Inspecting older TM - Page 4

**ShrimpBurrito** · 02-18-2009, 11:52 AM

You guys will have a blast. Every time we go out in the TM, we both always say how much we love it and how happy we are that we pulled the trigger. Every time, and usually more than once per trip. What makes it especially nice is it enables you to camp comfortably during the winter, which is when most other folks stay at home. While staying at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon this winter, we had virtually the entire 90-some site place to ourselves. THE GRAND CANYON!

Dave

02-18-2009, 05:11 PM

Congrats! If the tanks need inspection, just take them to the local drugstore or Home Depot that has a Blue Rhino Propane cage and swap them for full ones. They take care of all that.

This assuming you don't have an SL model TM that has horizontal tanks.

**B_and_D** · 02-18-2009, 08:03 PM

You and your family will have so much fun with your TM. I wish that we'd had ours when the kids were smaller, but we had other rigs that were cool too (but definitely not as cool as the TM

).

To me the most fun was when we first brought it home and we got to "make it ours". All the pots and pans, the bins, figuring where you can store stuff, what you need to camp with; and it changes constantly as the kids get older. I look back at our first TM pictures when my son was 12, he was so much smaller, and now he's this big 17 (soon to be 18) year old. They grow up so fast.

I hope you have lots of wonderful family camping trips in your TM and that it serves you well.

If your tires are old, get new ones. This has been our biggest problem so far. And do the wheelwell retrofit. My DH thought I was being a pain in the kazoo when I asked him to help me do ours, but after our first blowout, he was thankful that we did it.

Happy TM trails to you!

**ShrimpBurrito** · 02-18-2009, 09:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by B_and_D

And do the wheelwell retrofit. My DH thought I was being a pain in the kazoo when I asked him to help me do ours, but after our first blowout, he was thankful that we did it.

Just to sidetrack a moment, did you have a blow-out on a retro-fitted wheel? I'm not aware of this happening to anyone here yet, so if so, how did the retrofit do?

Dave

**B_and_D** · 02-18-2009, 11:33 PM

We've had two on that retrofitted wheelwell, and it helped a lot. On the first blowout, the inside of the sheetmetal on the new rounded wheelwell got banged up quite a bit, but there was so much foam and sheetmetal around the wheelwell that there was no damage at all to the interior. There was a bit of damage to the immediate area behind the wheelwell, underneath the trailer. To imagine what I'm talking about, think about your square wheelwell, with no protection around, and then having them banged up by a tire losing it's tread, constantly banging up against the wheelwell. There is virtually nothing between the wheelwells and the cabinetry on either side or on top (on the passenger side). When you do the retrofit, you add another layer of sheetmetal and a lot of foam. It takes the "hit" when you have a blowout. If it happens on the driver's side, damage to the plumbing is another possibility that we, luckily, haven't had to deal with. I've added a sheetmetal cage around the plumbing, in the hope that it would deflect the shredding tire from hitting the pipes and outlet. I've posted pictures in my photo album: http://trailmanorowners.com/forum/album.php?albumid=42

I sincerely hope that we never have to test this, but it would be interesting.

Life is an adventure. Towing the TM is always an adventure.

**ShrimpBurrito** · 02-19-2009, 12:10 AM

Glad to hear the retrofit appeared to have helped. That is very encouraging!

I have been meaning to add some sort of shield around that plumbing also.....

Dave

4Kids2Dogs · 02-19-2009, 12:04 PM

Thanks to all of you well wishers! We are so excited to start taking our first trips. I have mentioned the wheel well modifications to the DH and he also thinks I am being a pain and a bit of a worry-wart. How much time and work are involved in the retrofit? I will have to talk him into it!

He is replacing the tires right away, as he does with any used vehicle we have purchased. I have researched the tire section of this forum, and it gets a little murky, doesn't it?
When the sellers had their blowout (not a violent one - caused no damage) when they towed it down to meet us, they got a Marathon B tire, which right now is on the spare rack. We want to replace both tires on the ground now, but what I understand from reading the forum is that the Marathon B is not that great. Hmm. How to get decent tires without mortgaging the house...Any further thoughts about best basic tires?

**ShrimpBurrito** · 02-19-2009, 12:31 PM

There is a plethora of tire info elsewhere on the forum....check those out...but I have had great luck with the Kumhos. They can be a bit hard to find, but you can order them online and have them shipped to a garage of your choosing to install them. I think I paid $350 for tires, balancing, and metal stems on three 205/R14 tires.

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/Sizes....del=Radial+857

Dave

**Bill** · 02-19-2009, 05:28 PM

When you say "Marathon B", I'm thinking you mean a Marathon tire in Load Range B. Not a good choice - they will be overloaded. You should get a Load Range C tire at a minimum - that is what TM ships on their trailers these day. As you saw in the Tire forum, some of our members have moved to a Load Range D, just to get some extra capacity.

Check out the Goodyear web site for some detailed info.

Bill