Taking Care of Maintenance and Addressing Issues

As with a sticks-and-bricks home, our fifth wheel requires annual maintenance. Since I had a day off work, we decided to address some items. 

Seeing Is Believing

Midway through our travels in 2021, Tagalong’s backup camera stopped working. It comes in handy not only for backing into camping spots, but also for changing lanes on the freeway, letting us know if we have enough clearance from another vehicle given our length. 

Our RV driving school instructor would be proud we learned how to change lanes successfully without relying on the camera, instead using our rearview mirrors and shadows. We learned how to park the rig without the camera too. But we thought it would be nice to have that extra visibility back. 

We tried a new cord, but that didn’t solve the missing picture issue. So, we ordered a new camera monitor. We had to pair the new monitor with Tagalong’s side cameras first. After a few tries, the monitor recognized those cameras, so we moved on to the rear camera. But it wouldn’t connect no matter what we did. 

RV forums informed us we needed to check the wiring behind the camera — no easy task considering the camera is 13 feet off the ground and our onboard RV ladder is a couple of feet to the left of the camera. Fortunately, we travel with a 16.5-foot telescoping ladder.* Bob climbed that, and I hung off the onboard ladder. He removed four small screws, and the camera came right out. 

Only then did we see that the wire connection for the rear camera had jimmied loose during travel. Bob pushed the connection back together and replaced the screws to hold the camera in place. The monitor recognized it, and the camera appears to be back in working condition. 

Pump It Up

We hit the one-year mark for greasing Tagalong’s wheel bearings So, we closed our slideouts and connected the trailer to Gulliver, believing that to be the safest approach.

I crawled under the trailer to put our new 6-ton bottle jack* to use (after our failed jacking experience in Michigan). Recovering from cataract eye surgery, Bob had doctor's orders to avoid heavy lifting. I got Tagalong’s starboard side rear axle high enough for the rearmost tire to spin, a necessity for a grease job. Bob connected his grease gun to the wheel, and we tag-teamed rotating the tire and squeezing in grease. 

With that tire done, we lowered the trailer and repeated the process three more times for the other wheels. 

Pleased and exhausted after a job well done, we disconnected Gulliver from Tagalong to put our house back together. Remembering our leveling troubles from October, we made sure to raise Tagalong’s nose higher than level before pressing our Lippert Leveling System’s auto-level button. And, to our relief, the rear jacks descended and leveled the trailer front to back like normal. Even better, the middle stabilizing jacks came down to add stability. 

Getting Level-Headed

Our campsite slopes down on the trailer’s port side. The middle stabilizing jack there reached its maximum height before the trailer considered itself completely level. It looked level enough, so we deemed the job done and moved inside the trailer. 

As we walked around in the coach, however, it became increasingly clear the auto-leveling system had a better grasp on true level than our eyes did. Water in our sink pooled port-side. My office chair, on coasters, drifted downhill. 

Morning came, and we attempted to fix our unevenness — with all four slideouts open, something we’d never tried before. With three slides on the low slide, our efforts failed, only making the situation worse. It was a Groundhog Day deja vu.

Bob had to leave for an appointment, so I got a leg workout keeping my chair at my desk. After Bob’s return, we again attempted a fix, but this time with the slides closed. Still no luck — although we did succeed at getting more level than we had in the morning. Bob left to work at the B-25 maintenance hangar, and I got back to work. 

At the end of my workday, we attacked the problem in earnest. Bob researched a solution and learned how to reset our auto-leveling system. We tried that. It didn’t seem to work right away, but we kept at it. After an hour, we completed our project, confident we had finally reached true level and our leveling challenges were behind us. 

In the process, we learned our jack motors are just fine and formed a new plan of attack for getting level when we relocate to future sites. 

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