Thursday, October 29, 2015

Upgrades before heading to the Southwest for the winter.

Earlier this summer I took the camper in for some new tires. We drove about 35K on the old ones. I was lazy and we never rotated them. If I had we easily could have driven another 10K on them, although we had some weird tire wear patterns on both the trailer and the truck at the end of last summers trip so who knows.

It isn't worth the worry to be heading off on a long trip with sad tires!
After almost 5 years of life our original batteries just don't cut it anymore. They only seem to hold about 1/2 the energy they used to. Which can make for some cold nights or dead batteries in the morining when the furnace is running and we are off the grid.

Arriving today should be 2 of these Exide Edge FP-AGM24DP Flat Plate AGM Sealed Marine Batteries. They are more expensive then the stock batteries but they are sealed which means no checking their water levels. Their capacity is about 20% more than the stock batteries and they are supposed to hold up to many more charge cycles as well.
Last trip Tucker ran full speed on the long leash and yanked my arm so bad my shoulder hurt for months, The shortcomings of the original mattress made it very hard to sleep.

I found this Brentwood Home 9-Inch Gel HD Memory Foam RV Short Queen Mattress and it feels much ,much more comfortable. It isn't a perfect fit as the two corners aren't rounded like the Airstream Mattress but it is close enough,

I also build a set of level board holders, they are just made from some metal I bought at Home Depot. The hardest part when I was thinking of this project was how to attach it, but the metal had holes in it and they perfectly fit the clamps that hold the truck cap on.

They look a little wonky because I made them and they were too tall so I un-bent them and re-bent them a better size. Both leveling boards fit perfectly and actually they are easier to get in and out.

This saves a bunch of space in the bed because they ride over the wheel well instead of next to it.