TVC - Day 33 - Put on your seat belt and hold on tight......

We awoke to intensely bright sunshine....no clouds.....my first job of 4th Saturday was to dump our venerable black tank, and wipe down the VW.  Once that was done I got out the outdoor TV and turned on women's FIFA World Cup....there were four matches scheduled for Thursday so the games started early.

Next I drove over to the maintenance yard to pick up one of the abandoned bikes that had some promising components to dismantle it and save the parts for future use.......

The dismantled lady's Schwinn bike

While I was 'deep in the weed's on the bike TLE went over to play cards with her Newell girlfriends for a few hours, and after I finished dismantling the Schwinn I went over to site 167 to watch, and hopefully help Richard and Tom install new front air bags (suspension) on Ed Perkins' 55,000 pound Newell.....

Ed Perkin's 4 slide Newell (left)

 The right front hub sans wheel

 The space where the new air bag will be inserted and bolted in place

 The new air bag awaiting installation

 The old 'leaking like a sieve' air bag......it was so badly degraded that it had become a safety issue.

 Richard Entrekin putting the new air bag in place and reconnecting the airline to the bag

Whenever going 'under' a 55,000 pound air suspended coach you should always 'block' the frame with wood and 20 ton bottle jacks......you might notice that the frame is not completely resting on the blocks.....they are there to keep it from falling just in case there is a catastrophic loss of air from the suspension system.  Too many unwitting people have been crushed by a falling coach.....

Getting ready to remove the left front wheel.....Richard is 'blocking' the left side now....we used a 10' piece of pipe attached to the breaker bar to remove the lug nuts......these nuts require some 480 foot pounds of torque to keep them tight.

 Richard is the only one small enough to fit in the tight space......it is a very dirty job

 Left to right: Richard Entrekin, Tom McCloud and moi......I'm honing my supervisory skills

In all it took just over 5 hours to remove and replace both front air bags, but now Ed has a safer coach with no suspension air leaks.....to be sure, there are still a few other air leaks.....the doors, toilet, etc. are air operated and there are always leaks to chase down.

The Case front loader with backhoe I am learning how to operate

We had another potluck diner with our Newell friends before calling it a day.....