Safari 30 bunkhouse owners club!

[Minnie's Mate]

Originally Posted by SafariSS

Something you may want to look at is the inside portion of the latch arm. Just as 2airishuman has pointed out the metal is very malleable, or soft. I found when I had mine after a couple of "bends" it began to relax by itself and not stay tight. I think maybe a new little latch arm would fix the problem if it were made of better metal. All of the storage doors that I have seen that leak (three units including mine) protrude out on the curb side.

Leaking in the area of this door is something you definately want to take care of. The subfloor is not treated, the bed frame is a MDF material that will swell three times its size if it gets and stays wet. Not to mention the odor of "funk".

This is exactly the issue I had. I bent the latch arm back on both sides as you have described when I discovered the wet carpet inside the storage door. This is the first time I had discovered wet carpet. But it was not the first time I have towed in the rain. I can see where the will loose their memory after a while. Bending them back has definitely made the door fit tighter; it is now difficult to turn the thumb latch from the outside so I know it is snugger than before. Too bad the arms aren't made of a more rigid metal that will hold its shape better. I definitely don't want the funk or floor rot to start in there. If it becomes an issue, I may do as Rich and Brent have suggested and either tile the area under the bed or diamond plate it or some other more water resistant floor covering.

[Minnie's Mate]

Next topic. Has anyone removed the single light fixtures over the master bed (queen island bed) and replaced them with the directional halogen light fixtures that were installed over the salon window and bunk beds? If so, can it be done without there being a trace of the original light fixtures showing? I would like to replace them with exact duplicates of the fixtures used elsewhere in the trailer so I need a source, too.

The problem is if either my wife or I want to read in bed, the light form either of the existing fixtures floods the pillow area of the bed and keeps the other spouse awake. With the little spot lights one should be able to direct them to the page and not shed so much light on the other spouse trying to get to sleep.

[rluhr]

Yes, MM, we did the light swap you described in our Bunkhouse. See this post for details. Very easy to do and it will solve your problem with reading at night.

There will be a few small screw holes and pencil marks left over on the underside of the bedroom overhead cabinet. The pencil marks erase easily, and the screw holes are small enough that I didn't bother doing anything abouut them. They are only visible when you are lying in bed looking straight up.

By the way, on the sewage disaster ... it has either happened to all of us already, or it will happen. In my case, I had a much worse experience ... at least from my point of view!

[Rick Gillis]

I’ve got the crack….This last weekend I met up wit a friend who has a Safari Slide out and I was showing him the bunk house and sure enough, as we looked at the front trunk there it was – lower left hand side. My mileage estimate, including Jackson Center to the dealer, is about 465 miles. Oh well, I’ll put it on the winter dealer to do list.

[SafariSS]

Rick, make sure you document the repair with the dealer/factory now and schedule for later. Dont forget to put something over the crack so water does not get in there meanwile.

I bet that 8.1 suburban pulls the BH with no problems. I have the same rig w/6.0 and it even pulls it easy.

Have fun this summer..

[SafariSS]

I had earlier posted about my 30 BH rear bed (lower queen) not being wide enough for the beds opening. Well, upon my investigation I found that from the factory I got a 19' Bambi mattress, which was from a narrow body trailer. They are sending me a wide mattress which is almost 7" wider!

I wondered why there was a big gap around the bed. I probably would not have gotten this taken care of without input of other owners.

[SilverToy]

SSS -

Glad that your reading here in ASF got you to thinking on something that didn't 'feel' right on your AS... There are so many positives that make this forum the terrific entity that it is, your post is yet another. Glad that your dealer is making things right and getting to be another satisfied AS owner. Enjoy the heck out of that coach...!!!

Axel
SilverToy

[Rick Gillis]

Quick question for those who have the couch rather than the chairs: What is the distance between the couch and the kitchen counter/dinette? Also, did the factory install any special cabinetry behind the couch or near the door?

Now that we are getting some quality time in the BH, my wife is leaning towards the couch layout. We have not used the small pull up table too often, however I do like the small shelf along the wall for my morning coffee.

Thanks,

Rick

[Minnie's Mate]

Originally Posted by Rick Gillis

Quick question for those who have the couch rather than the chairs: What is the distance between the couch and the kitchen counter/dinette? Also, did the factory install any special cabinetry behind the couch or near the door?

Now that we are getting some quality time in the BH, my wife is leaning towards the couch layout. We have not used the small pull up table too often, however I do like the small shelf along the wall for my morning coffee.

Thanks,

Rick

Our sofa runs the length of the wall from the 'fridge to the door and extends from the wall the depth of the 'fridge cabinet. It is definately a little cramped when you get all four of us plus a hyper cocker spaniel in there on a rainy day.

There is a drop down panel on the front of the sofa that allows you to store items under the sofa. This is where we keep the broom, stick vac, 12 packs of soft drinks, and several sterilite bins of items. You can also access this area from above by lifting the sofa seat futon style. When opened to a bed, the sofa would extend pretty much to the dinette. We have never opened ours, though so I'm not too sure.

Speaking of beds, my wife has always thought the bed in the master cabin was too uncomfortable and over the Christmas holidays she pinched a nerve in her back. She has complained about the bed every time we have camped since then so before we went on our week long camping trip for the 4th, we had a new inner spring mattress made. It has a pillow top and was made to the dimensions listed in the specification of the Airstream web site. Unfortunately we couldn't get the corners rounded as much as the original mattress and the web site's dimensions were a little long (an approximation apparently) so we have a pretty tight walk way at the foot of the bed...every inch counts in such a small space. But my wife is happy with the new mattress and thinks it sleeps so much better than the factory original. I can't tell that much difference, but as long as she is happy, that is all that matters, right guys! Anyway, we had it made by Verlo. They have an RV division.

I think that is the only thing we have replaced. At least the only thing that hasn't been replaced due to damage.

[RossFam05BH]

Originally Posted by Rick Gillis

What is the distance between the couch and the kitchen counter/dinette? Rick

We have pulled the couch out into the bed configuration when we have an extra person camping with us. It leaves a corridor about, say, a foot and a half wide between the edge of the couch and the dinette/sink cabinet. I've trundled to the bathroom in the middle of the night many a time in this situation, and never tripped over the couch once. It's not at all problematic.

On a totally unrelated subject, we've started a thread detailing our problem with Goodyear Marathon tires separating (tread pulling away from belts) here: Goodyear Marathon tread separation ... and our solution

One of 2airishuman's comments got us to thinking. He mentioned the cracking at the corners of the front storage compartment (which is a problem we had, and had fixed at JC). Is it possible that there's some strange interaction between the dimensions of the trailer affecting flexion of the tongue, and loading of the rear axle? We don't think that this is going on... It was the rear tires that failed, but they had recently been rotated into that position, and the old rear tire that is now on the front curbside hasn't failed, and it was on the rear for a loooong time. But, this is an opportune moment to take a survey, because the age of the tires won't be a factor, since the trailers are only 3 years old at most. Have any of you other bunkhouse owners had a tire fail? If so, which tire position was it? If you had a tire fail, have you also had the front compartment cracking? We'd like this information because we've talked to the NHTSA about the Marathon tires, and any additional insight would be helpful for them to try to figure it out.

Thanks,
Paul and Miriam

[Minnie's Mate]

We haven't had a tire fail and, so far, after about 9,000 miles of towing at interstate speeds, we haven't had the cracks around the front storage compartment. However, I will mention this: I checked the tire pressure for the first time before our last trip and they were all in the 48-50 psi range and I increased the tire pressure in all of them to 65 psi so with the increased stiffness of the tire's side walls I may soon develop the cracks. The soft tire walls may have provided enough cushion to prevent the cracks from forming.

[Amsterdamer]

We got back from our trip to Yellowstone and South Dakota last weekend. We towed about 3500 miles in the two weeks. Fortunately, everything held together well. I made sure the tire pressure was at 65 psi before we left, to help keep the temperature down. I’ve heard that most trailer tires are either under inflated, have cracked sidewalls, or are bowing out at the face of the tread when they fail. I hadn’t heard of the tread bowing out until this trip, when saw it on someone else’s tires and they had had two failures and were on their way to replace the rest! Since the tires are rated for 65 psi, it shouldn’t hurt the side walls.

As for the couch, my son (15) sleeps on it with it folded out and we can get by easy enough to get to the bathroom at night. I keep a table, ladder and broom under there. We have armrests on ours, which I’m not sure is standard.

The Fishingbridge RV park in Yellowstone was functional, but tight. The sites are extremely close to each other. Since we were there for five nights, it was nice to have the full hookups, though.

[Minnie's Mate]

Originally Posted by Minnie's Mate

...we had a new inner spring mattress made. It has a pillow top and was made to the dimensions listed in the specification of the Airstream web site.

Question about the bed. The new bed we had made is way heavier than the original. The two struts that came with the platform aren't strong enough to give adequate lifting aide for my wife to lift the bed and I, too, have difficulty. Would adding an additional strut, or two, be the right way to go, or would replacing the two that came with the bed platform with stronger ones be better? Where would I get matching struts to the ones we have (Camping World ?) and how could I make sure they wouldn't bind once installed...I've never installed anything like that so I'm pretty much an idiot at something like this.

[rluhr]

MM, you can get a wide variety of struts at an auto parts store. I'd probably just replace the two struts you have rather than try to rig up a third one. Take one into the auto parts store to match the size and see if they have a stiffer one.

RossFam, we wore out our Marathons at 30,000 miles and never had a failure. (We did lose one to a drywall screw and another when we had lug nut failure, but those were not failures of the tires.) We're now running three Marathons and one Tire King without any trouble so far (about 15,000 miles).

I don't have a theory on why some people have repeated tire failures and others don't. All I can say is that we are scrupulous about the following:

1) Inflating to at least 60 psi & checking pressure every two weeks.
2) Weighing the trailer every six months at CAT scale and ensuring we are well below GWVR (typically by 800-1000 lbs)
3) Inspecting tires before every tow, for nicks, cuts, scrapes, foreign objects, and abnormal wear (which might indicate a mis-aligned axle).
4) Balancing the tire/wheel assembly and using Centramatic wheel balancers.
5) Keeping the highway speed down. We rarely exceed 70 MPH.
6) Doing a daily dance around the trailer to the Tire Gods.

Maybe these things make a difference, and maybe not. I can't say, but I'm grateful that so far we have had excellent luck with our tires. Good luck!