#7 is done!

8:38 am - Tuesday - April 2nd - Fontana, CA - 60° F, 50% humidity, wind - CALM.....crystal clear blue skies today with a forecast high of 73° F....a big improvement over Monday!

7) Pull the wheels off the trailer, repack the bearings with grease, and check the brake pads.   Yup, cross #7 off the 'to do' list!  This is, for me at 69 years old, a hard, physical job, and I have not had the wheels off the trailer, and the brake drums pulled off for several years.  I do periodically get out the grease gun and add grease to the wheel bearings via the grease zerk on all four wheels, but have not felt the need to pull the wheels and drums off for several years......

Grease zerk

......I carry two 20 ton bottle jacks with me just in case I need to jack up the front, or rear of the coach.  20 tons is a little over kill, but one thing I have learned is over engineer everything when you are dealing with a 15 ton coach (actually weighs in at 29,000 lbs, or 14.5 tons).  There is no penalty for using a 20 ton bottle jack.  I also use one of the 20 ton bottle jacks to jack up the trailer when pulling off the wheels.  

As I pulled off each tire I inspected it for unusual wear, and found none.  I had these Michelin light truck tires installed on the trailer back in the summer of 2015, and they still look brand new.  Prior to that I had been using whatever brand of Chinese trailer tires that was available at the time, and they would never go more than 6-7,000 miles before the tread would begin to separate.    I've got about 20,000 miles on these Michelins and they look wonderful.  I am afraid they may 'age out' before I run the tread off them.......

 The tread is free of unusual wear patterns

......I then pulled off the brake drums and found the brake linings to be around 50% after 6.5 years (I installed new brakes back in December of 2012).  The amount of grease visible on the wheel bearings on each wheels was still quite good after a year, but I added some anyway......

Brake drums, wheels and dust caps reinstalled 

on the passenger side of the trailer

.......I worked on the passenger side trailer wheels in the morning in the shade, but didn't get to the driver side wheels until mid afternoon when the shade had finally enveloped that area.  Thankfully all four tires checked out, as well as all 8 brake shoes, and now the trailer is ready to roll to Alaska!

Four items left on my 'to do' list:

2) Replace the current house water pump with one that provides more PSI, and more GPM (gallons per minute).....it has arrived at my son's office, so I will pick it up Monday.  The current pump will return to it's box to serve as a backup water pump, just as it did for 11 years prior to it being pressed into service in Mississippi.

5) Repaint the LPG tank with Rustoleum....again not the whole tank, but that which is visible when you open the LPG bay door.

6) Thoroughly clean the roof for the first time in a few years.

8) Haul the last, and final load of stuff we are not taking with us to Alaska to my son's office warehouse.....that will be just a few days before we begin our trek north.

We came close to turning on the A/C Monday, but we persevered through the heat of the day.  After finishing the trailer task around 4 pm I sat outside cooling down in the late afternoon breezes, then took a long, hot shower (is there any other kind?).  The restorative powers of a long, hot shower cannot be denied.

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