It was a long day. Eleven hours on the road, but everything went smoothly, from getting out of our driveways to getting thru LA rush hour traffic without any major delays. We were parked and plugged into a spot in the Alfateers parking lot by 8 PM.
I want to thank Karen and Al for noticing that our Blue Ox hitch system was not quite right. The height difference (the Alfa above the Accent) was too much and we were towing with a dangerous hitch.
Before this trip, Craig did some measurements and ordered a 4" drop receiver for the tow bar. However, once when I followed the Alfa I noticed that at a "flex point" in our road, the rear end of the coach almost touched the road!
It's a good thing we did the test, because the styrofoam did hit the road and scraped along for a foot or two. If it had been the Blue Ox with the drop receiver, we might have had a serious scrape!
A flex point like on our road the road is not a common road condition, and if we can avoid that one place we will be fine. Our solution to this is that as long as we live where we do and store the Alfa on our land, we will have to take the tow bar and drop hitch off at the end of each trip before we come home, and remount it when we hook up hook up after going through our flex point. This is not hard. When we are traveling it is not an issue.
So many things that can go wrong!
Have you avoided any disasters this year?
We have avoided hundreds of disasters this year, but we just don't know much about them.
ReplyDeleteGlad you got it all figured out! ha, my year has been nothing but a disaster!! ;-)
ReplyDeleteLots of great ingenuity going on there, glad you got it all figured out and that you made it through the LA traffic. I certainly don't miss that.
ReplyDeleteWe drove on a flat inside duelly because our tire pressure monitor didn't register it. Luckily it was the inside one and we didn't reck the wheel itself. Glad you are getting your hitch figured out.
ReplyDeleteGood save! Goodness knows how many near misses we have that we don't even know about. Ignorance is bliss... until it isn't. Have a safe trip.
ReplyDeleteNice that other RVrs have our backs. Glad your trip to/thru LA was uneventful..now on to the next one!
ReplyDeleteELEVEN hours? Ugh!!! Your tow setup looks much better. Enjoy your travels!
ReplyDelete11 hours? Wow!
ReplyDeleteGlad you got the tow bar figured out. I sure wish I knew you needed a 4 inch drop, because we have one we are going to have to sell.
We had some troubles getting ours figured out as well. We thought the 4 inch bar drop would work, but once we got hooked, aired up and moving, we realized it would not work. Camping World won't take it back if it's scratched up (and of course it was).
We finally settled on a 2 inch drop and we think we're okay now. It's so hard to tell until you air up and actually hitch up the toad.
Enjoy your trip!