We left Great Dale with an RV place to check out the frame and make sure she was structurally safe. We couldn’t find any structural issues but the gas tank was pretty scary and might be the first project after a tune-up. Nothing like a ratchet strap to make you feel safe and give you that Ford Pinto vibe.
Otherwise it seems that if there is a place to leak, she’s leaking, but no real surprising issues.
The tire guy was shocked how old the tires were and they had some fun with the rusted/stripped lug nuts. It turns out that the front driver’s side tires are reverse thread which threw them for a loop and we spent an extra couple of hours waiting for it all to be sorted out.
As we were driving back to the RV mechanic, something happened to the passenger-side front tire. I heard some clunking and completely lost the brakes. When I walked around the hood to see what the problem was, I was stunned to see that the wheel seemed to have fallen off the drum but the lugs looked tight.
We got the tire guys over and it turned out the stud fell into the drum and knocked the brake seals off. Luckily there was a mechanic half a block away and they helped us take the drum off and review the damage. We put her back together and limped over to the mechanic’s bay where she’ll get a complete flush of all fluids.
Turns out that reading that older car brakes are dangerous because you lose ALL of the brakes if the fluid leaks out of one brake is completely different than experiencing it. The brakes were already scheduled for an upgrade but I may go Discs all the way around instead of just the front.
Good times!