Carla's Camper

[WanderingRose]

Thinking of selling the trailer when I get back from the coast. When I had a truck camper my biggest problem was watching for low clearance warnings. Towing a trailer has lots of issues. And expenses.

Small and simple is good.

 

[maki2]

Driving anything anywhere involves expenses

 

[tx2sturgis]

I just checked my brake controller and there are no knobs. Just one short slider. In the photo, where it says Brake Force... that rectangle slides toward the green light. Should I try braking with the slider in different positions? Or, do I apply the slider when needed? That controller came with my truck... in retrospect, I should have bought a new one. Guessing that controller was new in 1995

There are two basic types of electric brake controllers, 'time delay', which is what you have, and 'digital proportional', sometimes called 'inertia type' controller which cost more but work better for most situations.

Yours should have an adjustment knob or thumb-wheel somewhere on the unit. Look for it... its there. Might be on the side or underneath. This is often referred to as the 'gain adjustment'. This sets the amount of electrical current applied to the trailer brakes when you press on the brake pedal.

The spring loaded slider is for applying the trailer brakes without using the vehicle brakes. This is occasionally needed, usually for testing your trailer brakes, but also for situations where you need to apply a small amount of trailer brake drag, such as in a trailer sway event. Hopefully you won't ever have to do that, but if you do, the slider knob is there.

During normal, day to day operation, you will rarely, if ever, need to move the slider knob.

 

[user 22017]

Thanks Tx. I will look for the knob. I made it to the border of Florida in Alabama. I took the back roads, which was rough on my truck. Too many hills and rough roads. But the truck handled it like a champ

Spent two nights at Walmart. One in southern Illinois and the other in Tupelo, Mississippi.

I learned quite a bit so far. Learned I am not a fan of towing trailers. Truck campers are much more fun. You can explore so much more.

I'm in a national forest and my service isn't great. Finally learned how to use a hot spot. I'll post photos soon.

 

[WanderingRose]

Don’t know what your data limits are, but using my phone as a hotspot churns thru data, so I am very careful.

Have a great trip!

 

[user 22017]

Don’t know what your data limits are, but using my phone as a hotspot churns thru data, so I am very careful.

Have a great trip!

Only 10 gigs of hotspot. Today I logged into my straight Talk account and it said I have 9 gigs left. But that is because I was in the forest last week with no service. Before that I didn't know how to use a hotspot, lol. My month runs out April 3, so I will try gaming tonight via hotspot.

I don't know if I mentioned that I left important things behind because I got paranoid about being overloaded. Left solar panels, power station, 12v frig and some other stuff

So now I want to learn how to use my generator. I know to put oil in it. It's small so I am really curious how long it will power my trailer. I assume that will depend on what I turn on. Found out my frig works great but I'll bet it is power hungry. I'll leave it off.

I mostly want power for my TV or laptop and to charge my electronics .

I have the sportsman inverter generator 1000 max watts sine wave. Don't see a model no. I can get it from the manual if anyone wants it.

So I use an adapter and use it as if I am on shore power? It says it only takes .55 gallon. Can't imagine it running very long on half a gallon. I must be missing something, lol.

Also need to master hooking up and unhooking my weight distribution hitch. I watched the camp host do it twice and I think I understand. Except the thing about raising and lowering the jack to get the coupler off the ball? Seems there was a sequence. I'm prob overthinking.

 

[Gr8ful]

Next time video him doing it with your phone so you can play it when you have to do it.

 

[user 22017]

Next time video him doing it with your phone so you can play it when you have to do it.

I left the national forest, but someone at my new location helped me immensely. He drove my truck and camper to the dump station and showed me how to dump the tanks. Then he filled my tanks. Backed my camper onto the pad, too. Then got my generator running. Great couple. Some people are so kind.

He didn't want to mess with the weight distribution hitch. I don't blame him.

 

[maki2]

Also need to master hooking up and unhooking my weight distribution hitch. I watched the camp host do it twice and I think I understand. Except the thing about raising and lowering the jack to get the coupler off the ball? Seems there was a sequence. I'm prob overthinking.

There is a sequence and it is not too difficult but it is important that the steps are done in sequence. You arrive and then level the trainer up if one side needs raising. Be sure your car is in Park so it does not move forward or backward.

This next step Is absolutely a safety critical step to do BEFORE
you attempt to raise the trailer off the ball you MUST chock the trailer’s wheels so it does not roll forward or backwards while you raise and lower the tongue jack. Never, ever forget to chock those wheels.

Then unhook the chains and the cord to the trailer lights and whatever you need to do for the weight disruption setup stow them out of the way of the tongue Jack so it does not hit those as it comes down to the ground. If you have a base plate on the ground put that in place.

Now you are ready to raise the tongue off the ball. When it has raised up enough to clear the ball drive your car forward and park it out of the way.

Now you can level the trailer front to back by adjusting the tongue Jack. You will want to coordinate that with deploying your stabilizer jacks. The rear ones on my little trailer are swing down jacks and I do not have a lot of ground clearance to swing them down so I have to lower my trailer tongue down quite a lot to swing them down, then raise the tongue back up to level it. When adjusting the feet on the stabilizer jacks after getting it level put just a bit of down-force tension pushing against the ground so the trailer resist movement from moving around inside or from wind gust hitting the trailer. You quickly get used to the feel of how much tension is needed.

Hitching up is a whole other routine. But unhitching instructions are enough for this post. Except for mentioning one thing that I do love for solo hitching up and that is a product “Hitchin Rods”. Below is a short video that shows how to use them. You line them up visually to each other as you are looking in the rear view mirror. The video shows how the post is stuck onto the ball will get bumped off when you are in the perfect position. Don’t forget the tip in the video for applying the parking brake that moves you just that extra inch into the exact spot where you are ready to lower the tongue onto the ball. The other thing you can do to you Hitchin Rods is use a black sharpie pen on them to put a mark on them so that you always know how much you need to raise your trailer tongue to clear the ball on your hitch. Just set the top tip of the rod on the ground next to the ball to make that mark. You do not want to put the magnet end on the ground as some rocks are iron based and will stick to the magnet. So the tip end is your measuring stick. You will want to add a couple of extra inches of clearance for that mark as sometimes there might be a lump or angle on the ground that raises the rear end of your tow vehicle a little higher than you might expect. So that Hitchin Rod serves as the measuring stick for raising the tongue as well as aligning the ball into the socket on the hitch. Thar product truly makes solo hitching up a lot faster and less stressful.

 

[WanderingRose]

I left the national forest, but someone at my new location helped me immensely.

There always seem to be experienced, generous brains to pick, folks willing to share information with newbies.

You will someday be one of those.

 

[user 22017]

Hitching up is a whole other routine. But unhitching instructions are enough for this post. Except for mentioning one thing that I do love for solo hitching up and that is a product “Hitchin Rods”.

Thank you for that long informative post . So you don't use a weight distribution hitch? The sequence I was referring to has to do with the WDH, but I am beginning to grasp it. Three YT videos later.

You have to use the trailer coupler to raise the truck three inches, in order to make installing and removing the WDH easier .

Regarding the Hitchin Rods, I've seen those in YT videos and they seem to be very helpful. But I already installed a backup camera just above my ball hitch. It allows me to line the ball up with the coupler easily and quickly .

Thanks again

 

[user 22017]

There always seem to be experienced, generous brains to pick, folks willing to share information with newbies.

You will someday be one of those.

I have met so many wonderful people

 

[user 22017]

After the National Forest I stayed three or four days (losing track of time) at a casino that I absolutely loved. That is where I met a super nice couple living in a gorgeous class A. It is for sale, $150k.

They helped me learn so much about my trailer. Wonderful people . They always stop at that casino when traveling on Interstate 65. The casino is Wind Creek in Atmore, Alabama.

There is a nice, modern RV campground at the casino, but it cost $38 a night. My first night I stayed in the big parking lot on the Starbucks side of the casino. Next morning a tribal police officer told me about camping pads on the other side... The concrete pads were there from before the campground was built. In case anyone stops there.

It's a short walk into the casino where they provide free beverages. Soda and coffee. I didn't grab any, because I figured they expect you to gamble a little and I was pretty broke.

After the casino I drove to another cool place that surprised me.

Gonna figure out how to optimize a batch of photos, so I can post them here. More later.

 

[maki2]

After the National Forest I stayed three or four days (losing track of time) at a casino that I absolutely loved. That is where I met a super nice couple living in a gorgeous class A. It is for sale, $150k.

They helped me learn so much about my trailer. Wonderful people . They always stop at that casino when traveling on Interstate 65. The casino is Wind Creek in Atmore, Alabama.

There is a nice, modern RV campground at the casino, but it cost $38 a night. My first night I stayed in the big parking lot on the Starbucks side of the casino. Next morning a tribal police officer told me about camping pads on the other side... The concrete pads were there from before the campground was built. In case anyone stops there.

It's a short walk into the casino where they provide free beverages. Soda and coffee. I didn't grab any, because I figured they expect you to gamble a little and I was pretty broke.

After the casino I drove to another cool place that surprised me.

Gonna figure out how to optimize a batch of photos, so I can post them here. More later.

You need to reduce photos to a smaller file size so they upload quickly and also download quickly. If you are taking photos with a phone or camera you can change the resolution of the photos in the camera settings. .

Remember a lot of people such as myself are looking at photos on small phone screens. Also we might not have a high speed connection. If you attach a bunch of photos with high resolution to a post on a forum I will not want to wait and wait for them to open. I do not have that kind of patience when looking at social media.

 

[user 22017]

You need to reduce photos to a smaller file size so they upload quickly and also download quickly. If you are taking photos with a phone or camera you can change the resolution of the photos in the camera settings. .

Remember a lot of people such as myself are looking at photos on small phone screens. Also we might not have a high speed connection. If you attach a bunch of photos with high resolution to a post on a forum I will not want to wait and wait for them to open. I do not have that kind of patience when looking at social media.

Thanks. I will mess with the settings. I am seeing more how others view posts since I am using my phone more (as opposed to my PC or laptop)

Edit: forgot to mention that casino parking overnight is free there. It is one hour north of escapees rainbow plantation campground. And 1.5 hours north of Gulf Shores

 

[frodo2222]

Thanks Frodo. I'll try to get to Cat soon. Babysitting grandchildren today.

I just checked my brake controller and there are no knobs. Just one short slider. In the photo, where it says Brake Force... that rectangle slides toward the green light. Should I try braking with the slider in different positions? Or, do I apply the slider when needed? That controller came with my truck... in retrospect, I should have bought a new one. Guessing that controller was new in 1995

Usually there is the slide and then pretty well hidden under the whole thing there might be s small little wheel that you turn..to get a visual get on YouTube and put in how to tune my brake controller

 

[user 22017]

Usually there is the slide and then pretty well hidden under the whole thing there might be s small little wheel that you turn..to get a visual get on YouTube and put in how to tune my brake controller

Thanks frodo

 

[maki2]

Etrailer website is another good place to look for a video on how to test and set a trailer brake. I think that is where I learned how to set the one I bought.

There are lots of useful videos on Etrailer for a new owner of a travel trailer. Including hitching up and using weight distribution devices. Installing tail lights and plugs for towing, etc. They sell a lot of brands and take the time to create installation and use videos for them. They also post many of those videos on their YouTube channel.

 

[user 22017]

Etrailer website is another good place to look for a video on how to test and set a trailer brake. I think that is where I learned how to set the one I bought.

There are lots of useful videos on Etrailer for a new owner of a travel trailer. Including hitching up and using weight distribution devices. Installing tail lights and plugs for towing, etc. They sell a lot of brands and take the time to create installation and use videos for them. They also post many of those videos on their YouTube channel.

I like their videos. Just watched one on weight distribution hitches a couple days ago. Thanks Maki.

For anyone who feels like replying ..

A man who helped me park the trailer at Escapees pointed out that my trailer brake cable is missing. It is on my tongue, but nothing coming from the truck. I can't remember what he called it. Just a silver cable with and end piece... I will get a pic .

My Girard on demand hot water heater isn't making hot water. I just tried it out for the first time a couple days ago. A couple guys at Camping World looked at it as a courtesy. I was camping there . They didn't do much, besides show me the on/off button. Lol. I saw a screw in fuse, but didn't check it

And my frig worked great in the forest but hasn't been cooling well since I left there. I think it is because I started using my air conditioner.

Why can't my trailer do both? Cool with the air and keep my frig cold? Daughter noticed hot air coming from my power center yesterday

 

[abnorm]

A man who helped me park the trailer at Escapees pointed out that my trailer brake cable is missing. It is on my tongue, but nothing coming from the truck. I can't remember what he called it. Just a silver cable with and end piece... I will get a pic .

My Girard on demand hot water heater isn't making hot water. I just tried it out for the first time a couple days ago. A couple guys at Camping World looked at it as a courtesy. I was camping there . They didn't do much, besides show me the on/off button. Lol. I saw a screw in fuse, but didn't check it

And my frig worked great in the forest but hasn't been cooling well since I left there. I think it is because I started using my air conditioner.

Why can't my trailer do both? Cool with the air and keep my frig cold? Daughter noticed hot air coming from my power center yesterday

That cable is a Break-away switch to apply the trailer brakes IF the hitch were to fail !

The Water heater is PROPANE...............did you turn on your tanks ?

And again.........that 3-way fridge works BEST on Propane as the primary fuel source..........the electric options are not as efficient