I needed to take the ‘Land Wanderer‘ out one last time before we leave on our great trip to the Southwest. It will be my first post-retirement trip. This is not a two to three week and ‘hurry-back’ trip, this is our months gone-at-a-time trip. I wanted to make sure all systems were a GO! I’m calling it a shake down cruise.
I didn’t need a long road trip for the shake down, so we picked Oak Hollow Campground in High Point, North Carolina. It’s between Greensboro and Winston Salem. This is about 120 miles away. Just a couple hours drive. High Point is known for being the furniture manufacturing capital. Old downtown is restored turn of the century brick & mortar buildings that are now major brand furniture store fronts. The region is nice and upbeat and close to one of our favorite places to visit; Winston Salem. The campground is a city park, very well maintained, on a lake, and with exceptionally good free Wifi.
The Shake Down
For most readers, this is probably the boring part but for the tech minded people, this should be interesting. Over the last few months, I have gone through the Land Wanderer from front to back, system checked and fixing things. I did the same thing to our tow vehicle (toad), Tacoma 4 door pre-runner. Before I made any repairs or did maintenance work, I researched the how-to’s and manuals on-line. It is amazing to me that we were able to accomplish anything before the internet. I saved most manuals to a hard drive just in case I needed to access them while on the road.
Land Wanderer
Power Train-I changed the Allison Transmission fluid and filters. Sizable job but not complicated. Flushed engine coolant system, replaced hoses, thermostat, replaced coolant and pressure tested for twenty-four hours. Changed all filters. Speaking about filters, I had to add a filter. I was having problems with my diesel fuel lift pump. Major cost to replace $$$$$. I had to replace it three times. I learned that I have sludge in my diesel tank. There was no filter between the tank and the lift pump. The sludge would plug up the pump’s inlet screen causing a loss of power to the Cummins Engine. Land Wanderer would chug going up hills. After much research (on-line), I designed and installed a filter station between the tank and the pump. I also have started adding a bacteria killer to the tank on each fill. I feel confident that this will eliminate my lift pump problem and over time the filter will filter out the sludge. On the shake down, I wanted to make sure no leaks and all system gauges indicated correct operating conditions. All was good!
Electrical System-Every spring and fall I open the battery compartment and check battery water levels and connections. I added an acid neutralizing mat to the bottom the compartment. This seems to work good to protect the bay from battery boiling overflow. I also coated the battery terminals with battery de-oxidation grease. That has helped also with corrosion. The diesel 7.5kw generator just gets normal maintenance based in-service hours. So far, it’s been working great. The shake down proved no leaks, easy generator start and good operating systems.
Chassis-I was concern about tire blow-out. I’ve read that tire problems are the biggest cause of catastrophic problems on the road. So I installed a PressurePro 10 tire monitoring system. On each tire valve stem, there is a screw on pressure measuring transmitter that signals to a monitor next to my steering wheel. Six on the Land Wanderer and four on the toad. If the pressure goes below a percentage of the initial setting, an irritating alarm is given. I know it works. I got an ear deafening alarm on the toad this morning because of the cooler weather which cause the air pressure to be a little low. For the rest of the chassis, I lubricated every moving part and inspected for wear. Everything was in good shape. My front passenger side leveling jack was a frustrating hit and miss for retracting. When it didn’t retract, I had to get a 2×4 and pry it up. After a year of doing that, I decide to replace the jack and springs. The jack cost ~$400, springs ~$40 (reason for not changing it earlier). The jack was not bad to change, its hard work on your back maneuvering 30 pound is the tough part. The spring is another matter. I had to use two long bars to pry the tension off the springs. If you are not careful, the springs can slip off the bars and cause personal physical damage (like broken bones). I was careful and changed the jack in about two hours. The shake down proved the air monitoring system worked and the new jack is now the first one back to it’s retract position. Yay!
Interior-Storage space has been a concern. We had to re-think what we needed to have with us. We had to decide what was a “must” and what was “nice” to have. We broke it down into three categories; tools and spare parts, cooking tools, and clothing. Tools definitely a must, spare parts not so much. If I had to order a part and I had it, it was coming with us. Cooking tools would give Denise the necessary stuff to satisfy her cooking desires and saves us from going out to eat. Clothing is a tough one to figure out. We will be traveling during cold and hot weather and also we set ourselves a goal of doing laundry every 14 days. This one we will give it our best guess. We are lucky in that our in-board clothing space is more than adequate with plenty of space. I have removed the washer/dryer and using that space for additional storage for clothing. In the basement, I have six (empty for testing) plastic tubs that will have plenty of space for cooking tools and clothing. The shake down proved that the plastic tubs set well during the trip and didn’t interfere with the slide out mechanisms. Also, I checked out our local area network using the WifiRanger connecting to the campground Wifi and my Verizon hotspot Verizon Jetpack 4G LTE Mobile HotSpot – MiFi 5510L. I wanted to make sure that we can use the Roku 3 and OOMA phone (voice over internet, our home phone). It all worked! So, if we have a good Wifi connection anywhere, we can use our stream video (Roku) for movies and TV shows and have our home phone with us. Perfect!
Toad-Tacoma 4 Door Pre-runner
Changed belts, hoses, thermostat, filters, motor oil, coolant and transmission fluid. Replaced all tires with all-terrains (for desert exploring). On the shake down, I wanted to make sure that the toad was an easy pull and that the bike rack was secure and not bouncing. One of the problems I had in the pass was gauging the distance when backing up in a parking spot with the bike rack. I installed a camera on the bike rack that gave me indication of distance. I also added a tub of necessaries in the back of the truck. Things like tools, rope, first-aid kit, shovel and portable jack. This will be our emergency stuff when we off-roading to ghost towns in Arizona. The shake down proved all systems were a go!
I think we are READY!
We are staying in section B lot 13 (gravel lot next to lake). We have 50amp service with water, sewer and cable tv all for $35 per night.
