Mods, repairs and prep for more camping

Some work done on the URRV, Uma, to prep for next camping trip....probably in the Penrose, CO area.

Finally got around to examining what had broken on the URRV's TV antenna mount system after I had stupidly driven off with the mast in the up position.  Yep, part of the checklist, which apparently I didn't follow before driving off.

In the intervening weeks after the incident, since I had to climb on top of the RV to mount the weBoost antenna on occasion; I was propping the mast up manually and holding it in place with a block of wood.

Turns out, Winegard had apparently anticipated RV Owner stupidity and the part that broke was designed to break easily instead of really damaging the thin metal components of the mast!

The above part (RP-3000 Elevation Gear) engages the "worm drive" inside the housing, and it then raises/lowers the mast accordingly as one turns the lever inside the RV.  Easy replacement, and less than $7!

While on the roof, I decided to remove the unused Winegard TV Antenna:

In its place, I mounted the Yagi Antenna I use with the weBoost cellular booster.  Theoretically, I won't have to get on the roof to use the antenna.  We'll see how it all works out in the long run.

Let's see, oh I also swapped out the shock absorbers on Scarlett's pusher wheel position as the original ones had all but collapsed when the seals involved had failed.  The "new" shock absorbers I bought from someone who was parting out a wrecked rig (I think, it's been a while).

Can you tell which is which?  :)

Something I noted after doing the shock absorber swap, the left side of the sidecar seemed higher than the right side.  Hmmmm.

I loosened up all the applicable nuts and bolts and using a floor jack and the subtle tool pictured below, managed to rotate the rear "dog leg" assembly on the sidecar subframe down to make the sidecar even again:

Speaking still of shock absorbers, all five shocks on Fiona, my '99 Ural Patrol Rig have leaked it seems.  The associated springs aren't as "collapsed" as the Sachs Shock absorbers on Scarlett so I think she's still rideable.  

The ones on Fiona, unlike the Sachs Shocks on Scarlett, are theoretically rebuildable.  I continue to await replacement seals from a fellow in Russia (Covid-19 restrictions have caused lengthy shipping delays) but once I get them, I'll be hopefully refurbishing them.

To that end, I've made a shock compression tool as outlined on myural.com where the tutorial put together by Bill Glaser will be followed by me.   LINK

source: myural.com

So, am ready to do the work, just have to take receipt of the seals and associated rubber bits:

Lastly, I bypassed the wireless setup for the backup camera and used a hard wire connection instead.  Just too much interference and loss of picture when most needed.

Hard wiring the video signal pointed out a bad ground related to the turn signals.  RichardM pointed me at the solution and now there's a new grounding wire sticking out of the left rear turn signal assembly and onto the nearest grounding point.  It's ugly but does the job till I find a better way to introduce a good ground to that set of lights.