RVing mishap stories

[Tom]

Care to share a story about an RVing mishap that, with a little forethought, could have been avoided?

Newcomers beware! The RV Forum gives a special award, known affectionately as the HFWPOH award, to the member who is judged to have made the biggest boo boo. The name of the award comes from the well known guesture: Hit Forehead With Palm Of Hand.

It's all in good fun and is intended to help others avoid similar mishaps. It's OK to tell on your spouse, friend, or anyone else.

To avoid one person receiving the award every year, the HFWPOH committee previously agreed that Joe Lacey would be the winner of the lifetime HFWPOH award, but it doesn't prevent Joe (or his friends) from sharing his stories.

 

[Tom]

I suppose I should kick off with one of my own that some folks might have heard....

We were en route to our first Moab rally and, after a couple of nights in Salt Lake City, headed out for the final leg of our outbound journey. About 50 miles from Salt Lake I told my other half "I don't recall releasing the parking brake on the toad". I pulled over at the next convenient place and sure enough the parking brake was still on, with zero adjustment left. HFWPOH.

The toad was our brand new Suburban, but fortunately the parking brake and service brakes on the rear wheels are separate (i.e. drum brakes for parking and disc brakes for stopping). So we were able to safely use the Suburban at our destination until I could get to the nearest Chevy dealer.

Now I consciously double check both the parking brake and the transfer case before leaving.

 

[Carl L]

AND THEN THERE WAS THE TIME, on our first big trip in the new TT, we were up at Yellowstone West.? ?The grassy site we were in sloped down to the front of the trailer.? This mean that we would have to extend the hitch jack to the full.? I had not yet gotten a power jack so that meant a lot of manual cranking.? ?

Ah, but I had a 'solution'!? ?It was a 16" plastic cone with a flat recess in the top for the jack post.? ?One simply removed the jack pad from the post and substituted the plastic cone, and, viol?, you had part of your cranking done for you.? ?So I removed the pad, put the cone under the jack post, raised the coupler off the ball, and pulled the truck away.

Now I returned to the trailer and cranked the jack to raise the hitch higher to level the trailer.? ?What I did not realize at the time was that the trailer coupler and a-frame? would describe an arc of a circle as it raised and that would cause the jack post to move horizontally a bit.? ?And move horizontally it did.? Enough to upset the plastic cone and cause the jack post to topple off the damn cone and fall to the ground.

Did I mention the site was grassy?? Well grassy it was indeed, good meadowy grass at that.? So, of course, the jack post buried itself into the deep soft sod right up to the A-frame of the trailer.? ?Now I had a problem.? Unless I could raise the jack, I had a permanently moored trailer.

As I stood there comptemplating my next brilliant move, the normal group of the RV campground ever-helpful and symathetic witnesses gathered like so many buzzards at a dead cow.? One volunteered a sissors jack and we used it to jack up the back of the A-frame.? ?Another sissors jack slipped in ahead of it, raised the A-frame to the point I could now slip a jackstand under the frame.? Now I could raise the jack post out of the ground.? I gingerly reamed the sod out of the interior of the jack post and put on the jack pad.? Kicking the bloody cone out of the way, I slipped a proffered piece of 12x12x1 lumber under the pad and triumphantly lowered the jack on to the lumber and raised the trailer to level.

I then took the damned plastic cone and gave it a more decent burial than it deserved in the nearest dumpster. ?? Ever since, I have used? 12x12x1 lumber blocks to elevate the jack on.

 

[Jeff]

One of our earlist m/h's was a 21' Glastron that had a bathroom that was a shower, floor was the drain and the shell came up about four inches. Said m/h also had 1 30 gallon holding tank.

We used to take three kids and head for Colorado  from Illinois skiing every winter and usually team drove and traveled at night because the kids slept instead of fighting for the first 12-14 hours of the trip. Our son also was about 3-4 years old at the time and did not observe the custom we had of shutting off the water pump after use while traveling.

About 2:00AM one cold March morning my wife woke up in a rest area in western Nebraska to sounds from outside the m/h. She looked out and found me using the dump station and said:

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"  ??? ???

I then explained that I had pulled in to use the facilities and in the dark so I didn't wake anyone up had stepped into the bathroom in my stocking feet- into about three inches of grey/black water that had backed up after our son used the bathroom, didn't get the water shut completely off, and overflowed the holding tank while everyone slept and I drove.

After 25 years I can still remember the feeling of being up to my ankles in it and then standing out in 20 degree weather dumping the tanks and rinsing out the bathroom.

 

[Tom]

LOL Jeff, these experiences have a way of sticking with us.

 

[John From Detroit]

Now I had a problem.  Unless I could raise the jack, I had a permanently moored trailer.

As I stood there comptemplating my next brilliant move, the normal group of the RV campground ever-helpful and symathetic witnesses gathered like so many buzzards at a dead cow.

That is why I carry hydralic "floor" jacks (2 of them usually) in my towed

Kind of reminds me of a trip to Ceader Point.. We stayed in theVermilion River (membership, coast-to-coast) campground.

Well, I'd put a small supply of firewood in my trailer (never again) and the weight was just a bit too much for the vintage hitch. It broke

So had to use the hydralic to pick it up and put it on it's stands... Then get a new hitch, have it modified to fit, bolt it on and finally take the whole trailer in to have it properly welded on.

I still have that trailer,,, The new hitch is much stronger than the OEM