Aluminum Camper Forum

Well, so far so good. We have had our rig back now for almost three months. The aluminum frame is holding up fine with no visible cracks. As far as I can tell the plant added some new welds but did not really do too much additional frame work. The plant welder came close to burning some of our electrical wiring, but, luckily it burned the loom and just started on the wire coating.  If something does happen with our electrical I know where to look first. As David has mentioned in a prior post the A frame is the most important area and those welds are fine. So, hopfully our frame problems will be a non issue. However, when we do camp on nice soft grass I always crawl under and have a look.

Overall LL did what was required to correct our issues. They changed all our interior LED lights, we had two that always flickered and we finally just removed the bulbs (even with all the shavings removed). Added the extra coupler bolts, fixed our sagging fresh water tank and repaired our furnace.

Thank you LL.

Your not alone. In Waterton Lakes National Park (southern Alberta) there is a no outside wood rule as well. The really good thing though is you have to purchase a 'daily' camp fire permit at $10.00 CAD and then you get to purchase your bag(s) of wood. Now, the best is yet to come. The 'wood' are pieces of cut bark. No buddles of anything that resembles what you would think would make an enjoyable summer campfire, just the best Canadian bark you can get. The Conservation Officers will enforce the no outside wood as well. Enforcment is a monetary ticket. Makes using our propane fire bowl much more economic and less hassle. It is very easy for the officers to spot outside wood. Those campers actually have a fire.

I understand the importance of protecticting this very sensitive eco system but this specific situation will just encourage people to act in a negative manner, using outside wood and burning dead fall. Common sense and fairness are starting to be things of the past. IMO

In some other campgrounds the facility will provide all the wood you want, there still is your daily fire permit charge, but the no outside wood issue is a non issue.  (Honeymoon Creek, south of Jasper National Park)

This summer though, there are so many fire bans that it really doesn't matter.

Looks good!

Regarding your frame support welds.

Our trailer had to be serviced in the field  for cracked welds around the outside perimeter frame. In short, the field repairs held up till we were able to have our dealer inspect the frame. The conclusion was to ship our unit back to LL for the repairs. They added some extra welds and inspected our frame but did not install any additional frame supports. Wish they did for piece of mind. I believe lots of owners checked their rigs for failed welds after my posts but very few owners had the same issues as our rig. We had other issues and LL did step up and fixed everything that was required. They even fixed our failed sail switch in the back of the furnace. That was a few hundred dollars worth of service.

Good luck!

We did not use the website to locate the Dexter dealer. This particular shop is very well recognized for the 'go to' trailer shop and just by chance they are a Dexter dealer.

With your low mileage IMO I would not be overly concerned. Not sure what the negatives would be with your rig having very low mileage, an overland flood would probably be the only issue that would warrant an immediate bearing service. If that happened you probably have more pressing issues. I believe the Dexter manual recommends bearings be serviced once a year or every 12000 miles and the EZ lube can be performed periodically during this period. We have been over the recommended service mileage but usually are under that figure when we bring it in. Not sure why but some fellow RV'ers we have met use the EZ lube regularly and forget the full service and some like us go the full service route every year regardless of mileage.

We have never used the EZ Lube option when servicing our bearings. Once a year we bring our rig to a Dexter dealer and have a full repack and inspection/ brake adjustment completed. In the event that additional parts are required we know it will be done correctly and at a reasonable price. Compared to an RV dealer. We average about 15000 miles a year and have been doing so for 3 years. No issues at all with the bearings or trailer brakes. Some RV's will go seasons just using the EZ Lube. I don't think I could comfortably drive from Alberta to Arizona knowing I have not had a complete bearing service. Having a bearing seize driving through SLC would not be an enjoyable experience.

I would suggest to check your fridge on a regular basis. Camping at similar elevations we lost our LP operation due to the altitude. We have a Honda generator that we used to run the fridge in auto. The little bit of noise from the generator was not an issue as we were camping on a BLM spot. You could imagine being close to your neighbour and having to run a generator for eight hours a day. Chatting with some fellow campers we discovered that some fridges operated just fine on LP and others had similar issues as us. If you are staying at sites with hook ups then you are covered, just a drop in performance not running the fridge on LP.

Enjoy your trip!

Thought we would share some pictures from our latest trip. We boondocked an hour outside of the park on Crown Land similar to BLM areas. Had a great day kayaking with perfect conditions. Even got our sail out for some fun!

Yesturday I noticed that our bracket mounted TV had lost one of the four screws that fasten it to the swing arm mounting plate. On closer inspection of the back of the TV I discovered that the reason for the missing screw was that the actual plastic on the back of the TV has cracked and broken away. Looking at the other three screws one had the same type of damage and was ready to fall out. With all the road vibrations I guess it was a matter of time.

So, I always have some exterior double sided tape in our rig along with some other fix it items. I tried the tape but a single strip was not thick enough to fill in between  the back of the TV and the mounting plate. You could just double up the strips to fill in the gap and contact both surfaces.  If your TV has not developed any cracking I bet this method would prevent any damage. But, then I found some heavy duty velcro adhesive strips with a ten pound rating, that would work. Took a minute to line things up and adhere the four peices of velcro. The thickness of the velcro when put together was perfect. It did take a few tries to actually get the velcro strips to connect fully but finally I got it. Installed the two remaining screws and voila. Can't see it having any future issues. Sorry no pics, I seldom carry my phone any more.

The double sided exterior tape and heavy duty velcro strips were purchased at our local Lowes.

Hope this helps.

FYI, we started having issues with our lower marker lights. I removed all the covers and was shocked on how much dust there was inside the housing. Spent an hour with a tooth brush cleaning them all up. So far so good but one did  eventually fail and had to be replaced. Purchased the same brand just to keep things easy. One thing I remember when changing the failed light was I thought the original unit was wired or maybe modified a bitt compared to the same new light. Can't remember the specifics but I did find it odd. I even went back and bought some more replacements just in case. I still have one original unit that they installed with the wrong colour LED and they decided to just put the correct lens cover on. I think we have the only rig with a pink marker light.

Cheers,

Hello,

Just doing some general maintenance and discovered that our dual battery boxes were each being held in place with two very small metal self tapping screws. On one box both screws had rusted the heads completely off. Not sure if this was the original method they did things during manufacturing or at the dealership. Tried to use some CLR to remove all the rust that accumulated under the boxes but had to resort to some fine sandpaper to really clean up the rust stained frame.

Installed some stainless hardware to refasten the boxes and also drilled some drainage holes in the bottom of each box.

Hi,

We have a 21RBS with a full king bed and a residential foam mattress. This would add more tongue weight than the standard units. We had no water, all our general items loaded, two Trojan  6 volt batteries and two full twenty pound propane tanks. Our Anderson hitch was not installed in this photo.

Your repair looks perfect! We can only hope.

I have been informed that our rig will be completed and shipped back to us at the end of this month. The frame repairs are completed and the plant is installing the coupler bolt kit then they will fix the sagging freshwater tank.

I will be sure to post some pics of the completed work once we get things back in order.

Happy camping!

Hello!

A local female grizzly joins in on a rugby practice. Banff, Alberta.

Enjoy!

We wanted to update our fellow owners on our 21 RBS rig. As some of you know we had many failed welds on our perimeter east west cross members and some supports with no welds at all. We had our unit re-welded while travelling and had made arrangements with our dealer and LL for an inspection/ repairs this spring. We did not have an oppurtunity to have the inspection done sooner as we had booked our winter in southern Arizona.

So, during our return trip home we finnally dropped off our rig at the dealer as per our disscussions. After a few days, our service rep phoned and informed us that we had to make a return trip to completly empty our unit as it was being sent back to the states for an engineering inspection and repairs.  Our dealer is five hours away return trip. For any new owners of any brand of rig, buy local! This is our eight time going to our dealer, includes the sales process and lots of trips for warranty work. We would never buy another rv out of town, the cost and waste of time commuting is adding up.

Now we just wait until the new LL plant takes delivery and completes the process. While the frame is being worked on we also want the fresh water holding tank fixed. The middle fresh water tank support bracket has sagged about three inches and the tank is now deformed and looks like a saggy wet diaper. We easily loose about five to seven gallons of water because the water pump can not access the botton amount. The lag bolts that hold the brackets to the frame have also started to pull through the brackets. This is something that I do not feel responsible for. Three aluminum supports do not work, unless they have started to put smaller fresh tanks on.

In the end we just want what we paid for.