Hunting Island SP SC 2015

March 28 - April 2 2015 We camped at Hunting Island SP in SC.  

Its a beautiful campground away from civilization.   They have a large camp store with just about everything you might have forgot.   There are seafood stores near by.  Not far from Hilton Head if you want to shop or go to a movie.  The mosquitoes aren't that bad, but the "no-see-ums" did a number on me for rolling my sleeves up on night one without any spray.   Bring bug spray that will work on no-see-ums.....  The nearest grocery store is 16 miles away in Beaufort.  

The light house is a must see.. Its hard to believe that this was considered "portable" back in the 1800's... There is a fee, I think $5 a person.... worth it in my opinion because the money I'm sure goes to the up keep and preservation of the lighthouse and the grounds.  

We had site 17, full shade all day and plenty of room to spread out... I was happy with it.

Below is at "The Marsh Walk".... Would be a cool place to watch the sun set or star gaze.

You can see the campground in the tree line, I can see how that might be a problem being so close to the water during bad weather so just make sure its not hurricane season.... LOL  I spoke with a couple of people who had been coming there for years on a annual basis, they all said that the shoreline used to be a lot further out from the campground.  I didn't see any dunes either.     

From our site... if you see that bath house to the right of the camper... that is where the beach begins.  There were alot of bath houses, but my complaint is out of the 3 closest to our site, I could only find one that you'd be sure to get hot water.  They are pretty dated... I'd give them a C- grade.

The beach is hard packed so its a great place to ride bikes.... be careful if your gone too long the tide will come in and you'll have to find an inland way back to the campground.  (I can tell you from experience)

The dead forest.... Just another sign of where the shoreline used to be further out... They are beautiful in their own way... I'm glad they are leaving them, I'm not sure if its to protect from erosion or not, but they are fun to climb on and not something you get to see on other beaches.

This is us... finding a new route back after the tide came in and cut off our beach access

First time trying out the tomato taco.... Its a big hit.   We had a generic hammock that didn't last one trip without tearing up.... this time I bit the bullet and got an ENO double nest... I think this one is going to last (daughter and son approved)

Site 17 is hammock friendly

Below is on the board walk at the nature center, we didn't bring any gear, but its a popular place to fish.

Below.... towards the end of the "Marsh Walk"

 The Twins.... 

A birds eye view looking down at my son next to the tree line. 

A ton of steps to climb, my daughter looking up at me.

Natural Tunnel SP - Labor Day 2014

This year we spent Labor day at or Favorite local SP, Natural Tunnel.  Site #5 was open right next to my good friend Chris's site.  The family likes this site because of the late afternoon shade, personally... there is a trade off with that... there is no morning / early afternoon shade.... :) 

My buddy's camper is named "Rain Maker"....  

Dad and Aaron hanging out at the waters edge.

Have to take some time out for snacks....

One of the reasons we like this SP is the Pool.... from the top of the water slide there is a killer view of the mountains.  

Brother and Sister diving contest....

Drawing Session with friends... :)

Evenings.... this year they added a new playground. 

Hanging at the camp store.... last weekend before closing for the season... Ice Cream 2 for a buck, can't beat that...

Gun show before calling it a weekend....  Had a great time, even though it rained every night and some in the days.... "Hey its camping"

Goshen System Cable Replacement

Replacing the main lift cable

(Goshen Lift System) on my 97 Dutchmen 1203 Pop Up Camper

 

I didn't find many photo guides on how to do this so I decided to make on in hopes of helping others

Below are some links that I've found that might help. 

 

http://www.goshenstamping.com/lift.php

http://www.goshenstamping.com/pdf/1473_SERIES_DIAGRAM-PARTS_LIST.pdf

http://www.goshenstamping.com/pdf/SPRING_AND_CABLE_CHANGE_PROCEDURE.pdf

 

Its really pretty easy to do.  I only had to remove the tubes on the same side as the pulley.  In my case it was the front, because Dutchmen put their wench in the rear of the camper.  Others with a tongue mounted wench would be working with the rear tubes. 

 

Remove these two bolts (above the tubes)  

Remove these two bolts underneath the main tube.

Free the lift tubes from the frame supports.

Remove the 2 bolts holding the tubes to the frame corners.

The tubes should be free of the camper now.

Inside the tubes are the lift springs.   Fish them out of the lifting arms / camper. 

Tubes and Springs free from the camper.

The two ends of the springs are connected together with a slot for the cable to run between

Once the springs are out of the main tube, you can fish the old cable out.

Below is the new cable ordered from Goshen Stamping,  I also decided to order a replacement pulley since it was cheap (8 bucks) and this one has bearings inside... my old one was squeaking, I probably could have gotten along just fine with the old pulley, but what the hey....  The only bad thing about ordering the cable from the factory is that they charge a UPS COD fee....   Not happy about that, but they got it to me in a couple of days and offered phone assistance if I got into trouble replacing it. Very nice customer service.... just give them the year and model and they know exactly what cable to send you.   they also have other parts to the system... lift arms, springs, tubes....etc...

The pulley is how you adjust the cable so that both ends of the camper come up at the same time, so since I was changing it out it was important that I make sure the new one was the exact same distance from the frame as the old one....   

Both New and old Pulleys.

Looks close enough for amateur work

The winch I had was a Dutton-Lainson DLB-800A.  Below is a link if you ever needed to replace it.

http://www.dutton-lainson.com/proddetail.php?prod=14914

This is how my winch looked when I was getting ready to replace the cable.  Who ever attached the cable last had it all screwed up.  The cables crossed under and through each other as if they were tying it to the spool and then they had the cable end going through a hole that it was not supposed to be, which was probably causing it not to spool correctly.  My cable wasn't busted, but seeing this mess was what made me want to change it out.

 Dutton-Lainson winch Repair parts can be found here if you notice any problems with it while you've got the cable off.    http://www.dutton-lainson.com/products.php?cat=74

So here is the new and old cables together.  (Just making sure that they are the same length and have the crimps in the same location.   Goshen was spot on. 

Here I'm using the old cable to pull the new one through towards the wench end.

Pull the old cable through so you have only what you need to grab on to in order to pull the new one through.   Remember you still have springs on one side so you have to make sure you can still get the new cable though the main tube before the old cable makes contact with the springs that are still in the tubes. 

I greased the springs as I started pushing them back into the tubes, sure makes pushing them through a lot easier at the bends in the tubes.

Next Fish the cable through the pulley. 

 

I greased the end of the cable before starting it in the main tube. 

Once you have the end in the main tube, you can start fishing the springs back in

Once you've got the springs in and the tubes close enough to the main tube, you can start lining up  the spring ends back up into the lifting arms in the corners,  Wipe off the excess grease from the springs as not to make a mess.  This much of the spring only needs a very light coat as just keep the rust down. 

Ok, at this point your good to go for reconnecting the spring tubes to the frame. 

There is cut out areas between the tubes for the cable to move freely.  Make sure that the cable is not caught up or bound somehow ... make sure it moves free before tightening the spring tubes to the main tube. 

Ok... I followed the video the best I could on attaching the cable to the wench.  this is what I came up with according to them.   This took up most of time believe it or not.  The main gear is just too darn small and the one they use in their video I believe is a larger one so it looks easy in the video.  See video below.

 Video on winch cable install http://www.dutton-lainson.com/czzSN1c17FI.php

 

Looks a whole lot better than it did before I started.

"Do not grease the wench"   there is a clutch in it and grease can cause it to fail.

Not to mention that grease will only collect dirt and sand....

 

Don't forget to fill these two zerks with grease.  Till it starts to come out the ends of the main tube.  Your supposed to do this at the beginning of every season anyway.

That about does it.   Just looking at the diagrams you find on the web, it looks a lot more confusing than it really is.   That's one of the reasons I took the time to make this blog entry to show how easy it really is.   I hope this How To helps someone.  Leave me a comment and tell me how it went.