4/8/17-4/9/17. Current location: Lava Beds National Monument (waaayy behind!)
We headed into Phoenix to visit our friends Chris & Kristina on Friday after leaving the Mojave. The drive south saw the thermometer head north as legs started to stick to the seats and Rooney panted away in the back of the well ventilated van. The weekend was spent catching up with good friends, sitting with our feet in the pool, letting the dogs play and enjoying a beer or two, one uniquely in the local supermarket-bar.
We hiked in the local preserve through the saguaro cactus and took in the views on the edge of suburban Phoenix. The weather was perfect for mornings on the patio and afternoons spent outside grilling. Rooney was thoroughly content playing with his old friend Athena and they quickly tired each other out.
Monday started our rollercoaster of enjoyment (sarcasm at its finest) with the inner workings of a Ford 6.0L diesel engine. Let me first state that without having understanding and hugely generous friends in Chris and Kristina we would have had a much more difficult time and we are so thankful for them putting up with us invading their house nearly everyday for a week straight. We said “goodbye” to them nearly half a dozen times, only to knock on the door with all our crap in tow about a day later. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!
We have now learned more than most people would care to know about their engine but what started as an oil change and a 3 hour drive west into the eastern edge of southern California turned into a week+ worth of repairs and downtime. We learned about oil temperature compared to coolant temperature, an EGR cooler, the oil cooler, power steering and so much more.
What this looked like on a map was a drunken zig zag of the same few roads that would look like us trying desperately to exit the state of Arizona only to be pulled back towards the beating heart of Phoenix. The said drive to California is where a wrench light came on in the middle of the desert. Thankfully we were near an extremely remote campground and related dirt road leading away from the highway where we found an easy place to set up shop for the night. We researched and read most of the internet related to Ford 6.0L diesels and then drove back to Phoenix for a visit to our friends at the place we got the oil change. They put the van through numerous tests to see if we can get the oil & coolant temperatures to act up again. Which, of course, it did not. No engine lights or codes or issues the entire 3 hour drive back to the mechanic or during their tests on the rollers under a high stress test simulating pulling a 15,000 lb trailer up a mountain at full RPM’s. After a lengthy, very honest and open discussion with these guys they recommend we keep watching it and not to invest the pretty healthy cash into it without it acting up consistently. Good! We felt good about the testing that was done and the decision we all came to.
After another gracious night at our friends house, the next day we headed out again. This time we pointed northeast back towards where we camped in the Mojave, deciding to skip Joshua Tree National Park and still make it to San Francisco by the weekend albeit via a more direct route.
Welp! Wouldn’t you know it? Same situation on Wednesday we had on Monday; 3 hours out of Phoenix, same wrench light. This time we were near a Ford dealer in Kingman, AZ. The day before we were told by the mechanic that a Ford dealer can read the engine codes in more detail than any other mechanic so we stopped in to have them see if the same issue had come up again. This time the tests were clear that the oil and coolant temps were way out of whack. Not good news but at least it was a clear test that certain parts were beginning to clog and fail. We debated heavily for a couple hours to have the Ford dealer fix the problem (much more lengthy and expensive estimate) or drive back to the mechanic we were very comfortable with in Phoenix (trustworthy, local, knowledgable and cheaper estimate). We decided we could get a hotel with points in Kingman and to just have the dealer fix everything over the course of 2-3 days. We were very on the fence about this decision as it was looking like more money and more time but we were there and the dealer seemed pretty knowledgable. However, when the technician brought the van around for us to take our stuff over to the hotel he drove the roof box into a low hanging wall near the service entrance…while we watched…and yelled at him to stop. After a healthy amount of cursing and having to check over the roof box, the cross bars, the supports and the very integral roof we left the dealer with the van pointed back to Phoenix. Thankfully the damage did seem to be just a lot of scratches on the top of the box and a slightly bent crossbar. I told the technician that our $150 worth of testing they had already completed was going to be free and we would no longer be giving them our business while his coworkers and a few other customers gawked at the van half stuck under the ceiling and me crawling around on the roof to see if anything was significantly damaged. Good times!!!
Hey, a-hole, thanks for driving my HOUSE into a wall!!
Ding-dong, back again! Can Rooney come play with Athena again? This time the work took days to finish, completely disassembling the intake manifold and numerous items being replaced. This spanned the end of the work week and into the weekend where our friends were on vacation in California (just where we were supposed to be!). We continued to live the house life, went for a run in the preserve nearby and sampled some local breweries. We worked on some trip videos and generally lounged around the house and patio. When the van was not done by the end of the weekend and our gracious hosts returning we decided we could not continue to take over their house and needed to give it back so we got a hotel room for the last couple nights.
The van was complete and tested by the mechanic and us on Tuesday and in the early afternoon we pointed west once again. Only one minor scare of some transmission fluid being blown off (probably an overfill on their part) and we were finally back on the road. We actually camped in the exact same spot as 8 days earlier miles off of I-10 about 50 miles into California. But alas, the story does not end there. We had been so stressed driving all over Arizona, trying to fix the van, feeling bad about taking over someone else’s house for a week, constantly staring at gauges while driving and so much more. We pulled into this campsite for the night and both looked at each other and sighed a massive sigh of relief. We stepped out into the warm evening and heard an a familiar hissing sound coming from the rear passenger tire. I won’t got into details but it hurt, a lot. We could still not relax and had to go back into salvage mode to change the tire, switch the good tire to the rear (rear-wheel drive van) and put the dingy of a tire on the front wondering if we could even keep up a safe speed on the interstate the next day. We were 6 miles down a fairly easy dirt road but over 50 miles away from the nearest town. Do we go west to the bigger town with more services that happens to be further away or do we go east, backtracking AGAIN, to the closer, smaller town? Can we even keep up 45 mph or so on the 75 mph highway? We slept hard but not without fret that evening.
Thankfully the front spare tire held up well on the dirt road and we had about half a mile of pavement before having to decide which on-ramp to get on. We decided 55 mph felt plenty safe so we pointed west and listened to the click-click of the flashers for over an hour. The tire was patched without incident the next morning and we got back on the road hoping and praying that was our last issue for the 6th time in last than two weeks.
Not the most upbeat time on our trip but we learned a lot about the van and we got to see plenty of good friends who were more than welcoming to us, over and over and over again!