Otto Man goes on a toy hauler adventure...
- Thread starter Otto Man
- Start date
There was nothing wrong functionality wise with the current brakes. Brake shoes looked brand new. No cracks in the shoe material, no blown hub seals or anything like that. Why spend the extra money on disk brakes when don't need them? Now if hubs were damaged, brakes needed replaced, etc...then yeah, you could put that money you would have spent on replacement parts and put it towards a disk brake conversion, but there wasn't a need to replace anything.
Evil Cupcake
Control Rider
Changing shackles in a parking lot, changing tires on the side of a 6% grade in the WV mountains. As a passenger and fellow racer with Otto, I learned a lot about emergency maintenance and towing through the WV mountains in the middle of the night.
The toy hauler definitely made life easier, especially during the scorching heat in Atlanta and rain in Mid-Ohio. Can't wait to see what 2015 has to throw our way.
The toy hauler definitely made life easier, especially during the scorching heat in Atlanta and rain in Mid-Ohio. Can't wait to see what 2015 has to throw our way.
Going through some old pictures and found some from last year. Bought the TH in the beginning of 2014, and I was doing as much preventive maintenance as I could. One of the (many) things on the list was over hauling the onboard Onan 5500 generator. I read up a bit on it, and learned some valuable things.
- There is no "drain plug" on the Onan 5500. Just a twist valve and a tube. Even though it only holds 2 quarts, it empties much faster if the oil is warm (just like any car/bike).
- The Cummins/Onan (Onan is owned and made by Cummins) oil filter wrench is absolutely essential for removal/installation (You can't hand tighten the filter, as it's impossible to get a hand around the filter)
- It takes FOREVER to fill the genny with oil. You have to pour it in very slowly, or otherwise it will burp/over flow on you. Hint: Since the oil filter is installed perfectly straight, you can pre fill that thing to the max so you don't have to fill up the entire 2 quarts. The filter is rather large for such a small engine, it holds about 3/4 of a quart itself.
- Some Onan 5500's have dual fuel filters (course and fine from what I can tell). Eventually they replaced them with a later design that only has one filter. Mine has two, so they both got changed out.
- Air filter is stupid easy to change
- Changing the spark plugs was...interesting until I figured out how to do it. I didn't have a 3/8" drive socket big enough (13/16" if I remember correctly). So I used my 1/2" socket and 3/8" adapter. The left (driver) side plug is relatively easy to get to. Not much cussing involved in changing that one. The other one...that one is interesting. However, if you use my set up pictured, it's easy peasy. It took me about 15 minutes of trial and error to find a setup that works.
So aside from the yearly air filter and oil/filter change, the genny is maintenance free until I believe the 450 or 500 hour mark for when the valves are due to be adjusted.
- There is no "drain plug" on the Onan 5500. Just a twist valve and a tube. Even though it only holds 2 quarts, it empties much faster if the oil is warm (just like any car/bike).
- The Cummins/Onan (Onan is owned and made by Cummins) oil filter wrench is absolutely essential for removal/installation (You can't hand tighten the filter, as it's impossible to get a hand around the filter)
- It takes FOREVER to fill the genny with oil. You have to pour it in very slowly, or otherwise it will burp/over flow on you. Hint: Since the oil filter is installed perfectly straight, you can pre fill that thing to the max so you don't have to fill up the entire 2 quarts. The filter is rather large for such a small engine, it holds about 3/4 of a quart itself.
- Some Onan 5500's have dual fuel filters (course and fine from what I can tell). Eventually they replaced them with a later design that only has one filter. Mine has two, so they both got changed out.
- Air filter is stupid easy to change
- Changing the spark plugs was...interesting until I figured out how to do it. I didn't have a 3/8" drive socket big enough (13/16" if I remember correctly). So I used my 1/2" socket and 3/8" adapter. The left (driver) side plug is relatively easy to get to. Not much cussing involved in changing that one. The other one...that one is interesting. However, if you use my set up pictured, it's easy peasy. It took me about 15 minutes of trial and error to find a setup that works.
So aside from the yearly air filter and oil/filter change, the genny is maintenance free until I believe the 450 or 500 hour mark for when the valves are due to be adjusted.
The more crap I acquire, the more I wonder how I ever lived without having said extra crap. Case in point: Wheels. I have 3 sets of wheels - dedicated rains, and two "dry" sets. Typically, I try to save the brandy-new tires for racing, then after so many sprints they get bumped down to practice and track day tires. But with the open design of the toy hauler, I wanted to store them in manner that they would be out of the way, but easy to access. The toy hauler has electric bunk beds in the back, fairly common option. I had zero use for the one bunk bed, so I took that one out. My idea was to lay the tires on the bunk bed. Raise it up out of way, but can easily be lowered to get to them. Ran into a couple issues:
- I wanted to protect the bed frame itself. So I got a piece of plywood and laid it on top. Fixed that.
- Which ran into the next issue: The tires would move/slide around during transport. Items in the rear of the trailer (From the end of the trailer to the rear most axle) doesn't ride as smooth as over the axles to the front of the trailer. So obviously, I did not want my tires to bounce off the bed, onto the bike(s) down below, wrecking havoc along the way. So...enter the redneck fix it method: Using a big ass carrier bolt, a "washer" (piece of aluminum I bought from Lowe's) and a wing nut. Put the bolt through the plywood upside down. Ta-da! Wheels securely held in place.
- Front wheels posed a small problem because of the rotor, but that was an easy fix. Just made a 2x4 square so that when the wing nut is tightened, it hits the rim/sidewall. Zero chance of warping a rotor.
I also wanted a place to put the suits, as there is no closet big enough to hold a suit. Enter innovative idea #2 - Using the stud that holds the bunk bed in place to attach a bracket and an eyelet bolt that I cut a portion of it out to hang a suit on.
This met all my criteria: Cheap materials, easy to make, and most important of all: No permanent modifications to the trailer. All things that are easily unbolted, removed, and can return to stock without any hassle.
- I wanted to protect the bed frame itself. So I got a piece of plywood and laid it on top. Fixed that.
- Which ran into the next issue: The tires would move/slide around during transport. Items in the rear of the trailer (From the end of the trailer to the rear most axle) doesn't ride as smooth as over the axles to the front of the trailer. So obviously, I did not want my tires to bounce off the bed, onto the bike(s) down below, wrecking havoc along the way. So...enter the redneck fix it method: Using a big ass carrier bolt, a "washer" (piece of aluminum I bought from Lowe's) and a wing nut. Put the bolt through the plywood upside down. Ta-da! Wheels securely held in place.
- Front wheels posed a small problem because of the rotor, but that was an easy fix. Just made a 2x4 square so that when the wing nut is tightened, it hits the rim/sidewall. Zero chance of warping a rotor.
I also wanted a place to put the suits, as there is no closet big enough to hold a suit. Enter innovative idea #2 - Using the stud that holds the bunk bed in place to attach a bracket and an eyelet bolt that I cut a portion of it out to hang a suit on.
This met all my criteria: Cheap materials, easy to make, and most important of all: No permanent modifications to the trailer. All things that are easily unbolted, removed, and can return to stock without any hassle.
So that was just about everything I did during 2014. Now it came time to winterize the RV for winter. Which was interesting, as there are a ton of different things people do. Some were very helpful and said "I don't know, I just drop it off at the dealer..." Gee, real helpful. Anyways, this is what I found, and this is the way I did it. Which of course I believe is the correct way to do it. 
I am fairly certain the PO didn't winterize it properly, which led to my awesome first experience.
Step 1: Emptying all the tanks - fresh, gray, and black. The local RV dump site had a hose on site, so I refilled the black tank about 3 times with the hose to make sure all of those pesky political promises were emptied out.
Step 2: Emptying the water heater. Easy enough. My TH has a Suburban brand water heater. It uses an anode rod. Since the tank is steel, the anode rod contains "stuff" (You can see I like to use very technical terms) that allow the minerals in the water to eat the anode rod instead of rusting the tank. The drain plug for the water heater has this anode rod attached. Once the water heater was drained, the drain plug went back in. Next was to shut off the water heater from the rest of the plumbing. There is a simple valve that you shut off so the water doesn't go through the heater (look at picture).
Step 3: Blowing out water from the lines. I bought this thing from Amazon. It's worth it's weight in gold:
http://www.amazon.com/Camco-36143-B...8&qid=1425189380&sr=8-1&keywords=rv+blow+plug
You hook it up to your air compressor, set the regulator to about 35 PSI (Too much PSI and you can blow seals/gaskets). Screw the attachment into the city water hook up, then go to each water valve (cold/hot on each sink, shower, toilet, outside shower...everything). The pressurized air blows out the water. Once you get nothing but air, turn that one off, then move onto the next.
Now the trailer is completely dry. This is where some people say you are good. If there's no water, then there's nothing to freeze and burst the pipes. I suppose that is reasonable logic, but I put RV antifreeze in anyways. I also removed the built-in water filter in preparation for the next time.
Step 4: Running the RV anti freeze through the system. It would take a LOT of RV anti freeze if you added it to the fresh water tank and used the water pump to push it all through. I put about 4 gallons in and it still wasn't enough to pick up anything. Now, you CAN dilute the anti freeze, but too much and you're missing the point of doing this in the first place.
The pictures are horrible, but what I did was disconnect the hose that goes into the water pump. I then just got a piece of hose and stuck it straight into the antifreeze bottle. This is way easier and uses way less anti freeze. It will take 4-5 gallons to winterize everything. Now you do the same thing as blowing out the lines. Turn on water pump, and go to each water outlet and let it run until the pink antifreeze comes out. Each hot/cold, shower, toilet, etc. For good measure, I poured an additional few cups down each drain trap to fill up the traps with anti freeze. I also put about a gallon of anti freeze in the toilet.
I am fairly certain the PO didn't winterize it properly, which led to my awesome first experience.Step 1: Emptying all the tanks - fresh, gray, and black. The local RV dump site had a hose on site, so I refilled the black tank about 3 times with the hose to make sure all of those pesky political promises were emptied out.
Step 2: Emptying the water heater. Easy enough. My TH has a Suburban brand water heater. It uses an anode rod. Since the tank is steel, the anode rod contains "stuff" (You can see I like to use very technical terms) that allow the minerals in the water to eat the anode rod instead of rusting the tank. The drain plug for the water heater has this anode rod attached. Once the water heater was drained, the drain plug went back in. Next was to shut off the water heater from the rest of the plumbing. There is a simple valve that you shut off so the water doesn't go through the heater (look at picture).
Step 3: Blowing out water from the lines. I bought this thing from Amazon. It's worth it's weight in gold:
http://www.amazon.com/Camco-36143-B...8&qid=1425189380&sr=8-1&keywords=rv+blow+plug
You hook it up to your air compressor, set the regulator to about 35 PSI (Too much PSI and you can blow seals/gaskets). Screw the attachment into the city water hook up, then go to each water valve (cold/hot on each sink, shower, toilet, outside shower...everything). The pressurized air blows out the water. Once you get nothing but air, turn that one off, then move onto the next.
Now the trailer is completely dry. This is where some people say you are good. If there's no water, then there's nothing to freeze and burst the pipes. I suppose that is reasonable logic, but I put RV antifreeze in anyways. I also removed the built-in water filter in preparation for the next time.
Step 4: Running the RV anti freeze through the system. It would take a LOT of RV anti freeze if you added it to the fresh water tank and used the water pump to push it all through. I put about 4 gallons in and it still wasn't enough to pick up anything. Now, you CAN dilute the anti freeze, but too much and you're missing the point of doing this in the first place.
The pictures are horrible, but what I did was disconnect the hose that goes into the water pump. I then just got a piece of hose and stuck it straight into the antifreeze bottle. This is way easier and uses way less anti freeze. It will take 4-5 gallons to winterize everything. Now you do the same thing as blowing out the lines. Turn on water pump, and go to each water outlet and let it run until the pink antifreeze comes out. Each hot/cold, shower, toilet, etc. For good measure, I poured an additional few cups down each drain trap to fill up the traps with anti freeze. I also put about a gallon of anti freeze in the toilet.