Maverick Campers Operations Manual 2021
S U S P E N S I O N S
Most suspensions these days do not need any form of regular maintenance, aside from checking the shocks. However,
leaf spring suspensions often came equipped with greaseable shackles. If you have such fittings, then you should every
three months or so give the shackles a fresh injection of a quality multi-purpose grease. Pump it through until you see
clean grease coming out at the back, around the shackle pins. If you haven’t had the camper out on the road in that time
then you can bypass this, but if you are off on a major trip or just returned from one then it’s almost mandatory, most
especially if water crossings or heavy exposure to a lot of dust are involved. If off on a lengthy trip take your grease gun
with you and keep up the grease injections after any water crossings or lengthy dusty tracks.
B R A K E S
Brakes should be checked and adjusted as necessary with new campers after the first 500km when the brake shoes and
drums have 'bedded in', and at every 5000km interval, or as use and performance requires. While you have the drums
off doing the bearings is a good time to check them.
T Y R E S
Every time you get fuel take a look at the tyres. Before any trip starts check the tyre pressures. Ideally you should have a
pressure, when the tyres have done 10km or more, that is about 4psi higher than when it was cold. Anymore and it
indicates that your tyre pressure when cold was too low, and the tyre walls are undergoing too much flexing and
becoming too hot. Any less and your tyre pressures when cold were too high, and the tyre sidewalls are too rigid. The
former will produce excess wear to the outer edges of the tyres; the latter will produce excess wear to the centre as the
tyres will have more of a dome shape in cross-section.
After a major trip run your hands over the tyre tread and any feathering of the edges of the tread pattern could indicate
an alignment problem because the tyres aren’t rolling squarely on the road but are at an angle. This can be fixed at
home, if you know what you’re doing, but is better left to experts.
All tyres suffer from a hardening process, as exposure to the sun and other factors continue the course of vulcanisation.
This result in tyres becoming brittle and liable to catastrophic failure completely out of the blue, usually, according to
Murphy’s Law, when it’s least convenient. Tyres should not be older than six years of age or you’re in danger territory.
Every tyre has the date of manufacture moulded into the sidewall, a four-digit number usually in a smallish size, which
might read something like 1012, which would indicate the tenth month of 2012. Check yours. If they are older than six
years, you’re on thin ice.
If you have just picked up a soft floor camper trailer the tyre pressure for road travelling is 38 psi. On hard floors is 40
psi.
