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Post by Will Sill
Post by Sandy A. Nicolaysen
We limped home with bent axles (a story in itself) via RT 15
toward Williamsport PA.
Tell us more.
If you'd have come down US6 I woulda been happy to help. From a bad
experience in FL about 50 years ago I learned how to straighten a bent
axle with a bottle jack and a log chain.
Will Sill
Ah, you're into horror stories. eh? :)
I'm not superstitious, but bad things seem to happen in threes. I
already had my hitch stolen over Memorial Day weekend, so only two
more bad things to go.
I headed out from Princeton NJ to Addison NY. I took the same path I
took seven years ago, I-81 to NY-17 at Binghamton, then west past
Elmira. Bad mistake on my part. RT 17 was really bad seven years
ago. Cement slab construction wracked by nasty winters. I figured
the road must have been fixed by now. Yeah, right!
Somewhere near Sayre I encountered what has got to be the biggest
pothole I've ever seen, and I've driven I-10 in LA. It was one of
those moments you don't soon forget. I couldn't swerve to the left as
a 4-wheeler occupied that lane. Must have been a local. In PA
drivers hang in the left lane just to piss everyone off, in NY it is
for survival. I braked as hard as I could, but common sense told me
very bad damage to the truck may happen if I hit this pothole full
braking. At the last moment, I released the brake, now down to about
30 MPH, and prayed for the best. Ka-BAM! I should have lost all of
the fillings from my teeth.
I pulled over to the shoulder to make a quick inspection. I did not
notice any damage to the tires or the axles, but in my impatience to
get going again, I hadn't realized the tire on the right side rear
axle was now about 5-7 degrees toed out, left side 3-5 degrees out.
The strange thing is that the front axle was just fine. Maybe it's
another RV myth, but several people have told me the rear axle always
takes most of the punishment. A big piece of cement that USED to be
in the road, now setting on the surface, bent my step. I carry a
Mexican speed wrench and fixed it on the spot.
A little later, I notice another problem. The back windows of the
truck are getting "foggy". What the heck is this? Again I stop to
check things out. The back of the truck and the front of the TT are
covered with a thin film of oil. Uh-oh. I look under the truck and
there is an oil drip about 5 per second. I'm already in the
construction zone of RT 17 in Elmira, not much I can do at this point,
so I keep a wary eye on the oil pressure guage and continue to
Sunflower Acres campground in Addison. Here is where we add another
fun element. To get to Sunflower Acres campground requires one to
travel over three miles of DIRT ROAD. You have no idea what my rig
looked like when I arrived. Oily truck and TT frosted with fine dirt.
Lovely.
I get parked and proceed to find the oil leak. I'm lying on my back
with oil and dirt dripping on me only to find the pinhole leak in the
oil hose that runs from the engine block to the oil cooler up front.
The heat from the exhaust pipes made the rubber so hard it was
extremely difficult to even cut the hose with a box cutter knife.
(note to self: hey dummy, you replaced the coolant hoses at 50,000
miles. oil hoses age too!)
Lucky for me I was able to get replacement 3/8 oil hose at a local
Autozone. And a big thanks to the campground owner for giving me a
lift to get it.
That problem fixed, I continue to set up camp. Mmmmmm...those tires
had tread when I left home. Right side tire now has canvas showing,
left side not much tread left either. Now I'm thinking about how to
get home with what I've got left.
Step One, don't go back via RT 17. Easy enough, I'll just take RT 15
south to Williamsport, then down to I-80. At least I'll be nearer to
civilization should everything fail. I never expected that
white-knuckle downhill section somewhere below Tioga Lake, but I
survived. Other than that RT 15 has many very scenic stretches.
Step Two, use what tread is available wisely. I'm still not sure if I
did the right thing, but I move the front axle tires to the back and
swapped the good spare the worse of the two worn tires.
This morning I towed my TT to a reputable suspension shop. They
looked at the axles and said "you're outta luck, nobody works on
those". It turns out my axles are the Mor/Ryde type, but made by
Kober in Elkhart IN. Not sure what to do next, but there you go.
Welcome to the world of RVing! You have to smile because crying
doesn't help.
Regards, - Sandy
