Monday, October 27, 2014

All set to go...

Never got around to putting up a Blog last night, but it would have just told you that I spent yesterday afternoon finishing off the wiring job I was working on, to enable the brakes on our new tow dolly. I worked a couple hours, and got it all finished up and working.

Today, my plan was to actually test out the new brakes, by hooking the dolly on behind the motorhome, and doing a test drive. I started just after lunch and took my time. First I had to get the motorhome ready for travel. This takes about 45 minutes making sure everything is put away, and all slides are in, etc . Next, I made sure the dolly was all hooked up to the motorhome properly. Best take you time and do this one right!

Here you can see the Cruze sitting up all pretty and tied down. The yellow straps on the front wheels are a safety feature to help keep you car glued to the dolly. The car is easy to put up on the dolly, and is easy to tie down. Only the back wheels turn on the car, and as it is a front wheel drive car, no mileage accumulates on the odometer while you pull this way.

The Brake setup on the dolly was a little tricky. The Brake Controller is very, very sensitive and you have to make sure you adjust it as per the manual, which I was able to obtain on line. I had the power set too high for the electric brakes at first, and you can very easily lock up the dolly wheels upon stiff braking. (aughhh... which I did a couple of times with no problem...) I quickly made the necessary adjustments, and now all is good. We took about a 50 klm. ride up north on highway 59 to ensure all is good with the new tow dolly, which it was! Bring on Florida!

Our Gulf Stream Endura, with a good ole Duramax Diesel Engine, had absolutely no problems pulling the car behind. Overall the car and dolly are lighter than the Jeep we used to tow, so all is good that way. You can keep your eye on the towed vehicle with the back up camera on the motorhome if you want.

This morning we were in Town for a few minutes after our daily walking, and drove by a local park and spotted Kristina and the kids out playing in the early morning sunlight...

Funny how kids do not get overly concerned about the weather being a bit cool. It never slowed them down one minute in the park. They were playing on this climber, making a "nest" out of leaves at the bottom for Charlie to sit in...he did! Chris' Mom drove by and stopped as well! Popular place this park. Best part was Kristina invited us all back to her place where she served us all up a big ole bowl of Chili for lunch! Thanks Kristina, we enjoyed!

Till tomorrow...

3 comments:

  1. Good deal with the tow dolly, sounds like you are soon ready to hit the road.
    We flat tow our saturn and it does not put any miles on the odometer, so that works for us. 180 K on the odometer over 300K on the rest of the car, no problems towing it with our V-10 gas either.
    Travel safe, soon.

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  2. Great story about the grands driving by the local playground and seeing the grandchildren there playing - don't see that in a big city!

    Nice job on the tow-dolly. Looks like a very nice setup.

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  3. All set to go - those are the words every RVer wants to hear. Great job on the brake set up. Safe travels.

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