We have trailer! Our appointment with Poulsbo RV was at ten o'clock. We arrived at nine thirty and right away a very nice and knowledgeable man, Benny, took us under his wing and introduced us to our Fun Finder trailer. He explained how the tanks work, how the appliances work, how the toilet works, and how all the utilities work.
He then started to set up the hitch, and got about ten seconds into it before realizing that the spare tire on my Jeep Liberty would be a problem. The hitch receiver (the square metal hole bolted to the chassis) was flush with the bumper, which of course is about eight inches shy of the back edge of the spare tire. A standard eight inch hitch shank (the square metal pole which goes into the receiver) only sticks out about four inches from the receiver. So we went down the road to Torque Lift and bought a twelve inch shank. That hunk of welded metal cost an astounding $150! but it was good enough to clear the spare tire (barely), and the trailer attached to the Jeep!
Of course, everything else on the trailer is designed to connect at the standard shank length, instead of the longer length. Benny added longer breakaway chains to compensate, then realized the 7-pin electrical connection wasn't long enough. Luckily he had a few extensions for that, but one at a time, none of them worked. It became pretty clear that the problem wasn't with the trailer, or with the extension, but with the wiring on my Jeep. I nearly cried. Then Benny had me angle the Jeep back, to fit the connectors together, and miraculously it worked, meaning the problem was the extension, not my Jeep. He sent me to a different Poulsbo RV location to pick up a new extension, and like the longer shank, it worked!
There were also other problems, which I will describe later, but the basic story is that we are now in possession of a 2005 Shadow Cruiser T139 Fun Finder.
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