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[GMCnet] Made it home to Madrid, NM [message #118570] Sat, 12 March 2011 16:30 Go to previous message
Marc Hogenboom[2] is currently offline  Marc Hogenboom[2]   United States
Messages: 70
Registered: March 2011
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Hi all,
we made it to Madrid yesterday. We were able to shake off mr. Murphy somewhere along the way, but not before he took us off the road once more.
After getting everything working again in Baltomore, last saturday we set off on I 81, and did about 150 miles before stopping at a truckstop for the night. Everything went smoothely, so I showered, cleaned up and put my workclothes away.
Sunday morning we took off and drove on through rain and snow. The coach ran great, the diesel was purring. Just into Tennessee we lost all traction. The spedo said we were doing 60 but the vieuw outside said we were slowing down. We stopped on the shoulder just before the exit to Kingsport. Transmision oil was fine, but mo movement exept for the spedo, so it had to be the final drive or there abouts. I checked the driveshaft bolds I could reach from inside, all were tight. Too dangerous to get under the coach on the interstate shoulder, so we had to be towed again to a place I could crawl under and work on it. A police car stopped, and a very friendly cop helped us find a tow truck. He also knew someone whos grandfather owned a GMC. He started making phone calls and finaly had us towed to the driveway of Gene Jakson. Gene told us all the GMCers in the area were in Florida, he was home because his wife was in hospital. We could stay in his drive way as long as we needed. After removing the belly pan, I found the support for the intermediate drive shaft had broken, letting the drive shaft slide out of the final drive. The support is welded to the engine support, so that had to come out. Monday morning the weather was fine again, so I started early and had the engine support out in about 1.5 hours. Than Gene’s son found a welding shop, and Gene’s grandson took me there. The whole family helped us along. After welding and reinforcing the support I put it back in and by 5 we hit the road again. Thank you, Jaksons!! By now all we wanted was to get to our new home as fast as possible, so we did not visit anny of the people that so kindly invited us along the way. Sorry for that, folks! The next morning I found the loose driveshaft hatd tapped a small crack in the oilpan. Fortunately it was in the high part. I fixed that with some epoxy plubers putty. It was a very slow leak now, so we made it home without more problems.
Thank you all for your moral and factual support.
We are now in our new home, under a clear blue sky, and are starting to remember why we did all this.
We are looking forward to meeting some of you on a rally sometime !



Marc Hogenboom
‘73 Painted Dessert Diesel
Madrid, New Mexico
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