TurboMinivan
Still plays with cars
- Location
- Lehi, UT
I decided if I couldn't make the trip, at least I could begin the official thread and post the few photos I have. I know the others will have many photos of their own to add when they get back home.
In the end, we didn't all travel together in one huge caravan. However, three vehicles did show up at Cabelas bright and early per Steve's original plan:
I was initially alarmed at the large puddle under Billy's Jeep. He had performed many last-minute repairs and upgrades the day before, one of them being the installation of a new radiator. One of the hoses was leaking a bit, so he adjusted it while he was waiting for us to arrive. This was the cause of the puddle, and his vehicle wouldn't leak another drop of coolant the rest of the day (as far as I saw, anyway).
A bit later than planned, we all finally hit the road. There was some commute traffic to deal with in Salt Lake, of course, but by the time we hit I-80 it was open road and smooth sailing. About 55 miles shy of the Nevada border is a desolate rest area, and we decided to make a quick pit stop.
Billy opened the hood to look things over, but gave no indication that anything was amiss. This was actually an omen. None of us knew it at the moment, but it wouldn't be the last time he had to open the hood today.
Anyway, we soon got back on the road. The wide open nothingness made me chuckle. Even my GPS had no offerings of encouragement, merely pointing out that ahead of me was only, well, Ahead.
At the pit stop, a couple of Billy's kids decided they wanted to keep Fender company in the back of the truck.
They were having a fun time waving at the cars that passed us. This turned out to be virtually every other westbound vehicle, as we settled into a 65 MPH pace. Even with my soft upper doors in place, this was plenty noisy for me so I certainly wasn't pushing us to go any faster. Nobody else was complaining, either. At our first fuel stop in Wendover, Billy reported an observed 10 mpg fuel consumption. I felt guilty about my own 16.5 mpg, so I said nothing to him in return. I asked Steve how his four banger does, and he said it would be about 19 mpg under these conditions (though he wasn't calculating it at this time).
Now that we were in Nevada, things started to unravel. The ambient temperature was rising, and so was the coolant temp in Billy's Jeep. It went from running a little warm to running a lot warm to sputtering out entirely, causing him to coast to a stop at the side of the road. (I have no photos of this, but Steve sure will--his wife was snapping photos at a rate that would make a paparazzi blush.) At first, Billy thought his fuel pump was getting weak... so he crawled underneath and swapped in his spare. Fifteen minutes later, his Jeep fired right up and all seemed well, so we hit the road again.
A short distance later, it again sputtered out and he coasted to a stop. Still thinking it was a fuel issue, we decided to see if the filter was to blame. Between our three vehicles, we managed to come up with one classic Bic pen. It was stripped to its plastic shell and we installed it in place of the fuel filter.
While we were doing this, Steve got a call from Brett who was a short distance in front of us. One of the leaf springs on his trailer had broken, and the broken spring soon caused collateral damage and destroyed one of the trailer's tires. This was a good thing, actually: were it not for the flying tire shrapnel that caught his eye in his mirror, Brett would have continued driving blissfully unaware until some serious catastrophe had occurred. Brett had unloaded his Jeep, patched up the trailer enough for it to be pulled on only three wheels, and was now sitting still waiting for us to catch up to him so our lone spare adult could become another driver, thus getting all the vehicles off the highway and to the next town (Wells). Once we were done with our Bic repair, the Jeep again fired up and off we went.
Again, we didn't get very far. Brett was perhaps 3/4 of the way up the next pass and we were at the bottom of it... but Billy's Jeep did not like climbing any hills--no matter how slight--and would quickly overheat in protest. I radioed Steve and told him to go on ahead to find Brett, while I would stay back at the side of the road with Billy.
We eventually caught up with Brett. After a quick game of musical drivers, every vehicle had a pilot and we all headed to Wells. At least one of us made it without having to stop along the way (I think), but for others this took longer than expected. We did all manage to get there, and then the big miracle happened: Brett walked into a tiny NAPA and discovered they had the correct trailer spring for his application in stock. Even better, across town was a Les Schwab who would be happy to help install it. So now we all headed across town to get him patched up.
Clearly we were lavishing lots of attention on select vehicles in our group, while the others were being completely ignored. My Wrangler apparently became bitterly jealous, and while on the way to Les Schwab my clutch began to give out. It wasn't slipping; however, it would not disengage when I pressed the pedal. In the LS parking lot I opened the hood to check for obvious things (fluid level, leak, etc) but there was no outward indication of failure. I called ahead to Elko and found a shop who was willing to look at it, but they were 50 miles away to the west and it was already 2pm... so I decided to head out on my own and see if I might luck out.
As you all know by now, luck was not on my side. My throwout bearing was coming apart, so I decided to stay in town and have it repaired before it caused other collateral damage. I bowed out of the trip and sent the others on to have fun. Here is how my Jeep spent the night and the next morning:
So that's my contribution to the story of this trip. Others can take it from here.
In the end, we didn't all travel together in one huge caravan. However, three vehicles did show up at Cabelas bright and early per Steve's original plan:
I was initially alarmed at the large puddle under Billy's Jeep. He had performed many last-minute repairs and upgrades the day before, one of them being the installation of a new radiator. One of the hoses was leaking a bit, so he adjusted it while he was waiting for us to arrive. This was the cause of the puddle, and his vehicle wouldn't leak another drop of coolant the rest of the day (as far as I saw, anyway).
A bit later than planned, we all finally hit the road. There was some commute traffic to deal with in Salt Lake, of course, but by the time we hit I-80 it was open road and smooth sailing. About 55 miles shy of the Nevada border is a desolate rest area, and we decided to make a quick pit stop.
Billy opened the hood to look things over, but gave no indication that anything was amiss. This was actually an omen. None of us knew it at the moment, but it wouldn't be the last time he had to open the hood today.
Anyway, we soon got back on the road. The wide open nothingness made me chuckle. Even my GPS had no offerings of encouragement, merely pointing out that ahead of me was only, well, Ahead.
At the pit stop, a couple of Billy's kids decided they wanted to keep Fender company in the back of the truck.
They were having a fun time waving at the cars that passed us. This turned out to be virtually every other westbound vehicle, as we settled into a 65 MPH pace. Even with my soft upper doors in place, this was plenty noisy for me so I certainly wasn't pushing us to go any faster. Nobody else was complaining, either. At our first fuel stop in Wendover, Billy reported an observed 10 mpg fuel consumption. I felt guilty about my own 16.5 mpg, so I said nothing to him in return. I asked Steve how his four banger does, and he said it would be about 19 mpg under these conditions (though he wasn't calculating it at this time).
Now that we were in Nevada, things started to unravel. The ambient temperature was rising, and so was the coolant temp in Billy's Jeep. It went from running a little warm to running a lot warm to sputtering out entirely, causing him to coast to a stop at the side of the road. (I have no photos of this, but Steve sure will--his wife was snapping photos at a rate that would make a paparazzi blush.) At first, Billy thought his fuel pump was getting weak... so he crawled underneath and swapped in his spare. Fifteen minutes later, his Jeep fired right up and all seemed well, so we hit the road again.
A short distance later, it again sputtered out and he coasted to a stop. Still thinking it was a fuel issue, we decided to see if the filter was to blame. Between our three vehicles, we managed to come up with one classic Bic pen. It was stripped to its plastic shell and we installed it in place of the fuel filter.
While we were doing this, Steve got a call from Brett who was a short distance in front of us. One of the leaf springs on his trailer had broken, and the broken spring soon caused collateral damage and destroyed one of the trailer's tires. This was a good thing, actually: were it not for the flying tire shrapnel that caught his eye in his mirror, Brett would have continued driving blissfully unaware until some serious catastrophe had occurred. Brett had unloaded his Jeep, patched up the trailer enough for it to be pulled on only three wheels, and was now sitting still waiting for us to catch up to him so our lone spare adult could become another driver, thus getting all the vehicles off the highway and to the next town (Wells). Once we were done with our Bic repair, the Jeep again fired up and off we went.
Again, we didn't get very far. Brett was perhaps 3/4 of the way up the next pass and we were at the bottom of it... but Billy's Jeep did not like climbing any hills--no matter how slight--and would quickly overheat in protest. I radioed Steve and told him to go on ahead to find Brett, while I would stay back at the side of the road with Billy.
We eventually caught up with Brett. After a quick game of musical drivers, every vehicle had a pilot and we all headed to Wells. At least one of us made it without having to stop along the way (I think), but for others this took longer than expected. We did all manage to get there, and then the big miracle happened: Brett walked into a tiny NAPA and discovered they had the correct trailer spring for his application in stock. Even better, across town was a Les Schwab who would be happy to help install it. So now we all headed across town to get him patched up.
Clearly we were lavishing lots of attention on select vehicles in our group, while the others were being completely ignored. My Wrangler apparently became bitterly jealous, and while on the way to Les Schwab my clutch began to give out. It wasn't slipping; however, it would not disengage when I pressed the pedal. In the LS parking lot I opened the hood to check for obvious things (fluid level, leak, etc) but there was no outward indication of failure. I called ahead to Elko and found a shop who was willing to look at it, but they were 50 miles away to the west and it was already 2pm... so I decided to head out on my own and see if I might luck out.
As you all know by now, luck was not on my side. My throwout bearing was coming apart, so I decided to stay in town and have it repaired before it caused other collateral damage. I bowed out of the trip and sent the others on to have fun. Here is how my Jeep spent the night and the next morning:
So that's my contribution to the story of this trip. Others can take it from here.
lol