Real-time update! How are our axles holding up?
If you haven't read our last post documenting what happened, read that first.
Anthony C Vicari
We spent 3 days out of our RV so that our axle manufacturer in Utah could take a look at what was possibly causing us problems over the past 14 months of travel. They implemented a lot of fixes, except for the one we thought would be necessary: A full replacement of our axles. The outcome left us with more questions than answers, and we weren't exactly given the "good to go." We were more given the, "If anything else happens, bring it back again." Still, we hoped for the best.
Our first trips after the appointment showed a lot of differences. Some were improvements and one was not. In the last post, we talked about needing to readjust our electric trailer brakes. The guys at Trailer Parts Wholesale said we'd need to pump the handbrake several times in order to get them back in full working order. More on that in a bit. The improvements, however, were noticeable, but not quite believable. We think we noticed less creaking. This was a tough call, because we hadn't been noticing as much creaking this year prior to the axle appointment either. Last year, we spent a lot of time in more humid and moist environments, which seemed to exacerbate the issue. This year, the dry air seemed to work in our favor. We did, however, also notice less bounce when we walked around in the RV. We were skeptical about this, too, but we knew that they tightened some components that could theoretically make our rig more stable. We wanted to trade our skepticism for hope, but after so many months of problems and so much confusion surrounding our appointment, it was a difficult mindset shift.
As we continued traveling, we thought we might hear or see something definitive. We wanted answers, but something definitive would likely mean our issues were persisting. But was knowing one way or another better than constant questioning?
Something we continued to monitor, which has always been a good indicator of problems, is uneven wear on our tires. We've only put around 700 miles on the tires since leaving Santaquin, so we didn't expect anything too noticeable. Most of our focus was on the inside of the tires, where we had always previously seen the wear. Then on April 15, we were packing up for a travel day and noticed very slight unevenness occurring on the outside of both of the front tires. It wasn't entirely visible yet, but running our hands over the tires, we could feel the difference. This raised many eyebrows. Had one of the fixes caused the axle bend to shift, now resulting in outer wear instead of inner? And is this wear worse? Starting to notice it in less than 700 miles is concerning, considering our inner tire wear seemed much more gradual. We were going to need to keep a very close eye on this.
Back to the trailer brake situation. On March 30, RV Miles came out with a video all about burnishing your electric trailer brakes. Jason was breaking in his family's new fifth wheel and talked about the importance of burnishing new trailer brakes for optimal functioning. Most axle manuals will tell consumers to do this but don't always readily explain how. Basically, it involves using the handbrake on its own several times in order to heat up the brakes. This will allow the shoe of the brake to fit better in its drum and make better contact with it. This will also help indicate whether or not all the brakes are properly wired. New owners of RVs should do this before setting the gain on their handbrake. After posting the video, Jason also learned how oddly controversial this process is, with many owners and professionals saying it's not necessary, and others thanking Jason for bringing up this important step in RV shakedowns.
Whether or not this is an essential process is not the point here. The point is that, watching this video, we had an epiphany. When the axle guys told us we'd need to use the handbrake several more times in order to fully readjust our trailer brakes, were they talking about burnishing our brakes? After all, they repaired and replaced a ton of parts, including brake backing plates, lining of the shoes, and controllers. But they never said straight out that we would need to burnish the brakes, nor would "pumping the handbrake several times" work. In order to heat the brakes up enough, the driver needs to speed up to 40mph, then press the handbrake without using the truck brakes, until the rig slows down to 20mph. You're then supposed to repeat this process every mile, at least 30 times. This is according to Jason's fifth wheel axle and brake manual. Ours might say something different...only, we wouldn't know. We didn't get a manual with these axles two years ago!
Up until this point, we haven't been able to lower our brake gain below 10. Prior to the appointment, it was set at 7. The brakes seemed to start working a little bit better after a couple of trips, but then they plateaued. We've talked about burnishing the brakes but haven't found a good road to do it. We'd need a road that has very few cars and a speed limit of 40mph or more.
Our wonderment about burnishing quickly took a backseat, when on April 3, we faced an incredible disappointment. The creaking returned.
We were in the middle of our Utah Redemption Tour and had a day with high moisture and humidity above 60%. We noticed the creaking when backing into a parking spot at a truck stop, and after that, it's been nonstop. It seems just as loud as it's always been, and it happens when driving forwards, backwards, and leveling the trailer front-to-back.
Something else that's returned is what we call "settling." When we first enter our trailer after driving it, we hear short creaking sounds under our feet as we walk along the floor. It almost sounds like the axles need to settle into place.
Lastly, the increased stability we thought we had seems to have disappeared. We're noticing bouncing more when walking around our rig.
We've now become hyperaware of our issues, wondering if things we thought were "normal" before are actually axle-related. For instance, sometimes when we're parked at a campsite, we'll hear subtle squeaking/rubbing/creaking sounds from underneath our rig when we walk around. A little bit of shimmying and bounce is bound to happen because our 4 stabilizer jacks can only do so much, but should we be hearing any noises? We've contemplated this on many an occasion and initially came to a different conclusion: Some noise is probably normal. We had our justifications:
- The noise seemed to happen more at less level sites or on softer terrain, like gravel or dirt
- The noise could be humidity or dirt-related
- Marc from Keep Your Daydream has talked about his Airstream making similar noises, but lucky him, he can just X-chock between his wheels for added stability - a luxury we don't have because our wheels are spaced too far apart and our fender dips too low.
Not long after our in-motion creaking returned, so did this sound. We wondered if we had drawn the wrong conclusion. After all, do we notice any other rig ever making this noise when our neighbs are walking around inside their RV? No. No we don't. Anthony consulted his AI companion to see what it thought. AI has become a great tool for when you want to scour every article on the internet in ways a human never could. What did we learn?
With this information and complete regret that we ever said we wanted to "notice something definitive," we tried to narrow down whether or not the sound was coming from our wheels, axles, or somewhere else. It's very clear that our in-motion creaking is coming from the axles, but this one is harder to decipher. We took turns purposely shimmying the trailer while the other climbed underneath to get a better listen. In the past, it took a fair amount of movement to elicit a noise. This time, all it took was some in-chair dancing.
So what's a nomad to do? We're trying to get back to the enjoyable part of our travel life, but now these problems are weighing heavily on us. We are back in touch with Trailer Parts Wholesale and have let them know what's going on. If we need to go back to Santaquin again, we will feel like the first appointment was a total waste. We'll need to spend more time out of our rig, more money for displacement accommodations, and we'll need to change our travel plans to head back north in Utah.
The worst part of all of this is, we've concluded absolutely nothing in all of these months. So much creaking, so much instability, and so much tire damage. We guess there was a reason we didn't fully trust the outcome of our axle appointment, and why we purposely left a free spot in our blog to write this very update. We didn't want to be pessimistic, but we took a hard, realistic look at everything that was going on. We had a feeling the saga would continue, and unfortunately, it looks like it will.
But if Nicole ever feels like in-chair dancing again, we have the perfect song: