trimster

We're in a park on the west side of Albq., ( Enchanted Trails RV Park) and the folks in the office are frustrated. They are getting word that there will be big changes for RV parks coming Friday from the Gov. office. In a nut shell, what they understand so far.... cut the occupancy to 50%. Every other site. There's some other things rumored but not confirmed. The park is 90% full every night. Mostly overnight stays. This RV park has about 200 sites. 20% full time. Now, mostly overnighter with a smattering of weekly like us. New Mexico has a mandatory 14 day quarantine in place if you come to the state. Not being done. The state is flaring up. Just a heads up if you are headed to NM or passing through.

Update: Hayes sent a new (version C) of the controller. This one has some case modifications. No vents. This version has a circuit board instead of a reostat. Wired it in. Seems to respond normally. Have not hooked up the trailer and tested that. Next travel day is Sunday. Shipped the bad unit back to Hayes for dissection. Hope they get back to me on what they found. So far, Hayes has stepped up. Nice. Bob

Same problem on my 2015 670. Rear pumpkin throwing same error. Replaced the sensor (Volvo Dlr. $28). No change. Played with the wires most of the way up the cab. No change. I just live with the 'check engine' light and escape out of the warning on the dash. When I pulled the old sensor, oil did come out. If you put down something to catch it... about a quarter of a cup if you are fast. Think Indiana Jones with the gem swap. Not sure where my problem is now. As long as I can just clear the dash warning, I'm good. Bob

Thought about a bit of surgery but Hayes is doing an exchange.

Same with us last week. No trailer brakes, but engine brake kept the rig easily under control. Less stress. More smiles per miles.

Bit of a good twist in this whole Hayes controller thing. I emailed Hayes, explaining what's going on. I didn't sugar coat my dismay that their unit would work fine for the previous owner and weeks for me, then fail. I also indicated that there's more than just a few who have experienced failures...often consecutive. Here's their response: "Good morning Robert, Thank you for contacting us and making us aware of the issue you have experienced. We appreciate your being candid about not being the original owner of the controller. If you provide the address we will overnight you a new controller for your installation and evaluation. We will include a pre-paid return label for you to send the controller in question back. After our technical team evaluates the unit we will get back with you on the results. Regardless of the threads on RV forums, our intentions are to 100% support our products. We take pride in customer satisfaction. With that said, we are not perfect and we do have units that fail in the field periodically. I look forward to receiving your reply so that we can move toward a solution to your problem. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you, " Yup, taking them up on their offer. I'll keep you'all posted.

Here's something to consider. Just found this on the wall at the RV park we are staying at here in Albq. NM

Star Dreamer we are, and will be visiting Santa Fe Friday or Saturday. I found a P3 which is on its way. I did probe around with my meter more yesterday. It definitely seem to be the Hayes failure. After I finished, I left the Hayes powered. Hours later it was more than just warm. A good indication something is wrong inside. I have a friends truck here and we're hooking to the trailer to see if his controller throws any error that might point to trailer side problems. Thanks. Bob

Looking for a P3 controller around here. Most likely mob home (Salt Lake) without trailer brakes.

Electric. Bob

Found the P-3's. Are they sensitive enough to respond to the HDT braking movement? The Tucson LT version is on back order. Has been for a while. Ugh. Bob

Can't afford that conversion and not worth it on this trailer. So, Here's what I have found: - 12v from battery directly to Hayes - Blue wire from Hayes (goes to Jackalopee to control the brakes) 8v dc all the time. - Manually adjust the Hayes to full braking, no change in Blue wire voltage. - Disconnect B+ (black wire) to the Hayes and the Jackalopee LED goes off. Seems like the internals of the Hayes have failed in some way. Bob

Ditto to what has been said. The MDT truck IS easier to drive and park around town when you use it as a daily driver while RVing. BUT, they are noisy inside. Ride rougher, even with air ride seats and extra weight added to the back end. I added hundreds of lbs of lead to the bed. I added sound absorbing stuff in the doors...and that helped. But the big downside...power. My Dodge 3500 would out-pull the MDT. Stopping, scary. Maintenance costs for the LDT repairs, not acceptable. There's just bigger, better, parts on the MDT and HDT. We could drive 5 hrs to the next stop in the MDT and feel like we really wanted to get off the road. 5hrs in our Volvo...piece of cake and we're not whooped. Some of the the things I would have done differently in selecting our HDT.... - Get a mid-roof instead of a condo roof. Condo is presenting problems with trees in our neighborhood. And it's almost impossible to clean the roof. - Make sure it has a rear end gear ratio above 3.x. Ours is 3.08. I wanted something in the 2.47 to 2.60 range. Better fuel mileage. We're getting 4-5mpg right now. We do have the 500hp 1750 fp of torque. A 425hp would have been a bit more economical. But when the price is right, you can buy a lot of fuel for the thousands we were looking at spending over the one we settled on. Hope this is helpful. Bob

I have a Hayes Air over electric brake controller that feeds a Jackalopee box. Now 4 weeks into our trip, the trailer brakes are on all the time. Creates smoke from the trailer brakes. Not a good thing.Everything was perfect when I left home base up until yesterday. When I plug in the power to the Hayes, it lights up the controller like the brakes are on. The Jackalopee has the LED for break level lit full brighness. Have no clue where that power is coming from. When I check the truck side RV plug without the Hayes powered, I get 8v DC. With the Hayes connected, I get 12v at the RV plug between the brake wire and ground wire. Why, all of sudden, does this go sideways when it's good for weeks, then there's unwanted voltage in the brake line? Any thoughts where I should start checking appreciated. I'm in Albuquerque, NM trying to figure this out. Bob

I'm looking at Discount Ramps as well. The ramp system for trikes. So three 12' ramps that fold into 6' x 5.75" thick by 19.75" wide. The three storage slots under the bed would be some 60" wide. The bed build would be 5 - 6" to clear the tires when the bags are empty, then 6" for the ramp slots/boxes. Then another inch for the for the decking. I'm leaning towards aluminum planks used for bleachers and those non-skid ramps found on U-Haul moving trucks. There's several non-skid tread patterns. They come in 1" x 12" wide x 12' long. The ramps weigh 65 lbs each if I recall properly. Not real heavy but enough one should brace.

No cell service on any carrier. You use the campgrounds wifi to do VOIP. Yes, extra parking for toys. Literally hundreds of miles of backroads for jeeps, SxS, dirt bikes, and bicycles. The hosts went out of the park, turned left and did 40+ miles of back roads and trails. Bob

So, engage the power too both axels, and the right front and left rear are powered. In reverse. Left front & right rear are powered. On my truck.

Sketching my bed build and a really good suggestion from someone was to have the ramps IN the bed, not on top. Can some of you who have ramp storage in the bed, post some photo of what yours looks like? And maybe a measurement from the truck rail to the top of the bed so I can get an idea how much lift I have to put in to clear the ramps over the tires. The ramps I am looking at are 6' long and 5" thick (when folded in half). Also, what ga. or thickness is the ramp box build? I'm thinking 1/8" is enough...maybe. Thanks.

Having just gone through what you are.... it took a few years to make a decision on the way we ended up going. One of the key factors I decided on was to build the truck the way we wanted. So I went looking for the truck off the commercial market. That took tons!!! of time and phone calls, and help from this forum. It became a serious hobby. When I retired, it was my new job. There is value in having something 'turn-key'. I have spent a month prepping our truck (electrical, air brakes to electrical brakes, fixing stuff, passing inspections, registering it as a motorhome, etc.), and that prep costs $$$$'s and time. Time I have, money is not endless. Just extending the frame and putting in the hitch was $2700.00. Tires that needed replacing...$1200. All this being said, if I found a truck that was 'done' and close to what I wanted, I would have sprung for it. But, I'm a tinkerer, and the love of the build runs deep. Dealing with commercial sales forces/people requires you to have an intense 'bull-shit' detector and some solid research so you don't get a pig in a poke. We lucked out. After more than a dozen serious looks, found a truck that was a bit higher in mileage than I had targeted. But I was able to find the owner who sold it to the dealer. Just about everything that could go wrong was replaced in the last 150,000 miles. With some arm wrestling, I got a killer deal on the truck. Nothing about the process was easy, convenient.... it was stressful. Now to your case and my personal thoughts. I can't speak for your level of learning curve pain. But if the trucks in good shape, and you like (can live with) the configuration, it sounds like you have a turn-key solution. Just add trailer. I would not consider, and ruled out, Freighliners. I wanted a Volvo for lots of reasons that are valuable to me, even though they come with their own issues. This whole thing is about trade-offs in the end. I find personal value in building/creating. Not everyones cup of tea. Everything you do to build your own rig, it a learning curve. The HDT thing, as you might have determined, is way different and in a whole nother league than hitting up the Chevy Dlr for a RV ready pickup. We had several of those and then moved to a medium duty, then took the leap. Even with the MDT experience, it's still sobering. For me anyway. But it's an ear-to-ear grin when you get it on the road. You will find tons of information here. Tons of good thoughts from the members of this forum. Tons of well founded opinions. Sift them all together and bake your HDT cake. Did I get enough metaphors in this post? Bob

Wish I would have taken a pic. The site was 18-20" higher than the crown of the dirt road. Between is a dip like a gutter for water run off. The dip was 4' max wide. When the rear axle was on one side, the front drive axle tires are not touching. Had to do it at an angle. Bob

Traction problems in these gravel and dirt camp grounds is frustrating. Especially on uneven ground. I can turn on traction for both axles but it's not posi-traction. If a drive wheel gets lifted off the ground, it's way too easy to spin the other, digging in. With the trailer hooked, less problem. Pin weight. I'm sure when I add the bed to the truck, that weight will help as well. Just this and the last campsite is stressful when the re-hook time comes. I didn't want the more aggressive tire tread on the drives. Might have to rethink that. Bob

The owner said new expansion next season would include a laundry as well. Really nice people.

Down side right now is the lack of laundry & you need to take your propane tanks down the mountain into Taos to get them filled. Just chatted with the owner. Next season there will be 17 more sites for big rigs and "other" additions.

Our trailer brakes & bearings are long over due for maintenance. The trailer has been setting for years, so not much road work. I'm only going to do what I find in the teardown + Mor/Ryde shackles & suspension units. No new axles. I put shocks on years ago. They seemed to help. We are chatting about getting a new (used) trailer. Kinda betting there will be lots available in the near future.

Yes it is and yes it is. https://www.rvtaoscanyonstop.com/