rollinbrian

5 hours ago, Big5er said:

Not in my state. The freedom hauler is still an "attachment" and not part of the original trailer. I have never seen the definition of a trailer anywhere that say it has only one attachment point as opposed to two or how it is attached for that matter. Just like a "flip axle" on the back of a commercial semi trailer. It is a separate unit. If it's not permanently attached, its a trailer, IMHO and 34 years of LE experience.
Even on their website they tell you on some trailers you may need a hitch (and they recommend the Hensley) to attach it to your trailer in some instances. 
And if Oregon is as strict as others say here, I wonder what the overall vehicle length for an RV is?? 

The Hensley goes in between your pickup and the travel trailer to help with stability since your trailer is now notably longer, not between your travel trailer and the tote.  The tote is fixed, does not connect via a ball hitch, and remains in straight line behind the trailer.

All of which is out of scope as the original question was about how to carry toys behind a 5th wheel.

Watts on Wheels uses one regularly and has some great YouTube videos demonstrating how it works.

You can still put toys behind the 5th wheel just not on a 'trailer'.

Google 'freedomhauler' - it looks and hauls like a trailer but is considered an extension of the 5th wheel.

The key is that it doesn't pivot on a single point (hitch) and is instead attached at two points with no pivot.

It can also be converted back to a trailer for regular use once at your destination.

We removed and sold the couch that covered the width of the back of the trailer.  Then replaced it with an Ikea power sit/stand desk w/pedestal type seat and a nice recliner chair.

Plenty of room for my two laptops and a giant curved 4k monitor.

This happened to us last winter as we were driving up over Snoqualmie Pass.  Same symptoms.   Cause was the ground lug had fatigued and broke off the alternator.  Field repair got us rolling but it pretty much killed the already old batteries.

5 hours ago, NeverEasy said:

I rebuilt my entire AC system a couple of years ago.  Had a hard time finding the right seals.  Bought a few generic seal kits to get some of them.  The one from Volvo had some of the seals but not all.  Worst leaks were those you pointed out, on the firewall behind the air filter.  The others bad leaks were under the bunk.  Easy to get to from the side storage door. A can of freon with leak detector and a black light helped locate the leaks. 

To check it before even putting on the vacuum pump, I charged it with nitrogen then used the Whisper leak detector and kids bubble soap to find leaks.  Nitrogen is not necessary, you can use shop air since you will have already exposed the system to the environment.  It will still need a 24 hour vacuum down before installing new freon.  Fortunately, I have a heavy duty vacuum pump and did all the work myself.  

Would live a parts list from that project if it's still handy.

2 hours ago, rollinbrian said:

Called that ext and got the voicemail for someone named Chuck

But the main office gave me a number for local agent and 15 min later we're insured as a motorhome at much better rates than Progressive's commercial insurance.

18 hours ago, geodog1 said:

Contact: Kelly McDowell

             417-887-4990 ext 4405

That is American National home office in Springfield, MO.

 

 

Shortyo

Called that ext and got the voicemail for someone named Chuck

46 minutes ago, lenp said:

Starlink won't help you much as of right now.  It IS NOT mobile YET.  You can move around some within a specific geographical area but only a few miles.

It does work great here at the house.

Lenp

This is what I'm really looking for.  Dump Visible and Comcast and just set my little dish out wherever we park.

7 hours ago, thundersnow said:

@rollinbrain , thanks for the info
I think my biggest concern is running locally and connecting to a remote DB. 

What did you use for cellular hardware? did you use multiple vendors?  I do not think i have to rdp to anything (thank goodness),  most will be SSH

So when looking for a place to stay, were there times you had to bail because of bad coverage or where there anythings you did to kind of "pre-survey" where you were headed.

Thanks again for your info.

 

I use a Visible R2 phone velcroed to a WeBoost RV65 and a TPLink N300.  We'll ask the RV Park while making the reservation how the Verizon service is and how the park wifi is.  We don't boondock or glamp, just plain RV parks with basic services.   The WeBoost makes weak cellular quite usable and the N300 makes the Park WiFi much better. 

Its a plain simple setup with low cost.  After a day of network engineering It's not necessarily fun to do it at home too, so this is easy.

Hi thundersnow, welcome!

I spent almost two years as a devops engineer and much of that remote.  Really more of a deployment engineer but now we're splitting hairs :).

The key was managing bandwidth  - Working with github/bitbucket, Ansible Tower, Jenkins, etc was no issue, all worked fine even over 4g cellular.

SQL though I found it helpful to have a jump box close to the source.  We did some fun stuff with CloudFormation that would deploy a linux version of MSSQL in EC2 and then load the dbs from NFS.  Way to slow to try that remote - keep the data in the cloud/data center and just issue commands across the slow connection.  We also used CloudFormation to deploy EC2 workstations for using things like SQL Management Studio, again, keeping it close to the actual data.  The modern versions of RDP are more efficient than ever and work well when piped through an RDGateway.

Hitch is in!

As a full-timer who may spend a week or two well below freezing it is totally worth it.  I've done both - made my own out of Pex and heat tape and purchased a pre-made hose.

Not having to go out every day or two in the below freezing to hook up and fill the tank is worth the cost.

Once we get south or it warms up I'll roll it up and save for next time.

44 minutes ago, Chad Heiser said:

At the very first WCR, one of the attendees had reversed the pin box on his Hitch Hiker and pulled the trailer that way.  He had no issues, but he designed the bed overhang on his truck to be short enough to not interfere with the front of the 5th wheel in turns with it pulled that far forward.  He also had a smart on the bed of the truck.  Unfortunately this is the only picture I have of the set up.  If you zoom in, you can see the reversed pin box.

This is very interesting.   Getting my trailersaver bolted up next week.  Will have to tape this out and see how it might fit.

2 hours ago, jeffw said:

Hi:

I've got a pretty bad water leak in our 2007 VNL, and was wondering if anyone had a Body/Cab repair manual for that year (or at least for any of the gen2 trucks)? I found the manual for earlier truck at the HHRV site ( http://www.hhrvresource.com/VolvoDocs/80-86/PV776-TSP145522.pdf )

It seems to be leaking at the driver side seam that run front to back of the sleeper roof.

I think I have a leak in the same spot on the passenger side.

On 12/7/2020 at 6:37 PM, trimster said:

As you get your head wrapped around the rig and figure stuff out like how it drives, what you have to do to feel comfortable moving down the road, I might suggest some mirrors on the hood. Ours came with them and they are key to seeing idiots in the blind spots. Just when you think you are clear to move over, I've glanced at those and found a small car or motorcycle that would cause things to end badly with the lane change. Didn't have them on our MDT. Would not be without them now.

Enjoy the rig.... and all the beer-can-in-hand rubber necking when you pull into the campground.

Thanks, that's really great info.  I was wondering if it was worth effort of adding those in.  I have noticed that the factory door mirrors do leave a little blind spot tucked right up next to the truck.  Didn't have that issue with the MDT.

Another thread here on the site does have a document on how to add and position them so we'll give run here shortly.

Major issue right now is it was originally equipped with a skyjacker hitch bolted straight to the frame.  Swapping in my air ride hitch consumes a lot more space and interferes with the back main beam of the aluminum deck body.  hmmm

Finally home, took a bit of work getting it across the mountain passes and the over the Canadian border.

Working out the project list for it as well as the hitch swap.

Parked beside the F800 we were using for comparison.

6 hours ago, ARGO said:

I'll get a couple for ya' . Had problems posting pics here, size. Gotta' email I can send to?

PM'd to you

1 hour ago, ARGO said:

I ran my fairings right across the storage on each side. Doors in fairings flip up for access. Not 100% watertight, but for stuff like pet steps, coolers, etc

I wouldn't mind seeing a picture of that.

39 minutes ago, bigjim said:

The object on the left is almost some type of spigot and I wonder if the other object is something approaching the spigot.

Could be moving away from the spigot.

Sorry, yes - we're close to Bellingham.

Looks like we're finally going to get the Volvo across the border.  It has a fixed Hijacker rv hitch now and I want to swap in my air ride TrailerSaver.  I don't drill frames any more, so . . .

Local fabricator recommendations?

1 hour ago, mr. cob said:

Howdy rollinbrian,

Sounds like a plan, just needs someone with organization skills to ramrod it.  Doing so, setting something like this takes a LOT OF WORK, JUST ASK CHAD, I am sure he would agree.  Count me in as an attendee and helper if someone wants to pick the ball up and run with it.

Dave

Well, maybe we start with coffee in a big parking lot somewhere.   Look over each others setup.

Not to go off course with the thread but it seems there might be enough HDTs  in the PNW for a mini rally.

Looks like lots of help!

We're still moving some stuff from Renton to Ferndale with our MDT (soon to be HDT).  Holler if you need any additional help.

I've just started using it.

Even split between Chrome on a PC and an Android phone.