What`s your most boneheaded RV moment?

[Crabman]

OK its time for some new Boneheads.

[nambarc]

Yeah it is. Does everyone do things right now with no major bonehead incidents?

[Gone campin]

So far, my worst (thankfully) was mid-way through a week camping trip, I had to take the TT up to the dump station to dump the tanks and refill the water. Our stainless steel gas grill was underneath the back corner of the trailer. My wife said "aren't you going to move the grill?" I said "no, it is fine"... forgot that the trailer was on blocks on that side, and when I pulled off, it dropped down and the frame totally crushed the stainless steel grill top in... As I'm pounding the grill back into shape with a hammer, my wife is standing there shaking her head with that "I told you so" look... hate it when that happens!

[northwindone]

I'm a few pages into reading these and don't feel so bad about the moments I've had so far. They have also persuaded me to print out departure and arrival checklists to keep in the truck to avoid repeating some of these learning opportunities.


Okay, now for mine:
1 - Last summer I decided two days before a camping trip I would pull our old '77 Layton up front from the field out back so my wife could pack it while I was at work and I could plug everything in and fill the tank. It was after dark when I started, but I figured since I wasn't going to be doing any backing it would be fine. I backed the truck up to the hitch on the first try thanks to my nifty new backup camera I had just installed and I proceeded to hitch up the trailer. I was thinking to myself how great it was that I didn't need help anymore moving the trailer around the property. Now one side of the trailer was sitting up on paver stones with long boards on top of that to make it level. I pulled forward slowly and heard a large crack. I jumped out of the truck with the flashlight to take a look and the boards had broken as the wheels had rolled off the paver stones. I didn't think much of it and pulled forward again hearing the boards cracking again. I cleared the parking area and jumped out again to make sure everything was good before pulling through the field and out to the driveway. I was greeted with the waste water line twisted 90 degrees and sticking 2 feet out from under the trailer. One of the boards had popped up as I drove off and broke the box covering the shower p-trap, poked a hole in the underside of the trailer into the area under the bathroom counter, and finally tore the gray water outlet off the tank. It tore the backwater valve in half as well, but luckily the blade valve stayed in place preventing a mess.

We ended up going camping anyway, but used a bucket to catch the grey water, and had to walk to the bathrooms. I still haven't fixed it and most likely will leave it for the next owner, they will be getting a very good price to fix my mistake.

2 - This one didn't do any damage, which is good because it was on the new to us trailer we brought home last weekend. The previous owner had disconnected the batteries as the trailer was in a storage yard and just reminded me that I would need to hook everything up again when I got it home. I drove home 10 miles with the trailer and proceeded to go ahead and hook the batteries back up and plugged the trailer in. 2 hours later I went and check the batteries and they were still showing the same voltage. I then went inside and tried the lights and they weren't working with the converter off. That's when I realized I had hooked the batteries up to each other in parallel and then proceeded to cover them back up and walk away without hooking them up to the trailer. I used to work on state of the art aircraft avionics in the Navy...then I do stuff like this.


EDIT: Wow, didn't realize how long that was, sorry for the novel.

[Kahoneys]

Last year I met a couple from South Africa that bought a new F350 and Montana top of the line and was touring the USA for 6 months. I was over talking to them about differences in our countries and he was going to dump his black tank and hooked the black tank flush up and didn't open the dump valve. I figured out what he did as we were talking and water came pouring off the roof from the vent! His wife ran in and said that the bathroom is full of sewage. I offered my wet dry vac but they refused and vacated the campground 1/2 hour later.

[Jflyboym]

I'm just getting started with this new camper moving from a Popup. I did several SPUTs (stupid pop up tricks) but that's for another thread 😀.
I did manage to do one stupid thing with the new camper on my first trip. I had everything hooked up and was feeling pretty good about myself when I noticed I had really low water pressure. I thought, "man there is something wrong with this campers plumbing". I was right. I didn't put the plug in the water heater. I pretty much flooded the ca,pxsight.

[TravelingRAM]

Pulled a great one yesterday. Bought the 29REKS 6 weeks ago and on our 2nd outing this weekend. Cut short due to wife sick. Took my time packing up and getting ready to head in. Had wife pull chocks after backing a bit. She did great staying in the mirrors until I was ready for her to pull chocks. What wasn't great I left the electric tongue jack down. Darn it. Of course two hours later I finally figured out how to get it up enough so I could take trailer home, then the pain of getting it off the truck. What a mess. And to top it off had to make a stop at the hospital ER (with trailer engaged). Ugh.

[need-a-vacation]

Ram,

Is your wife doing ok??? Hope so!!!

I had one of the Atwood 4K robofoot jacks on our last trailer. Had I been able to buy just the plastic housing in black I would have swapped it over to our new 32 last July. Slightly noisy, but worked great. It is less than a cordless driver when the clutch disengages when raising/lowering stabilizer jacks. Was a little noisier compared to our '87 vintage Reese power tongue jack that had seen better days. Cover housing was taped up from the plastic disintegrating, and when the switch gave out in one direction, using jumpers on it to work just wasn't going to cut it.

Keep us posted on your better half!!!

[TravelingRAM]

Thanks for asking. She doing much better, something like gasteitis, or some such thing. They think it was from something she ate, but on antibiotics and doing much better. Got the electric jack off with a hack saw and ordered a new one from amazon. Should be here by weekend.; Good thing planning another trip to state park last week of April. Yippee. And believe me I will double, nah, triple check everything.

[need-a-vacation]

Originally Posted by TravelingRAM

Thanks for asking. She doing much better, something like gasteitis, or some such thing. They think it was from something she ate, but on antibiotics and doing much better. Got the electric jack off with a hack saw and ordered a new one from amazon. Should be here by weekend.; Good thing planning another trip to state park last week of April. Yippee. And believe me I will double, nah, triple check everything.

YW!!! Glad to hear!!!

I always do a walk around just before climbing in the truck to leave. Check all entry/ storage doors, hitch system/ jack, slides, bike rack/ bikes, etc...

I also do a walk around if we stop and go inside someplace. Not so much at a gas station if my wife or boys stay in the truck, but if we all get out you never know what someone may do.

[blokeman]

Last week I pulled my 2016 JayFlight out of storage and in hooking up, didn't allow enough slack in the breakaway cable. (I should have known better as I considered the cable too short and intended to replace it.) After making a sharp left turn, the cable pulled out, locking the trailer brakes in the left lane in the middle of traffic. I had to drive quite a way to be able to change lanes and get safely to the side where there was room to stop. This turned into a very expensive mistake: new brakes, new drums, new brake magnets, melted wire replacement, wheel bearing repacking and a new breakaway switch. I get to pick the trailer up later this week with a new 6' accordian-style breakaway cable, a much lighter wallet and an expensive lesson learned.

[JohnWedell]

Look at the good side, At least no one was hurt.

[blokeman]

You're right John, thanks. Riding too far with locked brakes was all about trying to stay safe.

[SecretCoveDave]

Congrats on being smart, not flustered, in traffic.

btw, I want one of those accordion type cables. Do you have a brand name?

Thanks, Dave.

[blokeman]

Dave, it's a Fastway Zip Breakaway, #80-01-2206. Available on Amazon, among others.

[charles_cincy]

Originally Posted by blokeman

Last week I pulled my 2016 JayFlight out of storage and in hooking up, didn't allow enough slack in the breakaway cable. (I should have known better as I considered the cable too short and intended to replace it.) After making a sharp left turn, the cable pulled out, locking the trailer brakes

Mine pulled out this past weekend during a right turn...

Luckily, I was pulling out of a Sam's Club gas station into basically a driveway back into the Sam's Club parking lot. So I was able to simply hop out and reconnect.

I'd never thought it was to short before...but may look into one of those accordion cables.

[BuddyRay]

So this one goes back a ways (somewhere in the 1960's) to when I was a Kid and my parents bought their first TT. OK, not MY bonehead mistake but still, my family.

My mom always drove (Dad never got behind the wheel - he had a license but just never liked to drive with or without TT). So Mom is backing the trailer in to a state park campground for the first time ever - at night. Dad and I were real amateurs at helping her. Lots of yelling and waving of arms as you can imagine (we've all seen it right!). And of course we didn't have adequate flashlights.

After a dozen or more attempts to get the trailer where Mom wanted it, she finally gave up, said it was close enough, and we went inside (without unhitching) to sleep till morning when we might try again.

Next morning we look at we are actually parked between two campsites in the woods. Mom tries to move the trailer and it wouldn't go ANYWHERE. It wouldn't move forward or backward no matter how much Gas she gave it. The rig didn't have electric brakes back then so we had no idea until I crawled under the rig. There was a huge pine stump wedged between the axles. Somehow, in the dark of night, Mom had managed to bump the trailer axel over the stump, then during the night the wheels had sunk into the ground a bit more and there it sat. Mom is in tears, Dad is completely flustered, and I'm figuring this is my family's first and last ever RV trip.

But you know how RV folks are. Within minutes there were a dozen people around the rig to help. At least 10 guys literally picked up this Rolite TT by the back bumper enough to get it over the stump while an experienced driver eased it off the stump. Then one of the guys put my Mom behind the wheel and coached her on backing while another coached Dad and I on where to stand and what hand signals to use. We then had help leveling and hooking up water/power.
And then we got an invitation to breakfast.

Luckily nothing was damaged on the underside of the rig - but we left our mark on one south Georgia pine stump. The great thing is - what could have been our first and last RV trip became this amazing experience and the beginning of 45 years of RVing for me.

[SawBuck]

On the night before a camping trip I decided last minute to go ahead and hook up the truck and trailer so it would be ready to go first thing the next morning. I thought I was helping myself even though I was pretty tired. I raised the power tongue jack to couple to the hitch. I noticed it started groaning like it was under strain. I stopped to try to figure out why. In that instant it dawned on me that I had not raised the rear stab jacks. I grabbed the flashlight from the truck and jogged to the back of the trailer just in time to watch the left rear leg give way and bend under the weight. BTW, Lippert does not sell individual replacement parts for the power stab jacks. They want you to buy a new power stab jack kit. Ouch! I will NEVER forget to raise the jacks up again.

Hmmm, is that why college was so expensive?

[BCK]

Wrecked an awning a few years ago.

We went for one last trip late in the season and were staying in a fairly remote campground with no facilities at a mountain lake. I always lowered a corner of our manual awning before turning in for the night but for some reason neglected to this time. During the first night of a 4 night stay a ferocious storm blew in. It lasted several hours and even though we were sheltered from the wind by some big trees it still woke us up numerous times from the noise. Anyway, we were awoken one last time by a very loud bang. I new instantly what it was.

Got up in the morning to a beautiful day and was able to push the door open far enough to get out. There wasn’t one piece of the awning frame or mounts undamaged and the aluminum tube the awning wraps on was snapped completely in half. The awning fabric was wrecked but still mostly ok so I trimmed a 3” limb I found in the bush, cut holes in the fabric along the tube, threaded some rachet straps through the holes and then tightened them up tying the limb on like a splint. The mounts were all snapped but I was able to prop the awning up with what was left of the posts, re-set our camp and make breakfast. Worked fine for the rest of the weekend and come time to pack up I cut the damaged awning off the TT, threw it out, put all the metal in the truck for the recycler and we went home.

Didn’t spoil our weekend at all but did cost me $800 for a complete new awning setup and a couple hours of my time to mount it the next spring.

[North of 49°]

This past weekend, we arrived at the campground a little later than everyone else. Across the road from our site was a motorhome in a pull-through site that was right on the side of the road, and ours was a back-in. No big deal, and the guy who owned the motorhome wandered over and offered his help when I was backing our trailer in. "Watch out for the marker post," he told me. "A lot of people have run over it with their trailers." I looked to see where it is and made a mental note. We got backed in okay, and I thanked him.

The next day we got in the truck to drive to the beach to get some ice cream from the concession stand there. Bang-screee-thumpthumpthump. "What the <bleep> was that?" DW asked me. "I don't know," I answered as I got out to see what the <bleep> it was. Sure enough, I had run over the marker post.

Fortunately, because a lot of other people had hit it with their trailers, it was only in the ground about 6" deep and packed loosely with gravel, so I basically just pushed it over with the truck. When we got back I straightened it back up and stomped on the gravel a bit. The only thing damaged was my pride -- and a couple more scrapes on the post.

Here it is after I fixed it. Before, it was leaning at around 45 degrees.