Go! Go! Go! with the Howards

The first couple of drives, the trailer was a little bit squirrelly at speeds above 55, especially with crosswinds or when a large truck passes us. This isn’t entirely unexpected, and it’s always hard to gauge what’s normal when you’re a 50 foot long, 8 wheel, jointed rig, but the white knuckle moments were common enough to be tiring.

Yesterday we decided to add some ballast towards the front – we are probably a bit tail heavy as we have a motorcycle and a dozen or so cases of wine as far aft as they’ll go. We haven’t been using our fresh water tank since we’ve been hopping from campground to campground where we have ready access to limitless pressurized water, and it seemed like a lot of weight to carry if we weren’t using it: 100+ gallons at 8.34 pounds per gallon.  But the tank sits in front of the axles, so it’s a good candidate for ballast, and in any case worth a shot, I could always drain it if needed.

Turns out it made all the difference in the world – we had a much smoother ride today, totally stable at 65 even crossing a windy valley in New Mexico, and hardly responded at all to large passing trucks. Proper weight distribution matters.

Another lesson learned.

As we left Tombstone this afternoon there was a Border Patrol checkpoint a few miles north of town, maybe 40 miles inside the US. As we approached, a very serious agent approached the window and asked if I was transporting anything as he peaked in the back of the truck.

I responded, “No, just stuff”.

It doesn’t look as funny in writing, but it was a very odd way of answering his question, and it got a little giggle and a “Have a nice day”.

As we break in all the systems, dormant bugs are bound to show themselves, as was the case with the gray water holding tank’s blade valve.

Most RVs have three holding tanks:

• Fresh water, which is water that comes out of the faucets when you turn them on (except when you’re hooked up to an external water supply, but that’s beside the point).
• Gray water, which is where the water that flows down your sink and shower drains ends up. This is generally dirty, but not raw sewage.
• Black water, aka sewage. Everything that goes down the toilet ends up in here. This is a toxic mess.

The black tank and valve (the pipe and handle on the left), and the gray tank and valve (right), joining into a single outlet (with a cap on). The wet ground is from washing the trailer, *not* gray water on the ground.

The black and gray tanks each have an outlet so you can empty them at a dumpstation, or right in your spot if they offer sewage hookup. How often you do this depends on how big your tanks are, among other things. The outlets for each tank have a “blade valve” which opens to let the stuff out of the tank and through a Y connector which joins both outlets into a single pipe which you connect to the outside world. By having two valves upstream of where the tanks are joined, you can keep them isolated from one another – you wouldn’t want the smell of sewage, or worse, coming up through the kitchen sink right?

After the first time I opened the gray water tank’s valve to empty it, it never quite closed up tight again – it was a little drippy. This is a bad sign that one of its seals isn’t watertight anymore, so I picked up a replacement valve – plus one for the black tank, just in case.

The Fix (and near disaster)

Being on the road and not having easy access to an RV repair yard, and since I was planning only on fixing the gray valve for now – being basically just dirty water – I decided to do the fix stealthily at our first stop, while Stephanie was napping with Wes. The change looked easy enough, involving these steps:

1. Make sure the gray tank is empty – since we had hookups in the campground that part was easy.
2. Remove four bolts.
3. Remove the old valve and pull out the old seals.
4. Install new seals.
5. Put the new valve in – same brand and model, so everything should just line right up.
6. Tighten down four bolts.
7. Done!

Everything seemed easy enough, a 10 minute job under the best conditions, but the first challenge was that the bolts I was trying to remove were completely rotted – 75% rust, then just fell apart when I applied a wrench. I had to improvise to remove them, which meant taking a little longer than I hoped to take, making the illicit job more obvious to our neighbors should they look out their windows.

Once I finally got the bolts removed, I wiped things down, popped in the new seals, fit the valve in place, and started to tighten the bolts down.

About halfway through the process, though, I heard the water come on in the trailer – Stephanie woke up and was running the sink… oh fuck! That water was now about to come straight down into my lap if I didn’t get the valve bolts tightened, or if I hadn’t done something right – so instead of a controlled test, I got a live test of whether the new valve would hold. If it didn’t, we’d be dumping dirty (though again, not toxic) dishwater out under our trailer.

I wouldn’t be writing this if it had turned out badly – I’d probably still be dealing with the EPA or something – but it was a nice wakeup, and taught me a few new lessons:

1. Turn off the water inlet when working on the gray tank, so even if someone turned on the faucet nothing would flow. Same for black tank.
2. Tell everyone in the trailer what your plans are, even if you think they will sleep through the whole process.

An Aside about Valves

Valves are, in essence, logical devices, and the same logic that governs electronic circuitry also applies to water, air, and other types of valves. In fact, in many parts of the world, what we call “vacuum tubes” – an essential early computing technology – are called valves.

Many people have created computing devices – for fun, or even practical reasons – using complex arrangements of pipes carry water through valves.

After so many years in one spot, and so much interest in community, I can’t even begin to count the number of groups, pages, hashtags, individuals and other social media presences I’ve had to unsubscribe from, unfollow, or unwatch – easily 25:1 compared to the bills and real world accounts I’ve had to cancel or provide a change of address for.

When camping on the border between two timezones, and with half one’s devices auto-adjusting their clocks based on locale, timekeeping can be a ball of confusion. Then again, what is time anyway? <Whoa>

• Put the truck in trailering mode after every stop
• Don’t go over 60
• Watch the downhill speed
• Watch for high crosswinds
• USE CRUISE CONTROL
• If you start to fishtail, bleed off speed in small bursts using the brakes, not just engine braking
• Bring fresh change of underwear
• Remember to level the trailer side to side with blocks before you unhook
• Don’t leave the black and gray tank valves open just because you’re hooked up
• When you decide to do some stealth maintenance, like replacing a gray water valve, always tell your road partners even if you think they are sleeping
• The ODBII code reader wast most definitely not a waste of money
• Cats can be really annoying at night