The Gila Box trip: Part I

[jbeegoode]

A lesson in carnuding from a different perspective: https://thefreerangenaturist.org/2017/07/21/the-gila-box-trip-part-i/

Jbee

[Greenbare Woods]

I hope it just needed a new hose.   The tow is often more expensive than the fix. 

[jbeegoode]

AAA tow...$2000 for new heads, etc.
Jbee

[Greenbare Woods]

AAA tow...$2000 for new heads, etc.
Jbee

YIKES!    It must have gotten VERY hot. 

[freehiker]

Head gasket jobs get expensive.  Summer heat can add fuel to a failing cooling system.  Old trick to help cool system is to run the heater on high. Not easy to do when outside temps are in 80's, 90's or higher. I work for a major delivery company. My van's cooling system often reached to danger zone. Drove with heat full blast, windows down, while dust from dirt roads billowed in to cab. End of day I had to sweep out all the dust in van.

Carnuding requires not caring what other drivers may see. Most drivers don't see much. They are distracted by their gadgets, friends, family or pets. They are not focused on other cars or drivers. Most professional drivers drive alone. We tend to focus on other drivers who are not driving safely. Or sometimes people watch out of being bored.   

When I am carnuding my biggest fear is a flat tire. I have a pair of short stashed in my car.  They have been there a long time. I have not had situations requiring wearing the safety net. My flat tires happened on back roads. I changed tires naked.

I love reading your blog JB

Cheers

Freehiker

[Safebare]

Head gaskets are serious repairs. Newer cars have much better cooling systems than older ones. Sorry to here of your breakdown.
I used to get responses from truckers a decade or more ago. Usually just a tap on the horn, but one memorable time a lady stuck her head out the passenger window and started enthusiastically waving at me. She popped her shirt down to show her support. Are maybe she was communicating something else. 😉
I don't look for opportunities to be seen, and cover for most buses, but otherwise focus on the road and my experiences, let others do the same.
Back in the day, in my '66 F100, driving to Rifle, CO, for work. I was following a gravel truck when my heater started blowing warm, not hot, air. I knew what was up when the temperature gauge started to climb. The gravel truck tuned into a road construction site, and I just followed him in. It wasn't long before I got the attention of the foreman to explain my predicament. He called a welder over to repair the hole in the radiator, filled it with River water, & then I was back on the road to Rifle.
Somehow my luck used to be better.

[jbeegoode]

The early Toy V-6 motors were apparently designed in a hurry and have been notorious for this. Once fixed properly, it is a forever runner. There were lots of little extras which added up.

Always glad to hear that someone is enjoying the blog, freehiker. Mostly, all I have are statistics, like how many visitors, how many stories they visited and how many from each country.

Jbee

[eyesup]

We were near the top of Wheeler Peak in Great Basin Natl. Park and the fuel pump decided to retire. Nearest shop was 60 miles away in Ely, NV. We were at 10,000 ft. in a parking lot. I had my tools and my roadside emergency stuff, but no spare fuel pump.

This proved the motivation to upgrade my AAA membership to include the 100 mile free tow. That has since come in handy.

I had a similar experience, Jbee, riding in the cab to the shop.

Duane

[Greenbare Woods]

We were near the top of Wheeler Peak in Great Basin Natl. Park and the fuel pump decided to retire.
Duane

Fuel pumps are a problem in modern car design.  They don't last as long as the rest of the vehicle, and they fail at inconvenient moments.   They are also expensive to purchase and difficult to replace.

In older cars (before fuel injection) a fuel pump could be replaced on the side of the road with a spanner and two bolts.   Now it requires a hoist, drain and remove fuel tank, about 3 hours in a shop.  And that is after towing the vehicle 60 miles to the shop.

Bad design.  Maybe its been fixed in some newer cars. Or maybe not.

Bob

[Peter S]

This proved the motivation to upgrade my AAA membership to include the 100 mile free tow. That has since come in handy.

Duane

Ah, the transatlantic distance difference again. "Get you home" is pretty much standard in breakdown cover here, regardless of distance.

[eyesup]

Yep, I’ve replace a few of those mechanical pumps and it was usually about a 30-60 min. job. I don’t know why they went to electrical. The failure rate is probably about the same yet it’s more expensive and I can’t do it. I have to go to a shop.

That’s pretty much what happened, Bob!
I rode the towtruck to the shop and killed time for about 4 hrs. while they scrounged up a pump.
This was Ely, NV. Not a big city with lots of parts shops, mostly junkyards.
Luckily it was a Suburban which is easy to find parts for.

Duane

[eyesup]

Head gasket jobs get expensive.

The aforementioned Suburban eventually blew a headgasket and dumped the contents of my radiator into the crankcase. Turned the oil into caramel.

With over 200k miles we decided to donate it to a charity instead of buying a new engine. We got a tax deduction and the group got a good price for the repaired truck.
Win win.

Duane

[JOhnGw]

I think the change to electric fuel pumps really took off woth electronic fuel injection and the common rail diesel engine, both of which require constant fuel pressure which is not delivered by the old mechanical pumps.
They then started fitting the pump in the tank to reduce the number of components needing to be fitted on the production line.

[nuduke]

Gosh you can detect the preponderance of engineers in this group!  This must qualify for one of the most drifted topics ever!  Although maybe not as jbee's original post was about the breakdown.


Hope your car is fully back to normal Jbee!


John

[jbeegoode]

Since the breakdown was in October 2012, so far so good. I was told that it will be good for another 200,000 miles.
Jbee