On the Road with Bob

Today I am in FABULOUS Las Vegas. I took a circuitous, but quick trip from Hillsborough, NH, where I visit my daughter in the summer. After travelling 1500 miles to Kissimmee, FL to pick up new registrations and insurance papers, I set out for the west. There was some impetuosity in the decision, since I am used to spending the winter in Florida, but I love the west and felt that I should be there for a while. At my age I have to weigh what things are important enough to experience before I cannot do them again. The 3000 mile voyage with the car and RV are in that category. I’ve never figured out how to live in the west, and still remain close to my family. They couldn’t be transplanted out of New England with a pitchfork. Oh, well……I love to be on the road.

It turned out that a friend, who resides in Laughlin, NV was in a bind!  He had booked a flight from Las Vegas and needed to get his conversion van from Mesquite, NV, where he was “comped” in the Casablanca Casino (He is a gambler), to Hurricane, UT to a storage facility. He was going EAST as I was going WEST. His destination was Cherry Hill, NJ to visit family for the holidays. Problems arose. His van broke down and required a new steering column. We had figured that if I didn’t dally, which IS my custom, I could meet him in Utah and drive him back to Nevada.But his mechanic let him down (Wow, that NEVER happens!), and instead of meeting him as planned, I drove to Mesquite and met him there. I stayed there that night.

Second problem: ( colliding coincidences ) We were  booked into hotels in Las Vegas before his van was going to be fixed, with no way to change the reservations. So we drove there and he checked in to Harrah’s and I checked into the Imperial Palace on the Strip.  Two days later we got word that the steering was restored. We drove back to Mesquite, NV, and I followed him to Hurricane, UT where he left the van, pulled down  the door, and we headed BACK to Las Vegas for the rest of our stay. Three hundred miles round-trip. I took him to the airport at 5:30 AM last Wednesday, and finally got to relax. I spent the next four nights at the wonderful  campground at Las Vegas Bay on Lake Mead. Private sites among palms and other plantings, with views of the lake and desert scenery . More about this trip in my next post.

I have always owned older vehicles. The last new car I bought was in 1968. I have never been one to change cars, or RVs simply because they have some age on them. It doesn’t make any sense, unless you are trading up, or have changing needs. Check out those ’50s cars still running in Havana!

It has been easier for me, since I do all my own repairs and maintenance. I had early training in automotive repair, and learned as a teenager that the treatment you give the vehicle directly corresponds to the time it will spend in the repair shop.

Jack-rabbit starts and stops, excessive speed, and strain on the engine in adverse conditions spell an early demise! Frequent oil and filter changes, with Slick 50 or Greased Lightning additive do help.

I have converted a number of buses to motorhomes, and in the last 20 years I have converted vans to Class C motorhomes. I had a ‘76 Dodge B250  1/2 ton Ram van that I converted to my plan, and ran it for over ten years with only routine maintenance, and not many serious problems. There were a few, but that will be another posting. This is about analyzing the problem that I experienced on that old ‘76, and on a newer (old to most of you,I know) 1986 Dodge 3/4 ton that I converted in 1992- through the present day.

Here’s the situation:  You are driving on back roads with plenty of hills; typical New England territory. As you start up a medium gradient rise, the engine begins to stumble. If you keep giving it the gas it will die before reaching the top, so you let up a little so that you just make it up and over the top, where the engine recovers its power, and you head for the next uprise.

On one of the cross-country trips in the current Dodge, I had the same problem on Interstate 10 in west Texas, nearing El Paso, then again in southern New Mexico. It happened whenever I went up a long upgrade as I headed into Tucson. Again, as I drove north from Phoenix, through Casa Grande, toward Needles, California.  It seemed like classic fuel starvation. I changed the fuel filter and fuel pump two times. I did complete tune-ups; checked the timing and anything else that could have created these occurences. I even tore down the carburetors for cleaning. Whatever I could think of…..but when I got to that next hill, same problem. Ambient temperature seemed to play a part, too. In cold weather I had next to no trouble! But when the engine was hot, it could be predicted.

On one road trip to the south I became so addled that I stopped twice at repair shops where knowing mechanics looked at the log I kept of the situations and conditions, but no one had a fresh idea. It had happened less frequently with my older Dodge that had the 360 cc engine, but was becoming serious with the newer Dodge that has the 318 cc (5.2 liter) lean-burn engine.

CAN YOU GUESS WHAT THE PROBLEM COULD HAVE BEEN??

I was at wit’s end, broken-down on the road, 200 miles from my intended destination, having installed a new ELECTRIC fuel pump and a new OEM FUEL FILTER  with no improvement, when the solution came to me after all my ruminations over the years.  EUREKA!

(answer in the next posting under Repairs)