The Castle Hospital Adventure

Adventure Location:  Del Rio, Texas

Rolling Date: After 2-11-2013

The dad gum alarm clock got the OFM going in time to get the Castle to the trailer hospital on time. The Teams rolled into the parking lot about ten minutes early. The name of this place is Arc Rite on hwy 90 north of Del Rio, TX. It is highly recommended by the OFM Teams.

The entry is into the accessories store and it is quite a toy store for truck folks.

Attached to the store is the small shop area. They are in process of expanding into three huge shop buildings in behind the current building. Here is the current small shop.

Right at 0830 the Teams were rolling the Castle into the diagnostics bay for evaluation. Of course it was drizzling rain messing up the mirrors on the Truck. We made it into the bay with no trouble because the OFM is such a great backer of trailers.

Within a few minutes the Castle was in the air spinning its wheels. The doctor, Cory, and his helper went to work checking everything. They measured this and that, then some more here and there. After about fifteen minutes Cory came up for air and announced “all the axles and suspension is well within specs”. That was sort of a relief, but what was the real trouble?

Cory stood there a minute then went to spinning the wheels individually and checking something. The first two wheels passed apparently. Then he went to the curb side of the Castle and started spinning wheels again. Within a few seconds we heard a big “A HA” and around the Castle we hurried. By then Cory was spinning the front curbside wheel. When he was satisfied, he showed me the rear curbside tire had a separating tread. It was a bubble in the tread about a half inch wide and six inches long. The Teams are glad Cory has good eyesight. It took the OFM a good long stare to see the trouble. Man o man his eyes are getting bad up close.

As it turns out the bent holding tank support was all the visible damage anywhere under the Castle.  It is not important and will be left as is for now.

The OFM made the command decision of what to do next.  The spare tire has been sitting in the sun for eight plus years now. The street side tire with some uneven wear is only two years old. So we swapped the street side tire to the spare location. The old spare tire was chunked into the junk pile. Two new tires were put on the rear axle.

From the difference in tread between the two year old tires on the front axle and the new tires on the rear axle is very noticeable. The OFM expects that the front axle tires will need replacement within a year. At least we will have a few SSA payments to get ready for that event. This event cost us $300.

Now we know we have first class shoes on the Castle so we can roam without worry as we get out trying to have tooooo much fun. TheOFM.