Most purchased products come with some sort of warranty, and usually somewhere in those warranties is the caveat, “Damages caused by fair wear and tear shall not be covered…” Which brings me to last nights dumping of the gray water. I hooked the Rhino onto Sid’s ball hitch and towed it 100 yards to the park dump for only the third time. The actual dumping was uneventful. I stopped at the entrance gate for a quick chat with the park attendant before returning to our site. As I pulled away from the gatehouse, I heard an abnormal sound coming from the Rhino but attributed it to the fact my window was down. But MFI was standing outside of Arthur as I pulled up and the look on her face told me something was definitely wrong. Sure enough, both wheels on the Rhino were missing, and I had been dragging it on the belly of the plastic tank.

The roads throughout the RV park are heavily potholed, so we were driving slower than the posted 10 mph speed limit. When towing the Rhino, I had slowed down even further in order to prevent any undo damage. Fat chance! I unhooked the Rhino, retraced the roundtrip drive to the dump, and was lucky enough to find both wheels. MFI found the washer and bearing for one wheel where I had been parked, but we were still missing these two parts for the second wheel, as well as, both axel hat nuts. (If you’ve ever assembled a child’s wheeled-toy, you know an axel hat nut critically prevents the wheel from falling off the axel.) I walked the roundtrip to the dump and miraculously found the remaining missing parts except for one axel hat nut.

We hadn’t owned the Rhino long enough to even register the warranty. Since it isn’t a device RVers can live without, we went on a mission to 1) find new axel hat nuts and 2) come up with a better solution for preventing sideways movement of the axel and eventual looening of the hat nuts. MFI boasts of being a problem solver, and she proved it once again. We found replacement axel hat nuts at Home Depot, and while initially not knowing the name of the part she wanted for her improved fix, we found it at Tractor Supply. It is called a shaft collar and comes with a set screw which tightens it to the axel. Because the set screw was actually too short, we replaced it with a longer hex-head bolt. Needless to say we’re back in the wastewater hauling business again!