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Arriving at: First Landing State Park Virginia Beach, VA |
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"The Old Dominion State"
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TRAVEL DAY - 109 miles
OREGON INLET CAMPGROUNDto
FIRST LANDING STATE PARK
Today we drove off of the North Carolina Outer Banks (OBX) and crossed into a new to us state, Virginia. While we are only going to be here for 4 nights we have a lot to do. Arriving on Thursday afternoon we took care of a few important things, a nice meal (after driving for several hours), setting up the trailer in it's new home and laundry. That's right, after two weeks of not doing it we were running out of clean clothes. I was down to a couple long sleeve shirts and some long pants, not your average summertime attire of choice. For those of you who know me, I'll bet you didn't even know I owned that sort of thing.
Once all that was done there was one more thing to take care of, locate and drive past the repair shop I had an appointment with the next morning. I haven't mentioned this before but back in early June I was feeling the truck just was towing THE POD properly. With the 700 pounds of tongue weight the trailer has added to the load of stuff I'm already carrying in the bed it was just too much for the rear suspension to handle. In other words, I was dangerously overloaded in the rear and could lose control steering if I didn't correct it. The solution I decided to go with was to install Airlift brand air bags on the rear suspension of the truck. They are basically air bags that you install and inflate to raise the back of the truck to make it ride level when all loaded up, then deflate when the trailer is not attached. It was the least expensive and simplest way to correct the problem I was having. It all worked well for about a month and then the air compressor manifold started leaking. So while underway the truck would almost constantly lose air and then pump itself back, up changing the way the truck would handle going down the road. Not a good situation!
I called the manufacturer and they were quick to point out that the system the company back in Miami installed was a Generation 1 system which had been on the market (relatively unchanged) for nearly a decade. The new Generation 2 system was totally redesigned with a more heavy duty compressor and manifold, but it cost a $150 more. I would like to think the guy back in Miami was trying to save me some money but I think it's more the case he was trying to get some old merchandise off the shelf. But in the end the Airlift Company came through and said they would give me a full refund if I returned the parts and they would sell me a new system at cost, only I would have to pay the $250 to get it installed. So the old system from Miami was removed and the new system in Virginia was installed and finally all is right (and safe) with the truck's handling.
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