| [GMCnet] Odd starting issue and tick this morning [message #300826] |
Thu, 19 May 2016 15:41  |
glwgmc
Messages: 1014
Registered: June 2004
Karma:
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Senior Member |
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Hi Sandra,
We are in Watson Lake, Yukon Territory right along the BC/Yukon border for an R&R day. I am guessing we are around mile 2000 on this trip. The weather has been very nice, quite warm in fact. The locals say this area can get over 100F in the summer time. We have not been bothered by the smoke from the big fire as the winds are blowing east for the most part and that fire is quite a ways east and north of us. We did get into quite a bit of smoke from a smaller local fire a couple of days ago but drove out of that without issue.
Getting into the Yukon we are finally into terrain that is more what we expected - mountains, lakes, rivers and mud. Prior to this we have been mostly in the flat to the east of the Rocky Mtns. We passed the highest point on the Alaska Highway yesterday at 4200 feet so we are not nearly as high as we thought we would be, but we have been in lots of steep up and down grades. 9 percent is not uncommon. Oh, and did I mention mud?
The coach was the dirtiest we have ever seen it when we rolled into Watson Lake yesterday afternoon. Fortunately the RV park here has a designated coach washing station with coin op pressure washer, buckets and brushes so you just add your own soap and wash away to your hearts content. There is a high calcium content to the mud so it takes a lot of scrubbing to get it off. Rinsing alone is not enough no matter how much pressure is available.
The coach is running like a champ. The strong S&J engine with Patterson carb and distr mated to 3.67 gearing rarely needs to be downshifted to go up hills, only to go down them. I keep the vacuum above 4” so never at WOT but the coach just pulls these grades with no sweat and never overheats or feels strained.
I did come across a machine shop owner here in Watson Lake who used to dirt track race an Olds Toro (not successfully said he, FWD just doensn’t cut it there) so was very familiar with the drive train. He said the same thing one of our respected engine gurus said about the broken piece of the dip stick. That is will just sit in the pan and do no harm so deal with it when you get home. That is what we will do.
For whatever reason the rich running at cold start seems to have abated. There no longer is any of the dark exhaust at start up or any other time of the day. I don’t know if sitting for as long as it did before this trip (last long trip in this coach was Feb) might have led to a power enrichment valve not closing properly and now is, or the carb bowl plugs leaked but now don’t, or what. But, it runs great and really does like this non ethanol gas available at Petro Canada and a few other brands. I have not needed to add the ethanol conditioner since going into the Banff and Jasper national parks. I don’t know what will be available once we enter Alaska.
So far, so good. This coach has been all the way from Mexico several times to now Alaska and from the Pacific to the Atlantic when we circumnavigated the Maritime Provences in eastern Canada for our 50th wedding anniversary a few years ago. On this trip we will celebrate 56 years. The Royale has always been a joy for long distance travel (except when we lost an engine on the way to Mexico a few years ago), but that is a different story!
Jerry
Jerry & Sharon Work
Kerby, OR
glwork@mac.com
http://jerrywork.com
78 Royale with most everything done to modernize a GMC mechanically
77/94 Clasco bone stock (now with FiTech EFI) and looks like it just left the Clasco facility
Both drive equally as well.
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Message: 9
Date: Thu, 19 May 2016 10:47:21 -0700
From: Sandra Price
To: gmclist@list.gmcnet.org
Subject: Re: [GMCnet] Odd starting issue and tick this morning
Message-ID:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Jerry, where are you now? Wondering if you are seeing any effects from the
fires in Alberta.
Sandra
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Jerry & Sharon Work
78 Royale
Kerby, OR
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