Day two of the 2025 Alliance RV Rally started with a continental breakfast for the attendees and then a seminar by Dexter, the company that makes our axles.
We have 7000 lb axles with disc brakes and they covered maintenance and repair. Recommended service interval is 12 months or 12,000 miles and we have our axles serviced annually including cleaning and repacking the bearings, replacing the seals, and inspection/lubrication of our suspension system. The axles and suspension get abused continually on our rough roads and the maintenance is crucial. Just as the seminar was about to end I got a call from Doreen that Lippert was at our site to again work on our levelers. The technician was back to check the status of the gauge they put on the pump Wednesday after replacing the left front leveler. I quickly returned to our site and retracted our slide-outs so they could work on the levelers. According to their gauge the pressure had dropped indicating a leak or a "bypass" of some sort and they determined the next step was to replace the hydraulic pump assembly.
New hydraulic pump and reservoir ready to be installed
Technician removing and installing the pump
The new pump installed
The technician replaced the pump and then re-installed the pressure gauge to again monitor the system pressure for a leak. More on that later. This technician is very thorough and we really appreciate it.
After that work was complete Doreen and I stopped by one of the food trucks that are here and grabbed some lunch. I had a burrito bowl and Doreen had a fajita I believe.
I made my way to another seminar, this time on the MCD roller shades installed in our coaches. I am not having any shade issues but my daughter and son-in-law are on their Alliance 390MP, which is the big brother of ours. The MCD seminar was very interesting as they explained how they work and how to adjust/repair them. It was obvious from what they said that our daughter likely has a broken spring in her rear shade. The representative has a stock of parts here and they provide them at no cost to us!
A bad spring (top) and a good spring (bottom)
A new replacement spring from MCD
After the seminar and connecting with MCD for the parts I took advantage of an opportunity to fill a zip-lok bag with replacement hardware of all sorts for our coaches. There are many different lengths, colors and types of fasteners on our fifth wheels and Alliance provided boxes of these different fasteners for us.
While I was finishing up in the main hall, back at our camper Doreen cleaned and prepared a variety of vegetables for a relish tray for the potluck dinner tonight.
Before leaving the main hall I checked in with our team heading up the silent auction, and the donations continue and the numbers continue to climb.
Our potluck dinner was amazing as usual. The variety of food provided by our Ally's was awesome. They processed tables by a color dot in the center and our table was way down the list. So we waited quite a while, but no one expired waiting for nourishment! Finally we were called, and we all returned with full plates!
After dinner we moved towards the event hall for margarita night sponsored by our Texas Ally's, and casino night. We used "Brady Bucks" that were given our in our welcome packets that we exchanged for poker chips and played with. They hired a company with professional dealers and equipment, so we had real blackjack tables, craps tables, etc. I played blackjack for a while and needed to be heading back to the camper to watch our grandson's baseball game so I finally went "all-in" with about $475 and lost. As we departed the event hall the auction totals continued to climb.
Reminder, everyone, everywhere can bid on this online silent auction! All the proceeds are for a great cause - FamAlly Cares, used to support our scholarships, the Humane Society, the Boys and Girls Club of Elkhart, the VFW and other worthwhile charities.
https://event.gives/famally/itemsThe Lippert pressure gauge shows a drop in pressure so even with a new pump we still have a leak somewhere, Hopefully they can isolate that early tomorrow.
Doreen and I headed back to our camper for the evening so we could watch (via Game Changer) our grandson Daniel, who just finished his 8th grade year, start as the Varsity catcher for Grand View Christian Varsity Thunder baseball team. Daniel and his team did awesome and won their game against Greene County Varsity 4-0, Daniel did not get anything to hit at the plate unfortunately but did walk a couple times and was solid behind the plate as expected. Wow, what a memorable day for Daniel and his parents AND his very proud grandparents in Goshen IN!! Thank you Game Changer for facilitating our participation!
Nana, Daniel and Gramps (file photo)
Tomorrow (Friday) is the last day of the Rally and there is a full agenda. In addition to that we will be making preparations to pull chocks on Saturday and head north to our next destination, Ft Custer near Battle Creek MI
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