Hi All,
This weekend we took the 184BS out for its first trip. We've had the trailer for a bout a month, but couldn't find anything local until this weekend, so it's been sitting at the storage yard while we made trips to drop off stuff we bought.
Taking everyone's advice, we stayed local, booking at Rancho Seco for two nights, about a 25 minute drive for us. Water, power, dump station, fishing, swimming, and a general store should have been enough to cut our teeth and keep us busy for the two days.
Thursday the reservation company called and said the lake had tested "above state limits for E. Coli" and that swimming would be at our own risk. They also asked if we wanted to keep our reservation.
Of course I said yes as this was a shakedown trip and if nothing else we could walk around or leave early if everyone got too bored. In hindsight, I wouldn't have canceled, but I would have prepared for more eventualities...
We had some great neighbors - who were also on their shakedown trip. Their parents were old pros and were really helpful during set up and just nice people. Although, we never did find out why their fire pit was placed so close to our utility post - like three feet away.
First lesson - the heat.
I will, more than likely, never book a place during the summer in the valley that has only one option for swimming or getting wet. Setting up in 93 degree weather, with two dogs, two teenagers, one of which didn't want to be there at all, was not fun.
Second lesson - test as many systems and components as you can in the driveway - before you leave.
The slide got stuck. The right side motor wouldn't engage. After some light manual reading the wife held the button and I pushed a bit and that, we thought, cleared the bind and the slide went out all the way under power. We held the button to re-sync the motors as instructed and thought all was well. At this point I thought it was just stuck because I didn't lubricate the slide seals while it sat in the heat at storage and that caused it to stick on the right. Makes sense right? The rubber becomes a bit tacky in the heat and when pressed against the slide surface for weeks could likely become a bit sticky.
So I thought, "Ok, I'll definitely have to buy some of that lubricant stuff when I get home so this doesn't happen again."
Third lesson - the heat.
Digging through your bag of tools while in full sun in 93 degree heat isn't fun. Trying to fix a stuck slide in 93 degree heat isn't fun either. AND, when I turned on the A/C I only turned it to "High Fan" instead of "High Cool" so the trailer was hot.
My oldest sat in the car with the dogs and the AC running while myself, my wife and our youngest nearly evaporated while setting up. When we finally got the slide out, set the A/C to actually A/C, and closed the door I was soaked from head to toe.
Fourth lesson - if you bring it, you probably won't use it, but if you don't bring it...
The one screw I actually needed to remove was the one bit I didn't bring.
Fifth lesson - stay close to home for your shakedown trip.
My FIL, a seasoned RVer was 30 minutes away, and thank the good lord for that.
The heat kept us trapped in the trailer for most of the day Saturday and the wife and I decided to send our oldest home with the dogs. He wasn't "feeling good" anyways and the dogs were more of a hassle at this point. Definitely need to think about a better system for camping with them.
My youngest and I went to fish right at Magic Hour and he ended up catching his first fish ever - a small bluegill - so that made the entire trip worth it. After that we made dinner, a small fire and S'mores, then relaxed and went to bed. Left the fan on low, opened the windows and slept like a rock until 0630.
Got up, made some coffee and started packing to break camp. That's where the trip went sideways.
Sixth lesson - something will break, it's all part of the process.
The slide was stuck out. We tried everything and I mean everything to get it back in. Our neighbors helped. Their parents help. We read and re-read the manual. Looked online, bypassed, plugged and unplugged until I was out of options. I knew what I had to do, thanks to RV Tech, but I wanted to wait as long as possible before I started ripping apart my wife's beautiful new trailer. The one she had been trying to convince me to buy for like 10 years...
And so, I did what any self-respecting male would do in this situation - I started taking things apart.
First I pulled easy panels off to get to the wiring, looking for apparent shorts, abrasions, crimps, cuts, etc. I Found none. The code was flashing two green and eight red, so that was a short in the wiring for motor #2.
Once I verified the wiring for both motors looked okay, I started taking off the trim around the slide to get to the motor. I only wanted to pull the right side, but of course Jayco decided that to get to the right side you had to remove the top and by removing the top, you'd also need to remove the left side.
Did I mention I didn't have the correct driver bit to pull the motor?
Also didn't have a ladder...
Seventh Lesson - don't unnecessarily add more stress to an already stressful situation.
By now I know my wife is 100% panicked on the inside, hot and sweaty again, had already smacked her head on the undercarriage looking for a way to manually retract the slide - you know, like the manual alludes to - and was so over the whole trip that I knew I had to send her home while I called for help and fixed the problem.
So, that's what I did. I told her to pack some stuff in the Xterra and take our boy home while I called her dad to bring me a bit and a ladder.
Spoiler alert: for a Lippert/Schwintec slide you can remove the set screw on the outside and pop the motor up our of the coupler, then push the slide in or out with ease. The manual says that you can unplug the motor and that "releases the motor brake mechanism" so you can move the slide manually, but this didn't work for either side.
So the FIL brings me the square bit and six-foot ladder. I remove the set screw on the outside, pop the motor up with a flat-head and connect motor #1 to power. He pushes from the outside while I hit the switch. We're done in less than two minutes and I reconnect motor #2 to power and reseat it into the coupler.
Note: you have to reseat the motor into the coupler and leave the motor installed or you risk having the slide - slide out while driving. Not sure if you need to connect it to power, but I did, just to be safe.
Finish breaking down and connect the trailer to the Ranger - which, BTW, is a nice truck and I'm not a Ford guy at all.
Pull out, head to storage to dump and then drop me and the trailer off at home.
Lesson Eight - at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter.
Everybody made it home safely, so that's the important part. And, Liam caught his first fish so that makes my heart happy.
But now, I've got a brand new 2023 Jayco 184BS Western with a partially dismantled slide and a call to make to the dealer.
And an Amazon cart that is filling up again.
Lesson Nine - Everything's Eventual.
Lesson Ten - watch every video you can about common RV repairs or things that break commonly on RVs before your first trip - and be prepared for something to go wrong.
Rich
This weekend we took the 184BS out for its first trip. We've had the trailer for a bout a month, but couldn't find anything local until this weekend, so it's been sitting at the storage yard while we made trips to drop off stuff we bought.
Taking everyone's advice, we stayed local, booking at Rancho Seco for two nights, about a 25 minute drive for us. Water, power, dump station, fishing, swimming, and a general store should have been enough to cut our teeth and keep us busy for the two days.
Thursday the reservation company called and said the lake had tested "above state limits for E. Coli" and that swimming would be at our own risk. They also asked if we wanted to keep our reservation.
Of course I said yes as this was a shakedown trip and if nothing else we could walk around or leave early if everyone got too bored. In hindsight, I wouldn't have canceled, but I would have prepared for more eventualities...
We had some great neighbors - who were also on their shakedown trip. Their parents were old pros and were really helpful during set up and just nice people. Although, we never did find out why their fire pit was placed so close to our utility post - like three feet away.
First lesson - the heat.
I will, more than likely, never book a place during the summer in the valley that has only one option for swimming or getting wet. Setting up in 93 degree weather, with two dogs, two teenagers, one of which didn't want to be there at all, was not fun.
Second lesson - test as many systems and components as you can in the driveway - before you leave.
The slide got stuck. The right side motor wouldn't engage. After some light manual reading the wife held the button and I pushed a bit and that, we thought, cleared the bind and the slide went out all the way under power. We held the button to re-sync the motors as instructed and thought all was well. At this point I thought it was just stuck because I didn't lubricate the slide seals while it sat in the heat at storage and that caused it to stick on the right. Makes sense right? The rubber becomes a bit tacky in the heat and when pressed against the slide surface for weeks could likely become a bit sticky.
So I thought, "Ok, I'll definitely have to buy some of that lubricant stuff when I get home so this doesn't happen again."
Third lesson - the heat.
Digging through your bag of tools while in full sun in 93 degree heat isn't fun. Trying to fix a stuck slide in 93 degree heat isn't fun either. AND, when I turned on the A/C I only turned it to "High Fan" instead of "High Cool" so the trailer was hot.
My oldest sat in the car with the dogs and the AC running while myself, my wife and our youngest nearly evaporated while setting up. When we finally got the slide out, set the A/C to actually A/C, and closed the door I was soaked from head to toe.
Fourth lesson - if you bring it, you probably won't use it, but if you don't bring it...
The one screw I actually needed to remove was the one bit I didn't bring.
Fifth lesson - stay close to home for your shakedown trip.
My FIL, a seasoned RVer was 30 minutes away, and thank the good lord for that.
The heat kept us trapped in the trailer for most of the day Saturday and the wife and I decided to send our oldest home with the dogs. He wasn't "feeling good" anyways and the dogs were more of a hassle at this point. Definitely need to think about a better system for camping with them.
My youngest and I went to fish right at Magic Hour and he ended up catching his first fish ever - a small bluegill - so that made the entire trip worth it. After that we made dinner, a small fire and S'mores, then relaxed and went to bed. Left the fan on low, opened the windows and slept like a rock until 0630.
Got up, made some coffee and started packing to break camp. That's where the trip went sideways.
Sixth lesson - something will break, it's all part of the process.
The slide was stuck out. We tried everything and I mean everything to get it back in. Our neighbors helped. Their parents help. We read and re-read the manual. Looked online, bypassed, plugged and unplugged until I was out of options. I knew what I had to do, thanks to RV Tech, but I wanted to wait as long as possible before I started ripping apart my wife's beautiful new trailer. The one she had been trying to convince me to buy for like 10 years...
And so, I did what any self-respecting male would do in this situation - I started taking things apart.
First I pulled easy panels off to get to the wiring, looking for apparent shorts, abrasions, crimps, cuts, etc. I Found none. The code was flashing two green and eight red, so that was a short in the wiring for motor #2.
Once I verified the wiring for both motors looked okay, I started taking off the trim around the slide to get to the motor. I only wanted to pull the right side, but of course Jayco decided that to get to the right side you had to remove the top and by removing the top, you'd also need to remove the left side.
Did I mention I didn't have the correct driver bit to pull the motor?
Also didn't have a ladder...
Seventh Lesson - don't unnecessarily add more stress to an already stressful situation.
By now I know my wife is 100% panicked on the inside, hot and sweaty again, had already smacked her head on the undercarriage looking for a way to manually retract the slide - you know, like the manual alludes to - and was so over the whole trip that I knew I had to send her home while I called for help and fixed the problem.
So, that's what I did. I told her to pack some stuff in the Xterra and take our boy home while I called her dad to bring me a bit and a ladder.
Spoiler alert: for a Lippert/Schwintec slide you can remove the set screw on the outside and pop the motor up our of the coupler, then push the slide in or out with ease. The manual says that you can unplug the motor and that "releases the motor brake mechanism" so you can move the slide manually, but this didn't work for either side.
So the FIL brings me the square bit and six-foot ladder. I remove the set screw on the outside, pop the motor up with a flat-head and connect motor #1 to power. He pushes from the outside while I hit the switch. We're done in less than two minutes and I reconnect motor #2 to power and reseat it into the coupler.
Note: you have to reseat the motor into the coupler and leave the motor installed or you risk having the slide - slide out while driving. Not sure if you need to connect it to power, but I did, just to be safe.
Finish breaking down and connect the trailer to the Ranger - which, BTW, is a nice truck and I'm not a Ford guy at all.
Pull out, head to storage to dump and then drop me and the trailer off at home.
Lesson Eight - at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter.
Everybody made it home safely, so that's the important part. And, Liam caught his first fish so that makes my heart happy.
But now, I've got a brand new 2023 Jayco 184BS Western with a partially dismantled slide and a call to make to the dealer.
And an Amazon cart that is filling up again.
Lesson Nine - Everything's Eventual.
Lesson Ten - watch every video you can about common RV repairs or things that break commonly on RVs before your first trip - and be prepared for something to go wrong.
Rich
