We drove to the Midlothian area of Virginia on a Sunday morning and got our first glimpse of the 16 ft. Scamp that had been advertised on Craigslist. Even though I knew we’d look it over thoroughly before writing a check, also I knew we’d be leaving with it. 🙂
It looked safe to pull, but there would be challenges…. The vent wasn’t securely attached, so we’d have to pull it with a hole in the roof. There was no wiring harness, and all of the wires TO the lights and brakes had been cut. (WHY?!) While there seemed to be some power coming to the lights, we couldn’t get them to work consistently. We made a quick trip to a local Wal-Mart to buy temporary towing lights, various connectors and duct tape. Plenty of duct tape…. We used some of the tape to attach the temporary towing lights to the spare tire holder on the back of the trailer, since there was no spare tire mounted. But transaction completed and with title in hand, we started the slow trip home.
We stopped the first time while we were still in the seller’s neighborhood–and discovered that the wiring harness had come undone. Well, darn–we wrapped up the connection with duct tape and set out again. When we stopped a second time (maybe after about 10 miles), we discovered that we’d lost one of the marker lights!
When we stopped a third time (after about another 10 miles), we were surprised to see that the license plate had fallen off!
And EVERY time we stopped, we found that the wiring harness had become disconnected! But WOW–we finally had a trailer!
Even if it WAS held together with bright orange duct tape!
