Life with Jane

[Franka548]

Harvey,
Hope it is a quick and easy fix, and you get back on the road soon.
Frank

[Wroughtnharv]

Nothing a $1,500.00 check can’t fix, tomorrow. It’s the primary fuel pump.

[ronjhall]

Originally Posted by Wroughtnharv

Nothing a $1,500.00 check can’t fix, tomorrow. It’s the primary fuel pump.

$1.5k for a fuel pump? I thought diesel's were expensive to repair. [emoji33]

[Wroughtnharv]

Originally Posted by ronjhall

$1.5k for a fuel pump? I thought diesel's were expensive to repair. [emoji33]

Autonation Chevrolet.

This is not some super fine new facility catering to yuppies.

Hopefully I’ll be clear of them tomorrow and I will turn miss Glenda loose on AAA road service. They recommended the dealership and service dept

[George Schweikle]

Harv, been there, done that. If it's like our motorhome the pump is in the tank, and an OEM fuel pump replacement cost us a similar amount in rural California a few years back. I read that if the pump is whining, it's getting ready to fail but I didn't think it was whining that loud

Originally Posted by ronjhall

$1.5k for a fuel pump? I thought diesel's were expensive to repair. [emoji33]

[Curtis in TX]

Had my fuel pump fail on me in Blythe California and it cost me $4300. Seems that when it failed it lunched the P 7100 Bosche injector pump.

If it had done that around the house I could have, and would have fixed it myself. But, being as I was on a run to Santa Barbara after a motorcysickel, I was stuck with having the Dealer fix it.

I now carry a spare everything with me when I travel. Starters, alternators, fuel pumps, wheel bearings, axle seals, brake shoes..... you get the picture.

[okmunky]

Originally Posted by ronspradley

Woodworking is my hobby. I am allergic to mesquite. My worst (best) allergy. And my favorite wood. And I am allergic to all of the rosewood family and all of the African and South American hardwoods. And to the epoxy that is used to patch the defects in all of this beautiful wood. It is what it is. Sometimes you just have to man up.

ronspradley

Ron, I used to be allergic to the pollen from every tree that grew in Oklahoma and Texas. The winds from the south brought juniper pollen up and I had laryngitis every November and hives from the rest of them. 2 years of allergy shots fixed that. AND, it’s even easier now with all the medical advances. I highly recommend them.

[ronspradley]

Barb , does Arizona in the winter and PNW in the summer help with alergies?



Would like to meet up with you this winter around Yuma. Maybe we can agree on a time to invade Harvey and Glenda space and harrass?


ronspradley

[okmunky]

Originally Posted by ronspradley

Barb , does Arizona in the winter and PNW in the summer help with alergies?

Would like to meet up with you this winter around Yuma. Maybe we can agree on a time to invade Harvey and Glenda space and harrass?

ronspradley

I think so. I had something sorta like my old allergies, but much milder, when I was in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas this Spring. Those are places I used to live. But I’m mostly cured now. I think changing to a better climate is good for every ailment. And going where the stuff you are allergic to doesn’t grow really helps. Not much grows in the desert.

Yuma invasion? Count me in! I’m pm you my contact info.

[okmunky]

Also, I buy local honey and take 1/2 teaspoon morning and evening. That even helps Sena (the monkey) not have a crusty, stuffy nose.

[CIDE]

For reference, it cost me $1400 to have the in tank fuel pump replaced on my Chevy Express 3500 6.0 van class C. The weird thing about it - it was dying on closed or light throttle, high vacuum downhills not on heavy throttle climbs. It would go up fairly steep grades just fine (eastbound up Vail Pass in Colorado but died on the downhill into Copper Mountain/Frisco), backwards to my experiences.

Replaced by a Chevy dealer in the south Denver area, fwiw.

[Wroughtnharv]

Yesterday morning I pulled on to I40 at Perkins Valley AZ, just east of Holbrook. I hadn’t changed the clock in Lucille and it said, “7:00 Texas time” ( 5 am local).

I pulled into Thereabouts 8:45 pm last night. 870 miles, almost 14 hours straight through. I would have made Google’s 12 hours plus but for fuel stops.

We left Amarillo Wednesday at 5 pm heading to Perkins Valley. It was a 9 hour drive straight through team driving.

Okay, primary fuel pump could be commanded to work by mechanic’s laptop. But the primary tank was bone dry. Fuel in the tank provides not only resistance for the pump it also provides cooling. The best way to kill in tank fuel pumps is to run with low fuel or empty tank. So I opted to go ahead and change out the primary and the secondary fuel pump. Dealer put in five gallons of gas in the primary tank and we hit a gas station asap. Lucille ran like a top, fuel system worked as it was supposed to do.

Basically there are three components to the fuel supply, primary tank and fuel pump, it’s a high pressure pump. Then there’s the secondary pump located on the frame rail that balances the tanks. Last night I just topped off the primary tank and the gauge said we had half tank so it balances out primary to the secondary and vice versa.

As for the price, everyone has to make a living or we all lose. The service dept has a huge nut to crack (overhead). I personally know some dealer mechanics and they don’t make the hourly rate we are charged. And with all of the warranties, extended included, they have to bust their butts to make a decent living because the warranty jobs suck and a lot of the work is warranty. So the price really hurt me personally. And if I was home I could have done it for a third or less. But I wasn’t home and it was handled in a professional manner and timely considering their work load. So I am wounded but thankful.

Team driving I ran 68 mph, 2750 rpm. Cuz ran about 65. Coming home I kept it at 75, 2900 rpm. I think she likes the 2950 better. I haven’t ran the mpg numbers but I suspect around 8 loaded and 9 hauling butt empty.

Today I recover and go over the lay out of the apartment so we can start doing the rough in plumbing. This is getting exciting, might even have the slab poured and the framing going up when Ron comes up on his way north.

This is the year of our lives.

[ronjhall]

Glad rest of trip went OK. How was your dad?

[Wroughtnharv]

Originally Posted by ronjhall

Glad rest of trip went OK. How was your dad?

Dad’s doing awesome. At 93 he remembers stuff from being a kid, I can’t remember what I had for lunch yesterday.

He’s amazing to be around. You go into the assisted living center and everyone is coasting along, except dad. He’s doing his 45 minutes on the bicycle, keeping up with the news on his laptop, and constantly making jokes. They have one woman in the center, looks like a healthy seventy year old but is middle eighties and has some serious memory issues. Her name is May. Dad says they now call her June and Monday she will be known as July. She just smiles in an embarrassed kind of way and goes along with the joke.

We’re having to rearrange some support issues because him and his younger sister are squabbling. She has always did her best to mother him and dad has never been one to be controlled. It’s got to the point that feelings have been hurt and they’re both Lacey’s which means there’s a tiny itty bitty bit of stubbornness involved. Dad’s been losing a couple of pounds per month so I picked him up some protein supplement and told him he has to eat it because Glenda said so. We’ll see.

Yesterday I did the numbers on Lucille’s fuel habit. She got 11.07 miles per gallon with at least 750 of the 870 miles at 75 miles per hour running empty. She’s my kind of truck. Scott mentioned her purr being a roar, ear of the beholder kind of thing.

Yesterday evening I started excavating for the end of the sewer line that supplied the mobile home that was where the new slab is going to be. I haven’t found it yet, three feet down and still can’t feel the four inch PVC. The hole has to be big enough for me to work in, oh joy. We’ve got the plumbing pattern figured out. Friend came by with his wife and she just couldn’t understand why we would limit ourselves to 1,100 sf of living space in a 3,000 sf barn. Oh well.