Well we are just a month away from the target jump off day when we roll out our dirt road in New Hampshire for a 6 month trip around the perimeter of the US. Yep we will stick our journalistic toes in the bodies of water that surround our part of the North American continent and let you know our thoughts.
Well this week most of my time was spent on the trailer that Subie the Subaru will ride on. It is an older trailer made by Diamond C that I have used for a decade to transport my old Ford 8N tractor to tractor shows. One of the down side things about using a trailer on a trip like this for the toad is the un hooking and hooking up of the trailer in camp grounds.
For years I was always going to do something to make the project easier and had the plans all laid out in my head. This week I built it. My thought is that it is a pain backing up a 38′ DP to an invisible to the driver 2 inch trailer ball. Why not put a small hand crank winch on the tounge of the trailer and a hook eye bolt on the back bumper of the coach just above the ball. Then back up near the trailer, set the brakes, run the winch cable to the hook eye, and winch the trailer to the ball. It works just fine with an empty trailer and shortens the hook up time and most of all reduces aggravation.
The next one is a safety item as far as I am concerned. Stop and think about where the lights are on a car trailer. On the Diamond C trailer thay are all across the bottom of the trailer about 6 inches off the ground. Now the federal government has decreed that each auto sold in the US have a high mounted stop light. So here is what I did.
I rigged the lights on Subie to work with the coach lights, stop, directional, and tail. I then rigged the running lights on the trailer to work with the headlights. Now Subie lights up at the following drivers eye level for tail, stop, and directionals. The ICC lights on the trailer work and we look like a Christmas tree.
The last item was to help make more room in the storage bins on the coach. We are selling our old Chevy plow truck, as we won’t be here to plow snow. I looked at the diamond plate tool box in the bed of the truck and thought that it would look good mounted on the front of the car trailer. So with the help of a young neighbor the box was taken off and moved to the trailer. I then hit the shop and made up a set of mounts for the box raising it 6 inches off the trailer floor. I can snake chains and tie down straps under it to the hold downs on the trailer. Now all of my tools, tie down straps, jacks, spare oils and parts are carried in the tool box freeing up two cabinets on the motor home. Now I have room for my bread machine and several other things that Lucy wanted to carry.
Lucy has been busy inside the coach and we now have new bedding to start the trip with. We have als been talking to solar electricity people about getting solar on the rig that will give us 20 or so amp output at 12 to 14 volts. If that happens then I will run a switch on the dash that will shut off the field circuit of the alternator. That will, on sunny days, allow us to shut off the alternator when traveling and not then be using engine horsepower to keep the batteries charged as well as add to battery life when boondocking. I would love to eliminate generator use except to run heavy use electrical devices.
Next week we will be mounting our E Machine computer and running the wiring for the flat panel screen and key board as well as some mechanical things on the old coach. Till then….
Brad & Lucy aka the Geezer and the Hedgehog. Oh, and Earl the Kitty Kat too.