| Trip report [message #224666] |
Sat, 05 October 2013 19:13  |
JohnL455
Messages: 4447
Registered: October 2006
Location: Woodstock, IL
Karma: 12
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Other than having my Delco 78 battery crank fine on the shake down drive the night before we left, and then not be able to run anything, we made the trip with no drama. I thought it was bad connection at the battery so cleaned and D5 sprayed and replaced the battery bolts with shinny new ones. Still no good, meters 12.6 and goes to zero on any load. No headlights. So, I pulled the 78 from the Tahoe and we are ready to go. It was a piece of cake to work on this problem at home in the garage and I was thankfull it happened where tools, spares, lighting and a clean floor were present. I'll see if the Delco rep can warranty this one out. We parked in the overflow lot in Brnason and I had Jim K confirm the data on my appraisal sheet so I can get this thing covered for agreed value. Saw Dan, Rob and few others, paid Kim for the night and had to run. Around Galup I noticed some oil?? on the R Rear Bilstein, so I called Steve at Cinnabar where I got them years ago and had him send one out to be safe. I had bought from them so they can deal with the warranty. Next fuel stop, shock seem dry so don't know if all the oil has leaked out or it was road splash of some substance. I'll sus this out tomorrow in the garage with jacks and tools and time. Hopefully the shock is fine. Didn't want to try to change on the road and make things worse. Around west TX and NM we had strong head/cross winds comingfrom about 200 deg and had to lean into the wind at a 20 deg angle to stand up at the rest area. Since I alligned with the Jerry Work kit I can take my hands off the wheel for like 15 sec at a time in still air and nice road. These are still a handfull in those winds, but mcuh better now. We had a nice camp grounds in Carefree at Cave Creek. Highly recommended. The guy who was having the reunion at his new Snowbird house was going for firewood to have the first fire in the outdoor hearth when he tripped and fell forward, breaking his fall with both hands on a cactus. We pulled what we could but he ended up in the hospital for 2 nights to have the hand surgeon remove the rest. So we left not seeing him 2 of the 3 days. Took 17 north to Flagstaff and was able to hold 50-55 in S at less than WOT. Some long pulls on a stock coach. I see now where the 3.42 or 3.55 would help. Fan came on once at the crest and cooled things off quickly. Other than that the new chin scoop really keeps it at the T-stat temp on the highway, no fan. Much better. We used about 1.5 qts of Rotella T6 5W40 on the trip which is like at pasenger car level of consumption. Very pleased. Got the bugs off, oil and filter changed and back in the garage and will examine the shock tomorrow. The only other thing that broke was the Radio Shack Batt handle momentary switch on the washers. I went to use it and parts were in my hand. You figure once you replace something you can forget about it but stuff still breaks. Overall I think GM did a good job engineering these and taking a vehicle with about a 10 year planned service life on a cross county trip at age 40 is a pretty good endorsement. And my Onan even starts right up with factory working choke.
John Lebetski
Woodstock, IL
77 Eleganza II
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