the air conditioner and started the fridge on gas. Tonight I changed the fridge back to electric, and shut down the A/C. The rest of the stuff seems to work as it should.

Tomorrow we will see if the tire holds air overnight. If so well start out on it on Monday, if not, then we will have to see about fixing it somewhere.

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