Sliding Out of Midland ...

Er, NOT so Much!

What a day, what a day.  We got up early this morning ready to hit the road toward Marshall, TX and Sojourner Headquarters Campground - Camp Bee.

Trav'ler ant stowed - CHECK
Tires properly PSI - CHECK
Water disconnected - CHECK
Electric disconnected - CHECK
Sewer disconnected - CHECK
Bedroom Slides In - CHECK
Front Slides In, Front Slides In, FRONT SLIDES IN? - Neither one of them are coming in!!

What's wrong?

Circuit Breaker popped?  NOPE, it can't be that I can hear the hydraulic pump whining.  So, I get out to check around the outside of the rig.  I don't have to go far - There is a puddle of hydraulic fluid near the passenger side front jack. OH, no!  The jack isn't going down though, so it isn't in that hose.

We called Tiffin and they told us to contact "Coach Net" a AAA-type insurance that they pay for the first year as part of the warranty.  They would arrange for a service call right here in the Midland RV Campground. PHEW!  They'd call back in 10-15 minutes with the details.

25 minutes later they call back to tell me they have called 3 different service providers in the area.  2 of them can't get us in until tomorrow.  The 3rd hasn't even returned the call.  So we have a time set up for tomorrow from 10-11 AM in hopes that they can get the slides in somehow.  (These HWH slides do not have a means to manually retract them).

I got under the front of the rig right behind the stairs to take a look.  I had Irene try to bring in the slide - hydraulic fluid exploded out like Yellowstone's Old Faithful Geyser - but I couldn't tell from where.  Was it a fixture that was "blown?"  Was it a hose line "blown out" of a fitting.  To get more information I'd have to remove the side panel that covers the "HWH leveling system."   I had to call Tiffin Service again to find out how the panel was removed.  It doesn't have a door like the rest of the basement.  Off the panel came after unscrewing the 4 L-brackets holding it.

"Bring in a slide again, Love!"  Once again the hydraulic fluid flew (alliteration intended) everywhere but this time I could see the source.  There was a hole worn into on of the hoses because every time the slide control arm extended or retracted the slide it was rubbing against the hose.  Eventually, it had worn this hole in it.

I called a friend of ours, Dick Stockton, to ask if there was any way to "patch" the hose - maybe 6 or 8 winds of aluminum duct tape around the hose over the hole.  He assured me that the pressure in the hose (which is over 1000 PSI) would be too high for the tape to hold it back.  I'd have to try something different. He suggested that M-A-Y-B-E a piece of of a coke can cut out and wrapped around the hose then a piece of vinyl tubing around it and then all of that held in place by multiple hose clamps that encircle it and hold it as tightly as possible from end to end.  It took me over 2 hours to make the trip to Home Depot and get the parts I needed and then come home and jury-rig it all together.  Unfortunately, to no avail.  Even clamped as tightly as I could the hydraulic fluid went everywhere as I tried then tightened it even more and then tried again.  Oh well.

I called Tiffin once again to tell them what had occurred and that they needed to re-engineer the hose position so that it was away from the slide control-arm.  The service rep told me that he had spoken with the engineering department and had been told that "They already were aware of the problem" because 2 or 3 other 2014 Allegro Bus 45LPs with the HWH leveling system had come into service "with the same problem."  It had now been rerouted away from the control arm.  It's the only time I've been upset with Tiffin because we were JUST AT Red Bay about 2 weeks ago and they didn't check our hose placement even though they KNOW our build date and MUST HAVE KNOWN that ours would have the old "poor hose placement."  I'll have a conversation with Bob Tiffin about this one.

On a totally different note:  If you remember the Skin Tag on the neck of Joel spoken about in http://jitrekking.blogspot.com/2014/02/phoebe-ballertapster.html
the fact that we had to stay here today means that we could go to the doctor with Joel when he had his crazy skin tag removed.  I got some pictures of it for you here.

Irene and I are particularly concerned about the dark brown portion of it and the villous appearance of it (how it looks like a bunch of individual bumps all "glued together") when just a week ago it looked about like this (this one isn't Joel's but looks like his DID):

So now it's gone Joel got to pick where he wanted to go for being a "big boy" and not crying when the doctor cut it out.  He barely beat out Phoebe who was a "big girl" and didn't cry when she had blood drawn today for an allergy check AND barely beat out Brenda who was a "big girl" and didn't cry as she watched Phoebe getting her blood being drawn by the allergist.

Tomorrow we hope to be out of here about noon or 1 in the afternoon.  We'll stop about halfway to Marshall for the night.