Fresh Upgrades and Additions

Happy Easter Everyone!

Now that your stomachs are full, perhaps a little reading to put you fast asleep. 😉

With the purchase of our new RV behind us, it is time for a few upgrades/additions.

Let’s start with one done prior to us actually signing on the dotted line…the Reese Goose Box.

With the decision made to upgrade our rig we mandated that the OEM prep package for fifth wheels and gooseneck trailers be present on the tow vehicle (TV hereafter).

Why? This would afford the most options for connecting the rig and provide a quicker turnaround time due to no modifications to the TV being needed.

As many know, one of the largest drawbacks of fifth wheels is that, by default, they utilize a large and heavy hitch in the bed of the TV rendering the bed somewhat useless when not towing; that being said, hitch systems exist that utilize the ‘OEM pucks’ (Image above) in the bed and allow for removal by one person.

After weighing the options, we elected to remove the pin box from Beau and install a Reese Goose Box which has several appealing features.

Pin Box

Reese Goose Box

While towing, the bed of the TV will only need a 2 5/16” ball and two safety chain attachment points – basically, a gooseneck trailer setup.

After towing, these are removed in seconds and the entire bed of the TV can be utilized. Major pluses in our opinion.

Other features that drew us to the Goose Box are the dampening capabilities – an airbag and dual shocks calm the ‘chucking’ and ‘bucking’ going down the road and the auto locking mechanism - as the Goose Box slides over the ball it actuates a lever that opens the 'jaws' and closes them as the hitch is fully seated on the ball.

With all the positives there are a couple of drawbacks in that it takes a bit longer to hookup (extra set of eyes is really useful), the airbag needs to be added to periodically and the need to grease a zerk fitting before each tow.

While we only have 500 miles or so with this setup and cannot speak to the long-term usage, thus far, it has worked well and believe we made the correct decision for us. Plus, the ride is quite smooth considering there is 14k lbs. of home behind us.

Now, about selling the pin box and and removing 150 lbs. from the TV; we already sold the hitch and sway control setup from Leigh so that removed 90 lbs. from the TV. It is that last 150 lbs. that is always the hardest to lose! Am I right?!? 😉

Garage Organization

During moving day, it was evident we needed to organize the pass-through storage (aka garage). With Leigh, the pass-through was basically as tall as our totes and one tote wide. This worked, but now the garage is about two totes high and two wide. Sounds easy right – plenty of room? Well, yes and no…you see, one thing we forgot about were the items stowed in the TV bed while towing Leigh (LARGE zero gravity chairs along with tools) and we’re unable to do so now to the same extent (remember, we have a huge pin box in the bed). So, now all these items that were in the TV bed are now needing to be stored in the garage for now.

We could buy more totes, organize items, and stack them in…right?? Well, the thought of having to remove several totes to access items in the middle of the garage was not appealing. So, what then Jason?? Dana said ‘what about installing shelves?!?’ and my initial thought was how the heck do you think we’re going to do that (I think I even did an eye roll – my apologies Dana)!! Turns out Dana was onto something and we, initially, purchased three sets of wire shelving units from Home Depot and zip tied them together; I added a fourth this morning to arrive at what you see below. These have been working fabulously and allow easy access without having to remove much.

I left enough room on the top shelf to slide our ladder in and enough room under the bottom shelf to slide the table in. The open space on the left is where our chairs slide in and prevent front/back movement of the shelves. While we did not anchor the shelves, we have seen minimal movement when shelves are loaded. A worthy addition in our opinion.

Jack Pads

You’ve heard the saying everything is bigger in Texas, right? Well, with Beau everything is bigger...including the jack pads which presented another problem. The yellow/orange/black blocks we were accustomed to using are too small to work with our jacks. They are 8.5” square and the stabilizer jack pads are 10” in diameter with the landing jack pads being 12”.

No big deal, right? Buy some bigger ones! Well, what we found were more expensive than we were willing to pay and didn’t provide the height I wanted so I decided to build some using pressure treated wood.

My first question is how large to build them and what I ultimately decided is they needed to be larger than the jack pads, conform to standard dimensional lumber sizes to minimize cutting, and oversized to a point where the entire jack would fit on the pad with room for error during placement.

This resulted in 11.25" square pads for the stabilizer jacks and 14.5" square pads for the landing jacks. Why the weird sizes? Well, a 2x12 is actually 11.25" wide and a 2x8 is 7.25" wide (two of these side by side are 14.5")

For the four Stabilizer Jacks (10” diameter) I would need qty. four 11.25” cuts from a 2x12 and qty. eight 11.25" square cuts of plywood.

As for the Landing Jacks (12” diameter) I would need qty. four 14.5” cuts from a 2x8 and qty. four 14.5” square cuts of plywood.

For assembly, I glued the plywood to the 2x lumber and then used nine 2” deck screws to attach. Flipped it over and glued a second piece of plywood to the 2x lumber and again, used nine 2” deck screws to attach. I also added a small handle to aid in handling.

The only difference on the landing jack pads is that I used twelve screws per side - qty. 2 2x8 side by side (6 screws per 2x8)

Initially, they will be heavy, but over time they will dry out and become lighter.

Dana was not fond of my choice in wood color, because there's so many, am I right?!? Anyway, she stained them and overall they look good, work well and I am pleased. We'll see how they hold up over time being in the sun, muck, rain, etc.

In my next post I'll be detailing a repair we had to make in the field...a side of hydraulic fluid anyone?!?