February 17, 2014

Englewood, FL

Murphy’s Law-Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.

We did not sleep very well last because of the noise from the road (It is amazing the amount of people driving around at 2AM)

I finally fell asleep sometime after 3AM and really did not want to get up when the alarm went off at 7.  We had been told that the guys would want to start working on the rig by 8:30 so we wanted to leave plenty of time to eat breakfast and stow everything before bringing in the slides.

I took pictures of the gouge we made in the asphalt yesterday.

When the gates to the service area opened up, Monte began backing in.  It was a little dicey because of the angle at the entrance and the small opening.

 

 

 

As he was backing up one of the techs approached me and asked why Monte was doing it the hard way. 

 

 

 

 

 

There was a much larger opening around the corner where he could just drive forward.  DUH!

Once we were situated,

we began the process of unpacking all the things in the front compartment. 

 

That’s a lot of stuff.

I settled in with a book while Monte watched the guys working.

This is the old Venture Chinese Landing Gear Legs

Old Wiring From Landing Gear Removed from old Motor and Taped Up.

These are the New Feet included with the Ultra-Fab Legs

The new Ultra-Fab with motors and brackets

Around lunchtime, the owner told us the guys were going to take their break so we went to TacoBell. 

The New Landing Gear in place

The opposite side being prepped for Welding

New Brackets with standoffs being welded to the new brackets

Welder finishing up the welding of brackets to frame

Finished Brackets Welded to Frame of RV

Bottom Bracket welded to I-Frame of RV

Old bracket still has to be removed and cut off

I ran out of shade so I retreated to the truck and continued reading.

Tech assessing next step

Upper Bracket Welded in place

Inside of the front compartment a new brace is welded in place to provide additional support for upper bracket to be welded to, otherwise the bracket would have to be welded to the thin sheet metal of the rig.The Original bracket was welded to the thin metal. (Bad Practice)

By 2:00pm the work was still not complete. I commented to Monte that I had the feeling it was going to end up costing more money than the $400 we had been quoted because there had been two guys working on the rig since 8:30AM in addition to a welder.

Completed upper bracket in place

 

New Landing Gear Mounted waiting to be wired up.

Bracket on Left side of rig mounted without foot attached. 

Sure enough my fears were realized when around 4PM the owner approached us to say they had run into problems and not only was it going to cost us more ( total cost $840) but they would not be able to finish the job before closing which meant having to spend another night.

We were a little pissed but tried to make the most of it—I gave Monte a much needed haircut.  

The only thing that made the situation tolerable was that we were plugged in and Monte had added water to our tanks so I was able to get a shower. 

Just when you think things can’t get much worse—they do.  Tomorrow and the next couple of days were going to be a doozy!