It’s a new year and we have lots of camping planned this year! Which means, it’s time to get the Boler ready for the season.
We’ve debated a few Boler projects this year:
- upgrading the ice-box to a real fridge, a nice luxury. But depending on which fridge option we go with, it could be rather expensive.
- a heater to extend our camping season.
- a new axel, because I’m told it’s time for a new one.
- a new roof vent with a fan. This one is risky as we currently park the Boler in our garage and only have a few millimeters of clearance, so we don’t want to replace the fan and not be able to park in the garage.
Ultimately, we decided to focus on road safety, and replace the Boler axel. Now, let me start by saying, I have no idea how to replace a Boler axel (or any axel for that matter), nor does G. But, we do know that Standen’s knows how to replace a Boler axel, and in fact they have done many Boler axels over the years. So, this upgrade is being outsources to qualified professionals at Standen’s Calgary.
We took the Boler in last week to have everything measured up, and the replacement is scheduled for next week. We debated upgrading the axel to include breaks, which would have necessitated upgrading the connections to the 4Runner. Ultimately we have decided considering how light the Boler is, there really is no need for breaks on the Boler.
But, like all Boler related projects, this has already turned into a larger project. When Standen’s lifted the trailer to measure for the new axel, three additional projects were added to our list:
- They discovered two cracks in the frame. So, those cracks are going to be fixed – which is a good thing, because we really do not want the frame break while driving down the highway!
- They also informed us that the connection to the vehicle also needs to be re-done to meet modern specifications. So, that’s also being done.
- The tire rims are also being replaced because they said it’s time.
Considering the basic safety of these items, we decided just to do it all. Which of course means our costs are going up, but they really are necessary costs considering how important the frame is. I’ll try to do another update in a few weeks sharing how everything went when the axel and frame modification are complete.
And, the good news is that in a few weeks our Boler will be road ready and summer camping can begin!
We may do a few more reno’s/upgrades this year, or we may wait until next year. I feel like we may just spend our summer focusing on having fun camping rather then spending our time working the Boler.
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