Home » Public Forums » GMCnet » Partial Trip Report (Tucson to San Angelo...and back)
| Partial Trip Report [message #300676] |
Mon, 16 May 2016 21:35  |
Carl S.
Messages: 4186
Registered: January 2009
Location: Tucson, AZ.
Karma: 13
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Senior Member |
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We left home Thursday afternoon after work at about 1:00, with a full tank of winter mix gas, temps about 93. Had a little initial fuel starvation issues for the first 65 miles or so, until we got out of the hilly terrain and east of Texas Canyon on I-10. The Onan died before we even got out of our driveway (Fuel pump problem, I think) so we used the dash air only. It actually kept us reasonably comfortable.
Stopped in Deming NM for gas and supper and rolled into the parking lot in front of Hal Kading's fueling business at the Las Cruces airport at about 6:45, after losing an hour to a time change (Mountain Standard to Mountain Daylight Savings). Thanks to Hal, we had a nice quiet secure place to sleep for the night.
Got up early, hit the road and bypassed El Paso around the north and east side of town, again thanks to Hal for the suggested route. The bypass was great until the end where there was construction and a very poorly marked detour to get back on I-10 East. Stopped at a pit of a gas station, they didn't have regular, gassed up anyway with midgrade.
The coach ran great the whole way on through our next gas stop (Ft Stockton) and in to San Angelo. We are staying at San Angelo State Park where we have 50 amp power and water at the site, with a dump station out the road a piece. We're having a nice visit with my daughter, our son in law, and their two children, one of whom we hadn't met in person yet (3 month old little grand daughter).
I changed out the fuel pump the other morning and ran the Onan, with a load on it, while we drove over to the dump station this afternoon and it kept running, so I'm still pretty sure it was a bad fuel pump (a several year old Mr Gasket) that was the problem
We'll be leaving here Thursday morning and taking a different route home including a visit to Guadalupe Mountains National Park.
Oh, the road went from very good in stretches, to bad in others. The Texas DOT's way of dealing with bad paving seems to be to put up "Rough Road" signs every half mile or so. Between the rough roads and the crosswinds, driving was kind of a chore. I guess a little more front end work is in order, although I'm not sure it will help.
Carl Stouffer
'75 ex Palm Beach
Tucson, AZ.
Chuck Aulgur Reaction Arm Disc Brakes, Quadrabags, 3.70 LSD final drive, Lenzi knuckles/hubs, Dodge Truck 16" X 8" front wheels, Rear American Eagles, Solar battery charging. GMCSJ and GMCMI member
[Updated on: Sat, 21 May 2016 21:35] Report message to a moderator |
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| Re: [GMCnet] Partial Trip Report [message #300690 is a reply to message #300676] |
Tue, 17 May 2016 07:28  |
Kingsley Coach
Messages: 2691
Registered: March 2009
Location: Nova Scotia Canada
Karma: -34
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Senior Member |
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Carl
I know the route well...a trip down memory lane....
Mike in NS
On Mon, May 16, 2016 at 11:35 PM, Carl Stouffer wrote:
> We left home Thursday afternoon after work at about 1:00, with a full tank
> of winter mix gas, temps about 93. Had a little initial fuel starvation
> issues for the first 65 miles or so, until we got out of the hilly terrain
> and east of Texas Canyon on I-10. The Onan died before we even got out of
> our driveway (Fuel pump problem, I think) so we used the dash air only.
> It actually kept us reasonably comfortable.
>
> Stopped in Deming NM for gas and supper and rolled into the parking lot in
> front of Hal Kading's fueling business at the Las Cruces airport at about
> 6:45, after losing an hour to a time change (Mountain Standard to Mountain
> Daylight Savings). Thanks to Hal, we had a nice quiet secure place to
> sleep for the night.
>
> Got up early, hit the road and bypassed El Paso around the north and east
> side of town, again thanks to Hal for the suggested route. The bypass was
> great until the end where there was construction and a very poorly marked
> detour to get back on I-10 East. Stopped at a pit of a gas station, they
> didn't have regular, gassed up anyway with midgrade.
>
> The coach ran great the whole way on through our next gas stop (Ft
> Stockton) and in to San Angelo. We are staying at San Angelo State Park
> where we
> have 50 amp power and water at the site, with a dump station out the road
> a piece. We're having a nice visit with my daughter, our son in law, and
> their two children, one of whom we hadn't met in person yet (3 month old
> little grand daughter).
>
> I changed out the fuel pump the other morning and ran the Onan, with a
> load on it, while we drove over to the dump station this afternoon and it
> kept
> running, so I'm still pretty sure it was a bad fuel pump (a several year
> old Mr Gasket) that was the problem
>
> We'll be leaving here Thursday morning and taking a different route home
> including a visit to Guadalupe Mountains National Park.
>
> Oh, the road went from very good in stretches, to bad in others. The
> Texas DOT's way of dealing with bad paving seems to be to put up "Rough
> Road"
> signs every half mile or so. Between the rough roads and the crosswinds,
> driving was kind of a chore. I guess a little more front end work is in
> order, although I'm not sure it will help.
> --
> Carl Stouffer
> '75 ex Palm Beach
> Tucson, AZ.
>
> _______________________________________________
> GMCnet mailing list
> Unsubscribe or Change List Options:
> http://list.gmcnet.org/mailman/listinfo/gmclist_list.gmcnet.org
>
--
Michael Beaton
1977 Kingsley 26-11
1977 Eleganza II 26-3
Antigonish, NS
Life is too short to hold a grudge; slash some tires and call it even !
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| Re: Partial Trip Report [message #300945 is a reply to message #300676] |
Sat, 21 May 2016 20:52 |
Carl S.
Messages: 4186
Registered: January 2009
Location: Tucson, AZ.
Karma: 13
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Senior Member |
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Here's the rest of the story:
We had a great visit with our daughter, son in law, and the grand-kids in San Angelo. In spite of the rain, we got to a blues festival/car show in historic downtown, went to a water lily garden and the river walk, saw the Bison and Longhorns and did some hiking and fishing at the park, enjoyed some good barbecue, and generally had a good time.
I found several new leaks in the GMC, I suspect the clearance lights and maybe a roof seam. Should be easy to fix. I guess I need to finally install the clearance light gaskets I bought from Jim K a few years ago. It doesn't rain enough in Tucson for the leaks to show up, so they always surprise me when I am someplace where it rains a lot.
We left San Angelo State Park early Thursday morning, drove through the rain to Midland, Odessa, Pecos and on to Guadalupe Mountains National Park. It is a beautiful desert setting with lots of hiking opportunities at an elevation of about 5,000' plus. We did two hikes, one, 2.3 miles to Smith Spring, and another 4 hour, 7 mile hike on the El Capitan Trail (kind of a 'bear went over the mountain' deal). The RV "campground" is more like a big parking lot with large parking spaces lined out. We got in one of three pads off the corner of the main lot, and managed to get the coach almost level with the air bags. It is all dry camping with a nice restroom unit, but no showers. That's why we love having a self contained motorhome, 
We took off from there this morning at about 7:00 AM, local time, and drove the 110 miles to El Paso, where we took a wrong turn and ended up driving over the Woodrow Bean Trans-Mountain Parkway (down to 35 in second gear) to get back on I-10. Gassed up in Anthony, right on the NM line, and continued on west.
The deal of the trip was a 25 gallon fill-up at a Chevron station in San Simon, AZ where we used the Safeway card discount and got gas for $1.19/gallon! Gas averaged about $2.00 wherever we stopped with the least expensive being in San Angelo.
The coach ran like a top for the entire 1450 miles and the new fuel pump fixed the Onan. We ran it, with the roof air on, for the last 90 miles without issue. Arrived home at about 3:00 PM after several snack, pit, lunch, and gas stops.
We experienced the "West Texas wind" at it's finest and it followed us all the way home as a crosswind, unfortunately. The most exciting part was getting broadsided by a strong dust devil that felt like an impact on the side of the coach.
The whole trip, the GMC only used one quart of oil. Not bad for an original 455 with 96,800 miles on it and now overdue for an oil change by about 700 miles.
Carl Stouffer
'75 ex Palm Beach
Tucson, AZ.
Chuck Aulgur Reaction Arm Disc Brakes, Quadrabags, 3.70 LSD final drive, Lenzi knuckles/hubs, Dodge Truck 16" X 8" front wheels, Rear American Eagles, Solar battery charging. GMCSJ and GMCMI member
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