Saturday, April 4, 2020

Some "interesting" vehicles and sights

I was going through pictures from the last couple of weeks, and found a few that I took to document "interesting" things we've seen... these are some vehicles we've seen:
This was parked behind the building at National Indoor RV ... let's just say that it is not similar to most of the rigs parked here...

Can you read what is written on the window?  "No brakes. driveline out."  Yikes!
We just noticed on Thursday night that it seems to be gone... I don't know whether they have in the shop now for repairs or if it was towed away...

We went out to get lunch at Pan Acean in Coppell a few days ago and noticed this Hummer parked nearby - the wheels on it looked odd to us...

A guy got in and drove it away...

Later, when I was inside picking up our order (and it had started to rain), it came back - it seemed to be the delivery vehicle. We just thought that the wheels made it look really odd, but I'm sure they are very special wheels.

A couple of days ago, a rig with a very "interesting" contraption on the back was parked by the NIRVC "valet" team next to us...

I was taking pictures through the window so I wouldn't be obvious...

Look at that hitch!

That's a lot of extensions on that hitch - and it appears that the motorcycle/toolbox lift is somehow supported on the hitch as well!

I guess he really wanted to carry his tools with him. I am pretty sure that the RV was 45' long, and then another 5-6' for the motorcycle/toolbox lift. They also had a large tow vehicle - an Avalanche, I think.
Seeing things like this make us a little concerned - it would seem that there is an awful lot of weight at the end of a very long set of combined items with that towbar. From what I researched with Miss Doozie, each additional link weakens the capacity. I hope the fellow who had this has done his research and didn't believe a salesperson who just said, "I'm sure that will work!"

Finally, we saw this rig in the parking area of NIRVC - the rig didn't catch my attention as much as the awning on the passenger side... yes, we are waiting for an awning for the passenger side, but...

This awning was also growing something!
We had stopped at Home Depot and also saw growing things, so I'll include that too, even though it isn't a vehicle:
Nice front of the Home Depot -- but... do you see something green up there on the orange roof?

Yep, quite a crop - probably some kind of tree!
At least it is interesting getting out and seeing some things!

Friday, April 3, 2020

A couple of music parodies...

I saw these two Sound of Music music parodies on COVID-19 this morning, and they made Carl and me smile... so I hope they make you smile too...

Do-Re-Mi:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMBh-eo3tvE
My Favorite Things: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aAnPFeo11s

I hope you're finding things to do if you are in enforced isolation!

Thursday, April 2, 2020

Wednesday, we got weighed!

Or, at least Carl's rig did.
We thought it was going to happen on Thursday, but the guy who does the weighing wanted to take Thursday off and asked if it would be okay to do the weigh today, so we brought in the slides and disconnected from water and power and got weighed.
Getting ready to weigh the front axle - worker carrying a support board to rear tires

They put boards down for each wheel to be at the same level (well... if the parking lot was completely level, which it probably is not)

Setting up to weigh

putting in information

Driving up onto the scale with front wheels
ready to weigh front axle


Reported weight - 6220 pounds on passenger side, 7040 on driver's side, for total of 13260 pounds on the front axle


Driving forward - I was inside so my weight would be counted too, but the driver was one of the fellows from the shop, and Carl was outside taking pictures...

Placing scale in correct location for passenger side dual...

... and for driver's side dual...


Placing the board for the tag axle...

And the front axle...

A video of putting it up on the scale and boards:


The good news is that we are well under weight on all axles!
Results:

My spreadsheet:

Wednesday, April 1, 2020

The other activity on Tuesday - Tires!

We got a call from the place that had promised that they would have the tires that we needed -- originally they expected them to come in by end of day on Tuesday, but they came in on Monday afternoon. The fellow at the tire shop said that we could come in at any time, they weren't busy, so we planned to go in on Tuesday - the plan was to go in the morning, but we ended up getting there about 3pm.

They were so happy to have the work to do... Carl said that there were 2 and 3 guys working on the job at the same time. It ended up taking until 6:45pm, but we got all 8 tires replaced.

There is an information placard on the wall behind the driver's seat with information about the weights and tire pressures...

While we are at NIRVC, they will do a "4-corners" weigh of the rig, so we plan to get that done on Thursday to allow us to better know what the optimal air pressures are for the tires.
 Carl took all of these pictures, so most of the captions are a joint project between us...

Driver's side front - lanyards for the air tanks are in this area.

top(?) view of the wheel

Front air bag
 
Passenger side front

Technician getting ready to spin balance

secured, ready to spin

Measuring diameter of wheel for use by the machine

Report ready...

This information tells the technician how much weight and where to place it

installing the wheel with the new tire on driver's front

installing the wheel with the new tire on passenger front

Removing back wheels - positioning the jacks


Removing the lug nuts from tag axle

Tag axle hub - does it have a way to put in hub oil?

a close up of the front axle center - it doesn't look like there is a way to put in hub oil...

closer view of the tax axle - not sure about hub oil application...


Inner dual wheel

dual

dual and tag

removing old tire from rim

Putting new valve stem (nearer guy working on one wheel) while another technician removes tire from from another wheel


Tread on new tire -- see the siping? (https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2020/03/terminology-tires.html)

Tread on one of the old tires (about 27K miles on the tires, 9 years old)
So... another to-do off of our list!