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Wendells RV-6A
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Date: 10-11-2008
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Number of Hours: 0.00
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Manual Reference: Broken Axle
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Brief Description: Houston, We Have A Problem
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We got on the road about 6AM. The Hoover Dam was next and after the inspector took his look inside he just looked at me and asked if I was really going to fly that thing when it was built. I get that alot from people. On we went. Made it to Tuscon AZ where we visited with my daughter, Barbara Powers, her husband Steve, and my two grandchildren, Steven and Kasey. A couple hours later we were off again for Florida. Taking turns driving with my brother-in-law Gregg was a godsend. He's so experienced driving at night, he pulled much of the night driving time which was great because I couldn't stay awake. The stinky smell passing through El Paso woke me up though. On through Texas and we started noticing a problem with the trailer axle. It was shifting forward on the driver's side, making the trailer yaw towards the side of the road a little. Next fuel stop we discovered the axle springs were working their way out. Some quick jack-up and banging, bolting and strapping fixed that problem and off we went. That is, until we got to Baton Rouge, LA.
I noticed the trailer tire leaning in at the top towards the trailer. That's not right. We were traveling 70-80MPH and had no problems since Western Texas. I pulled over in Baton Rouge and we discovered the axle had fractured about 1/3 of the way on a vertical support bracket. It took 2 seconds to realize this was a bigger job than we could tackle. Thanks to cell phones, internet access and our wives back in Jacksonville, we were able to find a guy who was willing to find us, fix us and get us rolling again. I wish I had better pictures to show, but his name was Dwayne Watkins, Watkins Welding, (225) 505-8533 in case you ever need a great welder around Baton Rouge. This guy was great. All in all, we spent 2 1/2 hours broke down and with Dwayne's help we got out of there in great shape. That guy even followed up with a call the next day to be sure we got home OK. We did.
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What a mess in the middle of nowhere
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Wish I had a better shot of our saviour
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Ditto. He's doing his magic.
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