# Shakedown Campout



## Joe_650 (Jul 21, 2004)

Friday we took our shakedown campout at Seward, Alaska. This might be longwinded so bear with me.

I drove the TT to work Friday morning because I couldn't get the whole day off. At around noon a coworker and I took off for the 3 or 4 hour drive. My TV did pretty good driving down there except for the very strong winds around what's called the Turnagain Arm. I have a sway contoller on that that still didn't help along with those winds. On the way down my TV was getting about 8 mpg once I got out of the windy area.

When we got to Seward is was raining. We got the TT situated and cranked out the awning. Since it was raining pretty good my friend and his family piled into my TT and we played some cards and had some drinks. Not a bad first night. I had my laptop plugged into the TT and used it as a jukebox to play music all night. We had a lot of condensation on the windows so everyone thought we had leaks.









The next day didn't go so well. My friend towed our ATV's down behind his rig so we could go bear hunting. Since he has a cab over we were going to use my truck to tow the ATV's out to where we going to hunt. I started my truck up and noticed that is was running like crap and the service engine light came on. I asked the campground management about any garages in the area that we might take it to and he said that he really wouldn't recommend any of the mechanics in Seward but if he did there was one that he would go to if he had to. Well we stopped by there and sure enough they were closed. I seen a NAPA while we were looking and stopped by there to ask them. They said all the garages were closed until Monday. Big problem since I had to be back to work on Monday morning. I bought a Haynes manual from NAPA and we looked up what could be causing this. One thing was spark plugs. I bought the spark plugs. Another thing was gas. Since I was sitting pretty low in the gas department I filled up and dumped in some ISO HEET thinking maybe there was water in the tank. We got back to camp and changed the plugs. An all day project I might add. Anyway that helped but still running rough. It's to bad I had these problems because it was a perfect day to be on ATV's looking for bears. We also ran out of water on Saturday night. I thought the 40 gallons of water would have lasted longer.

Sunday we woke up and it was nice and sunny but very windy. We took a long walk on the beach and hung out for a while. We finally decided to pack everything up and get ready to go. The first time I started the truck up it was running much better than the day before. A little rough but better. Around 4pm we started out the long drive home. I was worried my TV would give out halfway home and there's nothing out there. She held strong though and made it all the way home without a hiccup. We averaged 8mpg the way home. A bit disappointing but not unexpected.

Overall we were pleased with the TT. We found a few things we'd like to modify or add on and some things we probably didn't need to take. One definite mod is to either replace the heater vents with one's that will close or I'm going to put some type of mesh screen in the ones that are there. The campground has pine trees everywhere and our heater vents were full of pine needles. We didn't have any problems with the TT other than the condensation which should be expected with everyone inside and the cold rainy weather outside.

I was pretty pleased with the towing perfomance of my TV. I would prefer to have a new Ford SD with a diesel but that's something I'll have to wait for. It's just going to be a little pricey to tow the TT to the different campgrounds we go to.


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## camping479 (Aug 27, 2003)

Sorry the weekend didn't go quite as planned, but a lousy weekend camping is better than working, right?







Hope your truck is okay.

Mike


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## vdub (Jun 19, 2004)

Yeah, let us know what you find out about the TV. Seems to me someone else had a similar problem and discovered that the rig was towing too hard and going into limp mode. But, the trip to Seward doesn't have that many hills as I recall, so shouldn't have been that hard of a pull. Would like to know what you find out.

Glad you made it back ok, tho. One thing you might do for the condensation problem is to use a ceramic block electric heater. That won't stop the condensation totally, but will reduce it since it reduces the amount that your heater is running. Also, crack open one of the top vents an inch or so.


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## mswalt (Sep 14, 2004)

Joe_650,

What a bummer!







Glad you made it back OK.

Hope you have better luck next trip.

Hang in there......the old saying goes, "and this, too, shall pass."

Mark


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## prchoudh (Feb 23, 2005)

You might want to try a Hensley Arrow hitch. www.nosway.com I have a 30RLS and the only thing that I have to watch is the speedometer to make sure that I am not exceeding the speed limit.


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## Joe_650 (Jul 21, 2004)

Thanks for all the replies. My wife took the truck to have it looked at and everything seems to be fine. The mechanic thinks that the check engine light came on because of the oil being low. He said it was pretty common for a truck as old as mine to lose that much oil while towing. It wasn't running rough when my wife took it in so he couldn't tell what was causing that. I'm pretty sure it was the gas or water in the gas because it seems to be running fine. I'm going to keep treating with ISO Heet over the next few fill ups to make sure the water gets out.

As far as the condensation in the camper I'll check out the ceramic block heater. We tried to leave the top vents cracked a little but was raining pretty heavy the first night we couldn't leave them open. We're going to invest in the Maxx Air vent covers here soon so we can leave them open.

Although we had these problems I still consider the campout a success. The family enjoyed the trip. We got to walk along the beach. I got to change my spark plugs which pretty much needed to be changed. We got to feel out the TT and see what works and what doesn't and what mods we will want. I also got to see what it will tow like over different types of roads and on hills.


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## Y-Guy (Jan 30, 2004)

Joe one thing I did was to remove the screws on our vents so I could vacuum things out or pick up parts of toys and Uno cards. Some have put on mesh or other vents, I just found my solution worked and allowed me to still get things clean easily. We carry one of the Black & Decker rechargeable hand vacs with us and does a good job while camping. Sorry you had the truck troubles, hope those don't continue for you.


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