Broken suspension

The rest of the rust was just surface rust so I wouldn't worry too much about it if you have a camper with springs. The pods have torsion suspensions.

I think the root cause here was undersized and/or defective springs. Seeing the new one next to the other 3 older springs (that are completely flat under load) makes it obvious all of them need to be replaced. One of them even has a slight bend on the upper leaf in the wrong direction. The new one has a noticeable bend upward like it should.

Which is why I took a deep breath - knowing how much labor was involved to change just the one broken spring - and ordered 3 more. These are all rated at 2600 pounds (10,400 total) so far more than the actual load of around 7000 pounds when it is ready for a trip. All new mounting bolts, too. I am re-using the u-bolts and tie plates although as I was removing a bunch of stuff yesterday I managed to snap one of the u-bolts. Ordered another today and that wasn't easy to find with the specs I needed.

Yesterday I picked up an air tool set to help with the labor, a good excuse. My air pump isn't big enough so that will need to be updated eventually, but it is enough to help a bit for now.

The adventure continues.

Yipee-kayay! DONE. WOW that was a big job. I'll take it for a test tow tomorrow and then check it over to make sure nothing worked loose. Can't wait to get a larger air compressor for those air tools.

I'm hoping for that.  I'll find out tomorrow.