Finally Repaired
Franklin, KY - Events of Tuesday, October 18, 2016
The RV mechanic called on Monday to confirm the parts were on order and were scheduled to come in Tuesday morning. He had to drive to Nashville to pick them up, so we didn't hear from him until late Tuesday morning that he had the parts in hand and was on his way. He showed up in the afternoon. He had all the old parts with him, or at least what was left of them, so he had already checked to make sure the new parts were correct.
Installing the new bearings in the new hub was fairly easy because the new hub came with the races already pressed into place. Paul picked up some pointers on packing wheel bearings with grease by watching.
While the mechanic was there, Paul also asked him to pull the other three hubs and inspect the bearings. The others all looked fine, so our conclusion was that the bearing that failed was either bad right from the beginning or it got some contamination into it when the hub was assembled to the axle at the factory or the person who assembled it didn't tighten the castle nut properly. Having the nut too tight or too loose could lead to premature bearing failure. Paul also picked up some pointers on how to properly tighten the nut.
The mechanic ran into a little difficulty when he went to reinstall the brake caliper because when the bearing failed and the wheel was riding at an angle it bent the mounting flange for the caliper. After a couple of smacks with a big hammer and we were good to go. The spindle and wheel are properly aligned, and it's only the caliper that was slightly off kilter. That may result in uneven brake wear, but that's no big deal.
The mechanic left the hubcap off because he recommended pulling off at a couple of rest stops during our next several travel days to check the temperature of the hub to make sure it was okay and wasn't running hot. He also recommended checking the temperature of the brake rotor to make sure the brake wasn't dragging.
The repair bill was just under $1500, which was a little higher than we had hoped, but it wasn't unreasonable considering the cost of the parts, all the time the mechanic spent tracking down parts and running to pick them up, and that he came to where we were staying to make the repair. Not only did we agree to pay for overnight shipment, but we also agreed to pay for next-morning delivery rather than the normal afternoon delivery. The shipping cost alone was $184 because of the heavy weight of our parts. It was expensive, but we wanted to make sure there was time to complete the repair on Tuesday and not to have to stay over another night. The mechanic also did extra work inspecting the bearings on the other three wheels. He was very good at keeping us informed of his progress, and he addressed all our concerns along the way. If you are ever along I-65 between Bowling Green, Kentucky and Nashville, Tennessee, and need RV service, we recommend calling Mobile Diagnostics and Repair at 615-654-4557.
After the mechanic left, we decided to head out to Wildfire BBQ located a little south of town for lupper. We tried to go there after we got back from Bowling Green on Monday, but we arrived about 2:15 only to find out they closed at 2:00 on Mondays.
Boy, are we glad we went back because everything was delicious. Margery had a pulled pork plate with two sides for $8, and Paul had a Pit Combo that included pulled pork, brisket, sliced pork shoulder and two sides for $11. Margery had cole slaw and onion rings for her sides, and Paul had cole slaw and potato salad.
Margery with her pulled pork plate
The homemade sides, the brisket and the sliced shoulder were all excellent, as was the johnny-cake cornbread (flat cornbread fried pancake style), but the star in our opinion was the pulled pork. It was smokey, tender and moist. Wildfire has several types of barbecue sauce - house mild, house medium, house hot (they keep it in the back so nobody uses it by mistake), sweet and smokey, and Carolina (vinegar based). We liked the sweet and smokey with a splash of Carolina.
After lupper, we went back to the rig for an evening of TV. The next morning, we headed out to complete our journey to Lower Alabama. We originally planned to make the trek from Ohio to Lower Alabama in 5 travel days with a layover for the weekend, but since we had to stop short of our intended destination on day 3 because of the bearing failure, we had a longer distance to go for the remainder of the trip after the weekend. Therefore, we split the remaining distance into three shorter drives. The shorter drives would give us extra time to pull off more often than usual to monitor the hub temperature. We'll tell you about the rest of out trip in our next post.