Life with Jane

[ronjhall]

Originally Posted by Wroughtnharv

I looked back over the latest post and saw the trashy look in the background of the last picture. I hadn't noticed it before and when I saw it my first reaction was similar to seeing a photo of me with the plumber's crack in plain view and need to delete the photo. Then I thought that if that is the way they want to see me, so be it.

Yup. Looks like a working mans end of project and beginning of another.

[Gordon Dewald]

Harvey and Glenda; Hope everything came together and you were able to get away. Hope the roads are downhill and the wind is at your back for your trip. Give our best to your dad. Have a great time boon docking.

[Lloyd in S.C.]

Safe travels!!! Enjoy the road!

L.

[guardrail53]

Harvy and Glenda, enjoy your time with your dad! Safe travels!
Rail!

[Franka548]

Harvey,
Hope that you and Glenda have a great time and say hi to Dad for Rita and I.
Frank

[Wroughtnharv]

I guess the best thing to do is say that we're on the road. We're in Vernon, Texas, west of Wichita Fall. We're at the RV park next to the Super Walmart. Their WIFI is down but up. I'm on LTE which is okay with me but it took a few minutes to figure out that to get online I had to shut off my WIFI to avoid their login page that blocked everything else. They have no accessibility so no one can sign in, but it works just fine for dominating access otherwise.

Their WIFI was taken out by the storm that dropped 4" at the farm yesterday morning. That was just what we needed, nine inches of rain in four day period.

That's the good news.

The best news is we didn't lose the toad in the most horrible way yesterday. See the photo.

[Lloyd in S.C.]

Oh that was close Harvey!!! Scary stuff.

I probably need to check mine more often.

L.

[Wroughtnharv]

I had promised best thing about me that we would be on the road Wednesday after not making it Tuesday. Wednesday night we decided to leave Thursday because I was till taking care of stuff at the farm and on the coach. But since we had everything on the coach we would spend the night in Jane. She took Big Blue home and I followed an hour later with Lil Blue.

It's fifteen miles between home and the farm. On my way home I was supposed to stop by Walmart and fill up a couple of five gallon water bottles for the trip. Lil Blue hiccuped twice on the way but otherwise ran fine. After I got the water secured in the toad I hit the start button and she acted just like she had before with the bad cam sensor, wouldn't start. I called best thing and told her I was going to be late because I was going to let Lil Blue cool down so she would start.

That didn't work. Left Lil Blue in the parking lot after getting ok from manager and we spent the night a home. Yesterday morning it was visit Autozone for a new cam sensor. Installed it in Lil Blue, still wouldn't start. We got to the farm and found the 1 1/2" in our rain gauge was nothing compared to the 4" in the gauge at the farm.

When I left the farm the night before I had no inkling there would be any rain. It was something like a ten percent chance in the afternoon and that hadn't happened. But I had moved all of the tools in their plastic cases from outside of the coach to under the cover at the shop. They still got wet because the rain came through like it hasn't in a couple of years. But they didn't get four inches of rain worth.

We have Lil Blue in tow even if she won't start because I figure it's electrical and I can find it and fix it. The other thing is northern Arizona is a haven for Suzukis and Trackers and there will be a lot more expertise to pull from than here in north Texas.

I love the EGT gauge. The panic number is 1250 degrees, when it hits 1250 you do whatever you have to do to get it back down. Throttle response to the gauge is instant. Going up a grade, Texas doesn't have mountains, just grade changes, rolling grade changes, it will get up to 1000. But when you back off the throttle it drops instantly back down to 8-900. Water temp never saw 200. It was mostly at 190 and going up hills, excuse me, grade changes it might get to 195. Then on the other side it would drop to 180 going down hill.

We didn't get on the road until 3:00, couple of hundred miles and then we stopped for the night.

First thing this morning is fix the loose fastener on the tow bar so we don't experience the most horrible of events. Then it's about 300 more miles of Texas before we get to New Mexico. Hope to be in Camp Verde late Saturday or early Sunday. We have a new windshield install scheduled for Monday for Jane in Camp Verde.

Worst case scenario of Lil Blue is a crank sensor, pull the motor because it is located behind the flywheel, oh joy.

[ronjhall]

Originally Posted by Wroughtnharv

I had promised best thing about me that we would be on the road Wednesday after not making it Tuesday. Wednesday night we decided to leave Thursday because I was till taking care of stuff at the farm and on the coach. But since we had everything on the coach we would spend the night in Jane. She took Big Blue home and I followed an hour later with Lil Blue.

It's fifteen miles between home and the farm. On my way home I was supposed to stop by Walmart and fill up a couple of five gallon water bottles for the trip. Lil Blue hiccuped twice on the way but otherwise ran fine. After I got the water secured in the toad I hit the start button and she acted just like she had before with the bad cam sensor, wouldn't start. I called best thing and told her I was going to be late because I was going to let Lil Blue cool down so she would start.

That didn't work. Left Lil Blue in the parking lot after getting ok from manager and we spent the night a home. Yesterday morning it was visit Autozone for a new cam sensor. Installed it in Lil Blue, still wouldn't start. We got to the farm and found the 1 1/2" in our rain gauge was nothing compared to the 4" in the gauge at the farm.

When I left the farm the night before I had no inkling there would be any rain. It was something like a ten percent chance in the afternoon and that hadn't happened. But I had moved all of the tools in their plastic cases from outside of the coach to under the cover at the shop. They still got wet because the rain came through like it hasn't in a couple of years. But they didn't get four inches of rain worth.

We have Lil Blue in tow even if she won't start because I figure it's electrical and I can find it and fix it. The other thing is northern Arizona is a haven for Suzukis and Trackers and there will be a lot more expertise to pull from than here in north Texas.

I love the EGT gauge. The panic number is 1250 degrees, when it hits 1250 you do whatever you have to do to get it back down. Throttle response to the gauge is instant. Going up a grade, Texas doesn't have mountains, just grade changes, rolling grade changes, it will get up to 1000. But when you back off the throttle it drops instantly back down to 8-900. Water temp never saw 200. It was mostly at 190 and going up hills, excuse me, grade changes it might get to 195. Then on the other side it would drop to 180 going down hill.

We didn't get on the road until 3:00, couple of hundred miles and then we stopped for the night.

First thing this morning is fix the loose fastener on the tow bar so we don't experience the most horrible of events. Then it's about 300 more miles of Texas before we get to New Mexico. Hope to be in Camp Verde late Saturday or early Sunday. We have a new windshield install scheduled for Monday for Jane in Camp Verde.

Worst case scenario of Lil Blue is a crank sensor, pull the motor because it is located behind the flywheel, oh joy.

Glad you are on the road. Good catch on tow bar. Hope you find Lil Blues problem without motor removal.
Safe travels.

[Wroughtnharv]

We're in Santa Rosa NM on Historic Route 66 for the night. It was basically another day on the road with everything working like it should.

First thing this morning I went out and find the guy that takes care of the place, mowing the yard even. It turns out all of the auto parts stores are about a mile away and there isn't really a place for me to park at any of them. Then he said that they had a new Tractor Supply less than half of a mile away, nice walk, right? Then he pointed out that there was a pile of RV parts that was there for me to take what I wanted. In a box of assorted bolts I found the perfect combination to take of the missing nut issue. It became one more problem solved.

I really recommend an EGT gauge if you don't have one. You can see where just lifting the foot a little bit makes the difference of a couple of hundred degrees in the exhaust manifold. That tells what is happening in the combustion chamber.

[Lloyd in S.C.]

Bummer on Little Blue not starting. Odd that it went back to that problem, thought you had it fixed.

Might beable to just sit on the shoulder with the 4 ways on and get your parts. I've had to do that once or twice.

Good luck with the fix!

L.

[Wroughtnharv]

Originally Posted by Lloyd in S.C.

Bummer on Little Blue not starting. Odd that it went back to that problem, thought you had it fixed.

Might beable to just sit on the shoulder with the 4 ways on and get your parts. I've had to do that once or twice.

Good luck with the fix!

L.

We got to Camp Verde about 5:30 last night, left Santa Rosa about 8:00 Arizona time, long day. We stopped in Grants NM because their Autozone had access to get the combination in and out without any issues. The scanner came up with no codes, nada, zilch. In Texas I was focused on leaving and hadn't went through the trouble shooting we always do normally in the mind. On the road I was able to do think about it and came up with a fuel issue. The scanner results confirmed it was a normal fuel or fire issue and not something terrible like the crank sensor. I will get after it this morning after breakfast.

Coming up to Flagstaff there is a pretty long climb, nothing real bad, just constant. Jane's temperature climbed up a bit, a couple of times she got to 210 and I used the Hayden sprayer to bring it back down, worked as planned. I figured it was a bad radiator cap because the overflow wouldn't suck back up when it cooled down. The radiator cap is new. When I told cuz about it, he's much smarter than me, younger too, but not as pretty or witty. He mentioned that all it took was a pin hole in the line from the radiator cap to the reservoir to not have the vacuum required to suck it back in. If I'm going to be wrong or confused I love it when someone is near by so smart.

We got a couple of hundredths under ten miles per gallon first fill up. I can live with that.

When it was in the nineties coming across the high desert dash air was all we needed. When it was nice outside the vent worked just fine. The coach felt a lot quieter and more comfortable temperature wise. I think the effort with the insulation paid for itself this trip.

Lloyd I've suspected for some time that Lil Blu had a locker in the rear. When we got to Dad's place I dropped the tow bar and we pushed, we being 150 years of pushing ability, 91 yrs plus 69 years. Glenda got in Blu and turned the wheel hard right. It was like she had the brakes on but she didn't. So I rocked it once and she moved easy. Acts like a locker to me.

When I did the new fuel tank install I also installed a new fuel pump. So that leaves me to suspect the fuel filter or fuel injector relay, hoping it's the filter even though it is located up underneath by the drive shaft tunnel.

[Wroughtnharv]

Yesterday morning started off with moving Blu on to the concrete so I could pull the fuel tank. I had isolated it down to the fuel pump which is located inside the gas tank.

Pulling it wasn't too bad because I borrowed cousin's floor jack. We had tried everything to siphon out the fuel in the tank, 3/4 full, without success. I couldn't have pulled the tank without the floor jack, tank would have been way too heavy for this sixty nine year old. It came out easy but keep in mind it had just been installed a couple of months ago.

Then to prove it was the fuel pump, which baffled me because I had changed out the pump when I installed the new tank a couple of months ago, I went direct to the battery, pump ran fine. I tried it again at the tank, didn't run.

I had verified the fuse was good, and had changed out the relay just in case that was it. So there had to be something that I was missing. An RV friend I made last year recommended the crew at https://zuksoffroad.3dcartstores.com...tion=contactus for advice. They were awesome but had bad news. It was a ground. So I got back to the coach and Blu, took a nap. After the nap I went hunting for the missing ground. I found it, fixed it, and have the tank up with just one more bolt to secure for the tank to be in. Then there's six bolts holding the skid plate in place. Once that's done we should be able to put the gas back in and have Blu for doing what she loves to do.

Lloyd would love the crew at Zuks, young gear heads whose passion is building rock crawlers based on Suzukis and Toyota platforms. I can see one job I would enjoy part time there. It was a great time, almost religious even.

This afternoon we start on dad's coach. There's some water damage in the passenger side rear floor area. And dad wants a smaller bed so he can get in beside it to make it. I can see going up the mountain Thursday for about six weeks.

[ronjhall]

Have to ask. How did it run after the pump was changed? Glad Lil-Blue is fixed.