tropicslady
New Member
- Joined
- Jun 12, 2010
- Messages
- 3
Hi All,
We were offered a 1994 TowLite by our folks. They bought it new, it was barely used, and it was garage kept until 3 years ago, and they just didn't want to trailer anything anymore. We, of course, said yes.
Wow, haven't had a vacation in 3 years, this is going to be so much fun! Left home early June and headed up North to get the trailer.
Pressure washed the outside, checked the wheel bearings, totally cleaned the inside, stowed all of our gear, stocked it with food, and took off to head back South with several cool camping spots in mind.
Bear in mind that while pressure washing, cleaning and stocking, we ran the trailer up and down and up and down.
Took the scenic route down the Blue Ridge Parkway, nice leisurely drive. Stopped at the National Park Service campground near Blowing Rock, NC. Got a camp site, said "YAY", and went to put the camper 'up'. Battery was dead. No problemo, we say. Unhooked the Tundra, turned truck around and charged the battery. Easy sneezy.
As the trailer was going up, I noticed the one side was not lifting.
"WHOA", I said. He brought it back down. Let's give this another try, slowly.
"WHOA, the port side still isn't lifting!" He brought it back down and it came down with a crash. (insert lots of noise here)
Crawled under the port side, lots of rotten wood came falling down on the ground, along with a metal clamp that was attached to cable. Geez, we knew what this meant.
Off to find a hotel room, some dinner, and get up the next morning and head straight back to Florida. Yet another year without a vacation, right?
Once home, we 'thought' it would be just a matter of possibly replacing the bottom board and reattaching the clamp and cable and we would be able to lift the trailer once again. We wanted to do this quickly so we could head up to a NPS campground in Flagler Beach, FL while we still had some time off from work. No way.
The entire side had rotten wood - wet, stinky rotten wood. We spent the rest of our 'vacation' purchasing materials, doing the design on paper, and crawling on our hands and knees in and out and in and out to get our 'stuff' out.
We took detailed pictures of the dismantle, and have slowly been building an entirely new side in our garage, while keeping the camper under several tarps since this is our rainy season down here. We are sharing the dismantle photos here (below), and plan to take pictures of the actual side rebuild during and after we get it all put together, showing how we are doing the attachment. The side is now half way assembled, so we will post pictures before we sandwich it closed and put the window in. The siding was torn on the bottom, so this is either going to be a TowLite Woody, or we will replace the siding (anyone know of a source?)
Word of caution - DO NOT leave your camper uncovered so that it gets 4 to 5 feet of snow and ice during a harsh West Virginia winter!
After viewing the photos, if anyone has any words of wisdom and/or recommendations, we would love to hear them! We are slowly working on this project and have plenty of time to do a redesign.
Oh, and the CRASH that we heard on that first night, well, hopefully it was just the lights crashing on the countertop because the top fell way further than it normally would have. We will see when we can lift it again and get inside.
Here's the link to the photos. If you click on each photo, there will be a little description, I hope.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dangdebg/sets/72157624557123955/
Have fun camping this summer folks!
We were offered a 1994 TowLite by our folks. They bought it new, it was barely used, and it was garage kept until 3 years ago, and they just didn't want to trailer anything anymore. We, of course, said yes.
Wow, haven't had a vacation in 3 years, this is going to be so much fun! Left home early June and headed up North to get the trailer.
Pressure washed the outside, checked the wheel bearings, totally cleaned the inside, stowed all of our gear, stocked it with food, and took off to head back South with several cool camping spots in mind.
Bear in mind that while pressure washing, cleaning and stocking, we ran the trailer up and down and up and down.
Took the scenic route down the Blue Ridge Parkway, nice leisurely drive. Stopped at the National Park Service campground near Blowing Rock, NC. Got a camp site, said "YAY", and went to put the camper 'up'. Battery was dead. No problemo, we say. Unhooked the Tundra, turned truck around and charged the battery. Easy sneezy.
As the trailer was going up, I noticed the one side was not lifting.
"WHOA", I said. He brought it back down. Let's give this another try, slowly.
"WHOA, the port side still isn't lifting!" He brought it back down and it came down with a crash. (insert lots of noise here)
Crawled under the port side, lots of rotten wood came falling down on the ground, along with a metal clamp that was attached to cable. Geez, we knew what this meant.
Off to find a hotel room, some dinner, and get up the next morning and head straight back to Florida. Yet another year without a vacation, right?
Once home, we 'thought' it would be just a matter of possibly replacing the bottom board and reattaching the clamp and cable and we would be able to lift the trailer once again. We wanted to do this quickly so we could head up to a NPS campground in Flagler Beach, FL while we still had some time off from work. No way.
The entire side had rotten wood - wet, stinky rotten wood. We spent the rest of our 'vacation' purchasing materials, doing the design on paper, and crawling on our hands and knees in and out and in and out to get our 'stuff' out.
We took detailed pictures of the dismantle, and have slowly been building an entirely new side in our garage, while keeping the camper under several tarps since this is our rainy season down here. We are sharing the dismantle photos here (below), and plan to take pictures of the actual side rebuild during and after we get it all put together, showing how we are doing the attachment. The side is now half way assembled, so we will post pictures before we sandwich it closed and put the window in. The siding was torn on the bottom, so this is either going to be a TowLite Woody, or we will replace the siding (anyone know of a source?)
Word of caution - DO NOT leave your camper uncovered so that it gets 4 to 5 feet of snow and ice during a harsh West Virginia winter!
After viewing the photos, if anyone has any words of wisdom and/or recommendations, we would love to hear them! We are slowly working on this project and have plenty of time to do a redesign.
Oh, and the CRASH that we heard on that first night, well, hopefully it was just the lights crashing on the countertop because the top fell way further than it normally would have. We will see when we can lift it again and get inside.
Here's the link to the photos. If you click on each photo, there will be a little description, I hope.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dangdebg/sets/72157624557123955/
Have fun camping this summer folks!
