Kevin Standlee (kevin_standlee) wrote,
Kevin Standlee
kevin_standlee

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Another Task Checked Off

Today, Lisa and I got our grubby clothes on and we went to work on her Small Orange Pickup, on which she did some brake adjustments. My job, as usual on such assignments, was to stand ready and hand her tools, and in this case sometimes go press the brake pedal while she made adjustments. She's still not really happy with it, and may have to have us go have more work done, but it's better than when she started.

As I've mentioned, she needs to get the Big Orange Van running again, and for that it needs to be taken by flatbed trailer up to the mechanic in the Portland area. Where it's sitting now isn't very convenient to get a large flatbed tow truck, so in a few days, she may use the small pickup to tow the big van over to the other side of the property to a more easily accessible spot so that when the tow company comes, they don't have to fret about easing their big truck through limited-clearance areas.

Yesterday evening, the rain eased off from the heavy thunderstorms sufficiently that we were able to install the remaining new tires. (That includes putting the spare up as well. In retrospect, it's possible that the old spare might have held up, but fifteen-year-old tires are risky in all cases, I think.) Lisa also replaced the breakaway switch without any incident. She's much happier with the new, metal switch anyway, as the old, plastic switch always felt unreliable to her, and it was no surprise when it broke while she was testing it last week.

The trailer almost certainly still needs a full wheel-and-brake job (Lisa thinks the wheel bearings need repacking), and it could probably use re-roofing as well, although for many years it has sat under versions of shelters that Lisa has built. But if we had a vehicle that could tow the trailer, she thinks she could be ready to roll in a day or two of stripping out all of the stuff that's accumulated inside the trailer. It's likely that not too much later this year we will make an appointment with Camping World to do the wheel-brake-roof work and she will tow it gingerly to Wilsonville, which is 55 miles from Mehama, to have the work done. She says that a likely scenario is to drive up the night before, spend the night in the trailer while parked on their lot, then have the work done that day and either tow it back that night or spend another night there and leave the next morning. This is, she tells me, quite common with Camping World centers, so there's nothing to worry about there.

There's more we'd like to get done, but this late, wet, spring is literally damping our ability to accomplish anything.
Tags: lisa, trailer, van
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