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Forum
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RE: Brake system for 2021 Jeep Grand Cherokee
What kind of tow bars do you have? We have the ready elite tow bars with integrated mechanical brake. Nothing to install in the car and not invasive to electronics.
The Ready Brute Elite does require the installation of a cable from the brake lever on the tow bar to the brake pedal on the vehicle, but other than that it's a great system: we use it on our 2020 Jeep Gladiator and our 2022 Jeep Wrangler.
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Alan_Hepburn
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05/27/23 11:20am |
Dinghy Towing
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RE: RV Armor Roof Experiences
We had ours done about 2 years ago - the guy came out to the campground we were staying in, and took 3 days to do the job. So far it looks great, and we have not experienced any leaks during this year's record rainfall.
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Alan_Hepburn
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05/03/23 03:39pm |
General RVing Issues
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RE: Underground 250ft run
I remember, back in the late '60s I was working as part of a cable TV construction crew in Foster City, California. That was when Foster City was just being built. All utilities were underground and our cable lines were required to be between 12" and 18" down, while gas lines were required to be between 24" and 30" deep. We set our trencher for a depth of 15" to be pretty much within our depth requirements and I lost count of how many times we had to halt our trenching because we hit a gas line! It always meant we got an hour or more break waiting for the gas guys to come out and fix the break, and then rebury their line at the correct depth!
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Alan_Hepburn
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04/06/23 12:47pm |
Tech Issues
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RE: Base Plate question on Jeep Wrangler
The answer will depend on the make and model of the bumper, and possibly the mounting of the winch. In our case, I have a Rugged Ridge Spartan bumper on my 2020 Gladiator, with no winch (yet). I bought Blue Ox adapters that replaced the D-ring mounts on the bumper, and I'm using an NSA Ready Brute Elite tow bar that connects to those adapters. It works quite well. On my wife's 2022 JLU we are using aBlue Ox baseplate with the OEM bumper - all I had to do was remove the plastic panel under the front end.
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Alan_Hepburn
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02/08/23 10:49am |
Dinghy Towing
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RE: breaker 15 / 20
My memory thinks that Bulldog was picked up by Siemens.
You might be right - when I had to replace a breaker a few years ago I found refurbished Pushmatics for anywhere from $20 to $100! Finally found some at Connecticut Electric for a reasonable price so I went ahead and replaced ALL the breakers in the box.
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Alan_Hepburn
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01/08/23 10:38am |
Tech Issues
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RE: breaker 15 / 20
We are very fortunate that NEMA came up with the standard 1" breaker in the early 70's. Prior to that time panel makers had type exclusive breakers so that was what you were stuck with forever. That is, unless you replaced that panel with one that can accept the NEMA 1". I have done this in several places one was my barn that had a WhoKnows panel and no spare breakers were available.
Matt
I agree - our house was built in 1961 and the breaker panel is made for Bulldog Pushmatic breakers - try finding those at Home Depot/Lowes! Even online they're hard to find for a reasonable price.
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Alan_Hepburn
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01/07/23 12:23pm |
Tech Issues
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RE: New Jeep Gladiator TOAD
Honest question, what's the attraction to tying into the vehicle's lighting system, especially on anything that is CanBus or even later greater technology?
I can think of a couple different methods that are most likely cheaper, very simple and present no issues or considerations with messing with the OE electrical system.
Brakes, different story. I'd have those if really needed, but would doo what I could to not have to worry aboot that either.
Well, you need lights out back and there's only a few ways to get them:
* Add new bulbs into the tail light housings - requires new wires, bulb sockets, and drilling holes in the housing.
* Add external lighting - magnetic mount units. This doesn't work too well when the vehicle body is mostly aluminum. Then you've got to store them when not using them, and ensure that the wiring doesn't abrade the paint job when using them.
* Build a light bar that you somehow attach to the rear of the toad when needed - again you need to store it when not in use, and you still have to deal with the wire abrading the paint job.
* Use one of several "plug and play" wiring systems that use the existing wiring and lights - these work well, but as this topic shows, there are instances where specific vehicle issues pop up.
I looked at the CoolTech solution, which adds a switch to the existing wiring going to the rear of the vehicle - the lights are either powered from the toad, or from the RV, but impossible to power from both simultaneously because of the switch. I thought their kit was above my budget so I built my own: about $30 worth of parts and it's working well. I have a switch on my dash and put it in one position to tow and the other position to drive.
As for brakes - again I went with the simplest solution. NSA Ready Brute Elite tow bars have a surge brake built in to the tow bar so there is no need to add a portable box connected to the brake pedal, with a 12V line to keep the unit powered, or tie into the toad's hydraulic system. A simple cable from the brake pedal to the front of the toad is all that's required.
Other people prefer other solutions - that's the nice thing about this country: we have choices and aren't tied to a single solution!
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Alan_Hepburn
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01/06/23 10:36am |
Dinghy Towing
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RE: Park pet peeves, Park owner’s turn
Here's one for the park owners. Not controlling who occupies any particular site has been problematic a few times for me. Someone with a pop-up camper takes a site that can fit a big rig when there are other sites that will accommodate the pop-up. Yep, they pay the same price for the site as a big rig does, but if it's the only site that big rig can fit in and they can't then they go down the road and you lose revenue. I've noticed more parks are controlling sites by size of rig and that to me is a good thing.
We once had a situation where this was done by the campground. Our RV club had an outing at an upscale park, and we were the wagonmaster. THe park requested, and we provided, a list of attendees, with the size of each rig. We arrived and as the rest of the group arrived we found that the park had assigned one menber, with a 24 foot Class B, a 70 foot pull-through spot, and another member, with a 32 foot travel trailer, pulled by a Chevy Suburban, a 28 foot back-in spot! We went to the office to have these 2 members swap spots and were told "Not possible; they are already in the computer and we can't change the assignments."
We swapped them anyway. This park also insisted on inspecting the club house at the end of the outing, which is normal and expected, but they also had to count the chairs in the clubhouse "to make sure we didn't take any of them with us"...we haven't been back to that park since!
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Alan_Hepburn
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01/06/23 10:17am |
General RVing Issues
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RE: New Jeep Gladiator TOAD
This vehicle has a push button start. The first step to waking up the computer, is to step on the brake. My theory is each time the pedal is pressed by the aux braking system, part of the Jeep's computer system is activated, but not all of it, causing a fault.
You're on the right track: your Jeep, with the OEM LED tail lights, has an extra "sense" line that detects when the brake light is activated, and it causes one of the computers (I think it's the BCM, but I'm not sure) to wake up. CoolTech has designed a kit that deals with this issue - I don't know if anyone else has one to offer.
It's only an issue with the LED lighting - if you have the non-LED lights there's no problem.
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Alan_Hepburn
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01/05/23 11:44am |
Dinghy Towing
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RE: Park pet peeves, Park owner’s turn
The older I get, the more I realize it seems the avg IQ is somewhere around a cool room temperature!
I think it was George Carlin who noted "Think about how stupid the average person is, and then imagine that 1/2 the population is even more stupid"...
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Alan_Hepburn
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01/05/23 11:22am |
General RVing Issues
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RE: Directv ??? what are they doing???
Don’t hold your breath that 5G is a solution… it needs an antenna every mile for coverage which is possible in a large city but you can forget it in rural areas.
Even in cities it can be problematic - we have a cell tower about a mile from our house. We are on Verizon and I get 4 bars of 5G signal in our living room, and it drops to 3 bars of 4G when I walk about 10 feet down our hallway.
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Alan_Hepburn
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12/10/22 10:33am |
Technology Corner
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RE: RV Life Trip Wizard vs. Roadpass Pro
I've been using RVLIFE Trip Wizard for over 5 years now. At first I was hesitant to try it because I was coming from MS Streets & Trips, which was an offline solution and was hesitant to switch over to an online solution. But, once I gave it a try and got somewhat familiar with its capabilities I has hooked. Having everything available in a single package is nice. I can find campgrounds, various stores, gas stations, points of interest, etc. without have to have multiple browser tabs open which is really convenient. If you get stuck trying to figure out how to do a certain action their help desk staff will help you quickly and efficiently - they have a youtube channel with several good videos showing how to do things as well.
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Alan_Hepburn
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12/04/22 10:37am |
Roads and Routes
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RE: New Jeep Gladiator TOAD
We tow either my 2020 Gladiator or my wife's 2022 Wrangler, using the Ready Brute Elite tow bar system, and a home-made version of CoolTech's wiring harness - no messing with the vehicles' CANbus system at all!
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Alan_Hepburn
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12/02/22 11:08am |
Dinghy Towing
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RE: Tire chains in Califdrnia
In my experience, the major roads in Ca go from R2 (2wd with chains, or 4WD with snow tires) direct to closed. I don't think I've ever seen an R3 (everything needs chains) situation.
Had a CHP officer explain it as: if the weather is bad enough that you need to put chains on a 4WD with good snow tires then you need to stay home.
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Alan_Hepburn
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11/16/22 09:48am |
Roads and Routes
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RE: dingy induced sway
Have you tried adding a "de-rattler" at each of the interfaces between hitch and receiver? There is some play at those joints and that can cause stability issues. The de-rattler will eliminate that play.
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Alan_Hepburn
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11/08/22 10:35am |
Dinghy Towing
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RE: Propane Tank Issues
But realistically you should be able to fill the tank, turn it on it's side, lean over and put your nose against the hole and take a sniff. If it's leaking you will know.
Realistically, it's a bit of a project to turn the tank on it's side - it's installed pretty sturdily under the Class A motorhome...
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Alan_Hepburn
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11/01/22 09:54am |
Class A Motorhomes
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RE: This net is dying!
Can you actually say "crabby snotty people" without getting a suspension or a total ban now a days? :h
The way people are getting lately just about every thing offends someone. I agree we used to be able to get some good info,but I've noticed fewer new people on her and less older one posting like they used to.
We were in Oregon last year, and stopped at a second-hand store. They had hoodies for sale: the men's hoodie says "Crabby Bastard" on the back and the women's hoodie says "Crabby witch (with a B)" on the back. The wife and I each bought one and we enjoy wearing them - especially around people who might get offended by them!
(Interestingly - the forum software is fine with the men's one, but censored the women's one!)
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Alan_Hepburn
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10/30/22 09:57am |
Around the Campfire
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RE: Why not jack trailer under the spring plates?
Dexter recommends trailers not be jacked up by the axle.
I have done it many times and will continue.
Have any of you looked at the jacking instructions for your truck. GM and Ford owner's manuals show placing the provided jack under the axle tube. I didn't check Ram's instructions.
There is a world of difference between the axle tubes on a truck and the axle tube on a trailer...
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Alan_Hepburn
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10/07/22 06:01pm |
Tech Issues
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RE: Winegard satellite antenna help
You can replace your old crank-up with a new automatic dish and get DirecTV HD - Winegard offers the Trav'ler dish, and RF Mogul offers a dish as well. RF Mogul seems to be the better option, but they are a bit more expensive than Winegard.
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Alan_Hepburn
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10/04/22 11:00am |
Technology Corner
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RE: RV Cell booster
When I was researching them last year it seemed like SureCall was rated slightly higher than WeBoost...
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Alan_Hepburn
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10/04/22 10:57am |
Technology Corner
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