Its one thing to clean up your own mistake, I would say that is honorable. The real sin is someone who uses it and just doesn't care. We all encounter different forms of "half-assery." I'm still cleaning it off of my NTU camper...
Mine has mouse damage in the window canvas. Po super-glued pillow cases over them and ruined one zipper. I can't afford new canvas this year, so I'm using duct tape.
I made the mistake of parking my POPUP trailer in its usual parking spot and had to leave the trailer parked there for a couple of years. I never put a tarp over it... Just recently I finally got things situated to let me get back into camping again and moved my trailer to my favorite sitting tree in my back yard... I am installing a new battery bank... I found the roof area of my one corner of my trailer allowed water to seep into that rear side walls... I guess the dicor seams along the roof edge got damaged from the sun heat... This is the area of the trailer that has water damage.. google image I do have Insurance but so much time has passed I don't know if that will help or not.... The vertical corner seam is all busted out. No apparent damage to the outside wall board or rear diamond plate section. Being getting old now I don't know if dumping a lot of money into this will be worth it or I. I can replace the double sided corner seal and forget about for the few years I have left perhaps... I got a good cabinet maker friend coming over to take a look at it... Behind the wall is my wrap around seating area with storage compartments under the seats so I think I can remove the inside wall fairly easy perhaps... Having a tarp over the parked trailer would have not allowed any of this to happen being parked in the sun for a couple of years perhaps... Roy Ken
trying to move trailer (Aliner) relative to TV with key in hitch lock - bent the key ($25 for two new keys)
Did not check that both rear taillight lenses were secured (snap-on type). Lost one on my trip. Least cost options is $29 for a full set of both rear light fitting (its only a few bucks more than shipping and handling and item cost on one lens alone from vendor)
Silicone isn't designed for the purpose and once applied you'll never get it all off, never get anything else to stick to it, even more silicone. Do yourself a favour and use purpose designed RV lap sealant - self leveling for horizontal surfaces, non sag formula for vertical surfaces.
The clamps on the outside that hold the camper shut happen to all be broken on our 1994 Palomino. So we crank it down and leave it as is when we travel. THinking like where is it going to go even if the latches arent latched. Well the jostling around in transit made lift rail, where it connects to the roof inside, break and when we went to crank it up, that corner would not go up because the rail wasn't attached to the roof anymore. Now we have to fix it. We bought ratchet straps to use to actually keep the whole thing closed tightly in transit.
LOL Ours is broken so the cover is always on.. which is also broken. we slide it off in transit and slide it back on when we park, but the vent cant be opened because the crank isnt attached to anything.
We lost the lock before our last trip and husband had to go out and buy a new lock. like we were hitched and ready to go! oh no wait!!
Husband and I were setting up for one of our first trips out.. may have actually been our first trip! "ok grab the handles of the bunk and on the count of 3 pull.. " well he pulled at 1 and my hands were in the pop up fiddling for the handle.. caught my hands in the pop up with the bunk he was pulling out... it hurt!
Careful with that... there have been videos posted here of the top catching the wind, going airborne, and ripping off and hurtling toward the traffic behind them.
Jack-knifed in the parking lot at the Crater Lake gift shop. Little cars had taken all the RV parking and I was angry and frustrated. Dented my TV.
My latest was asking my wife to turn off the refrig while moving to New site, which she did. Then neither of us remembered to secure the cover...gone. on same trip I packed a tarp into the storage box that we hadn't used. It was folded on the ground while we were camping. At the next campground we found lots of ants in the camper, many more when we got home and opened the camper to clean it. Huge colony in that tarp. Lessons learned.
Hey do you have pics or a tutorial? I did the Silicone thing and it looks like garbage now. No leaks right now, but I don't want to wait.
Bought a 15-yr old popup, and wanted to use it first, then get into the maintenance items later. Then we kept wanting to camp, and there was never enough time for maintenance (or so it seemed). The pup seemed to crank fine for about 6 trips, but it turns-out that the wiffletree was dry as a bone and stripped-out on the 7th trip. That left us with the camper 5 inches popped-up, and the top wouldn't go up nor down. We spent our 4-day weekend in a $30 tent, ate fast food, bought some tools and a tarp, and finally got it closed and latched just in time to drive home again. At home, I pulled out the old wiffletree, and now I'm waiting for the $164 replacement to arrive. It cranked well enough before, so I think that if I'd just serviced the lift when we bought it, I'd have saved $300 and a weekend. ...which reminds me, I haven't opened-up the wheel bearings yet!
