I brought the truck up to have the steering repaired on Saturday and then my dad helped install the sway control system onto the trailer on Sunday. Those two things alone really help me feel confident in being ready for departure, and that the truck and trailer will both be safe and secure.
On Monday we renewed the registration on the truck. It turns out that a dual rear wheel truck needs to be registered in Massachusetts as a commercial vehicle, and all commercial vehicle registration goes from December to December, so even though we registered the truck in December, it will expire at the end of the month. So, we renewed it for next year too. If you can avoid getting a commercial vehicle, I'd recommend it—everything seems to be 10 times more expensive.
I had to wait until Monday for NAPA to open to return the drag link part that I bought to repair the steering. It turned out to be the wrong part. The right part cost one third the price and was much smaller and easier to fix. Woo!
Today I went to visit my mom, gave her a ride in the truck and when I returned, we packed up the truck, hooked it up to the trailer and tested the brakes. The controller in the truck doesn't seem to stop the trailer, and we're getting an "E1" message on the display. James, Kevin and I are taking a short break before going out to figure out why the brakes are giving us an error message. Looking at the manual for the brakes, "E1" means the trailer isn't connected. We're hoping that unplugging it and replugging it will be the solution. Once this is resolved, we are indeed ready to go—so long as the weather is decent… I've heard we're getting 4-6" of snow tonight/tomorrow. I'd rather wait until the storm passes before heading out than to head out and try to drive through it. Hopefully the storm won't leave us too much of a mess to deal with. Having the truck packed, connected and ready to go, we should be able to just pull out and head on our way.
Can you tell I'm eager to get on the road? Let's all hope for this storm to only be in the minds of the weather people, shall we?
Yes... I can tell... and I can't blame you. Quite an adventure ahead of you but I bet patience will prove to be an ally.
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