wheezy_e

what a trip. truck lost power, sputtered & stopped running 50 miles from glamis. truck camper is just as comfy on the side of the road as at the dunes so that was a plus. first thought was bad gas since I just fueled up and it was smoking really weird. I drained out all my water containers & got the truck (92 F350 460 fuel injection) to run using a gas can to the fuel line pressurized via air compressor) and used the tank's fuel pump to empty the gas into my now empty water containers. Put a few gallons back in the tank & still ran like shit. Two tanks & two pumps, so a fuel pump wasn't the issue. hitched ride to Blythe and back and replaced fuel filter and pressure regulator. no dice. seemed to me maybe the timing chain jumped a tooth or else it was electronic although spark looked decent. (no timing light in my trailer tool kit) Cousin picked me up the next day & we towed the trailer with the buggy & bike to the dunes where I tried my best to enjoy the trip. He knew some folks who do towing out there & we got a good deal on towing the truck to Brawley where they knew an (RV) shop that would probably work on it on new years day & the weekend . Things seemed to be going from bad to worse as I could never get any info out of the shop owner as to what was going on, only that his mechanic (who only speaks Spanish) was working long and hard to figure it out, replacing stuff but didn't have any real firm answer yet. I reminded him that if they couldn't diagnose the issue I definitely didn't want to pay for a lot of time troubleshooting, I could do that at home & could come back with an empty trailer to get the truck.
My cousin bought a new sand car, really cool long travel with a honda 6 cylinder. My poor VW buggy isn't keeping up too well. But I'm really getting stoked on the dirtbike in the sand anyhow. took a year to get into the swing of things, but now I take it everywhere. Fun fun fun! Quads are for wusses, like me last year. wanna buy a 250R 4trax? it's purple...

So the truck problem ended up being a clogged catalytic. DOH! I should have though of it. Apparently it blew it's innards to pieces and clogged the exhaust very thoroughly. They gutted it and put it back in empty & the truck runs much better than it did before the problem. I was releived at the reasonable price they charged, although I kicked myself for not thinking of that & getting out the sawsall. As per usual, much worrying for no good reason. My stress over $$ and/or making 3 trips to get the truck, camper & trailer put a damper on my fun. Back in town my one last worker is moving to kansas, but that's no big deal since I've no money to pay him much longer. Would have been nice if he clued me in to this earlier since I've been keeping him working on stuff that's not really necessary so he could keep getting a paycheck...

right click to view full pics.

cousin's new car:


the buggy, bike & a water can full of gasoline:

I slept in my cousin's truck while my truck & camper was being worked on since the seats are a touch more comfy than my trailer's wood floor.

a hole in the sand works for Norvin:


Neighboring camp brought a shitload of christmas trees to burn:


first day home I had some work to do on the docks & was super excited about doing real work again. The work truck lost it's "go". real odd, like the trans was out of fluid. I think the trans filter is plugged. I putted home 30 miles by going 1/4 mile at a time, shutting the truck off while coating, thus letting the trans fluid make fall back into the pan where the pump could pick it up & make some pressure again. 2 weeks ago I dropped it off to have the fluids changed & I'm sure they didn't drop the pan & change the filter, they probably just flushed it.


My New Years Resolution is to Kick Ass.