| [GMCnet] How I spent my summer vacation for 2016 - so far! [message #300962] |
Sun, 22 May 2016 11:44  |
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USAussie
Messages: 15912
Registered: July 2007
Location: Sydney, Australia
Karma:
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Senior Member |
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G'day,
WARNING - This is a LONG message!
Well it's Sunday and I thought with so many others documenting their trips I thought I'd document this year's trip to the USA - so
far.
I was scheduled to fly from Sydney to Houston on Wednesday, March 16th but as reported earlier I decided to "rework" my left index
finger on a table saw which forced me to delay the flight until Sunday, March 20th.
Along with the finger my right hip had started playing up in early March, got X-rayed and MRI'd and the Doc felt it was due to
inflammation of the joint and scheduled me for a cortisone injection. That seemed to work for awhile but by the time I got to the
USA it was bothering me again.
Flew up to Chuck Boyd's on Wednesday, March 23rd to help him work on the Kingsley but in fact between the finger and the hip I was
really useless. I chased parts and bought up lunches. Jerry Sitzlar came over and helped as well.
At any rate they went through the brake system and a bunch of other stuff and the Kingsley was good to go so on Thursday, April 7th
I set out for Dothan. I made it 339 out of the 423 miles from Knoxville to Dothan when the fuel pressure to the fuel injected Caddy
500 began to fluctuate. It finally dropped to 20 PSI and the engine shut down. I coasted down the hill and 3/4's of the way up the
hill in an effort to get to a turn off. Unfortunately I didn't make it. I had to lay on the road side to trouble shoot the problem
as semi's roared by which made me very nervous. At any rate it turned out that the fuel pump was DOA.
I called John Sharpe to let him know that I wouldn't make it to Dothan that day as he was going to be staying with me in the
Kingsley. Called it a day and went to bed, however, I quickly discovered that falling asleep with semi's roaring past wasn't going
to work. Then I remembered I had a pair of ear plugs in my travel kit. Once I popped them in I couldn't hear a thing and got rocked
to sleep by the semis as they went by.
The next morning John called to tell me he had driven up to where I was and pounded on the door around 11:00 pm but couldn't wake me
up. He came down to where I was and verified my findings; it was the Bosch electric fuel pump. Turned out that had I made it to the
turn off I would have been on a side road 100 yards from an RV repair facility! We headed to Napa to order a new pump and spent a
good 20 minutes there but the guy couldn't find it on their system, aw S#!T! Next part store was O'Reilly's where we found a parts
lady that was switched on, took her about 2 minutes to find it so we put it on order. When we picked up the replacement pump the
next day it was the exact same Bosch pump! I remarked to John that we needed to keep the old pump because the new pump didn't have
the nuts for the electrical connections. Five minutes later I handed the counterman the old pump and asked him to toss it. Needless
to say when I started to install the new pump I realized that dumb ass (me) had given away the nuts! We got back to the Kingsley and
the RV repair facility towed it up to the side road and parked it in front of their shop where we could change the pump without
having to worry about getting run over! We installed the pump using wire and tie wraps to hold the connections on. Fired it up off
I went with john behind me in the HHR to make sure there were no leaks.
I rolled into the Peanut festival grounds without further incident while John went to the O'Reilly's to get the nuts off the old
pump. We had great time at the GMCMI Convention. We had a gathering for Helen and Byron Songer said a few words and I spread some of
Helen's ashes to the wind. I have a number of vials that I am carrying with me that I will be spreading as I make stops along the
way; that way Helen's still with me (in spirit).
John Richardson had a beautiful like new pair of Flexsteel seats which I bought from him and installed at the rally, they sure were
much more comfortable than the OEM seats!
The Kingsley continued to drive quite well and we stopped at the French Quarter RV Resort in downtown New Orleans for the night,
went down to Bourbon Street, had a nice meal, and took in the "sights." Headed for Huffman, TX the next mornin' and everything went
OK until we got to Beaumont, Texas. John was driving and we were stopped in the left lane at a stoplight. He noted "we're blowing a
lot of white smoke down the side." I turned to look out the drivers side window when we heard; "HEY YOU'RE ON FIRE!!!! John looked
left and right quickly and since no cross traffic was coming he ran the light and pulled into a lay by on the left. I handed him one
of the AFFF fire extinguishers I carry and he got out of the Kingsley, around the front, and had extinguished the fire except for a
small flame to the left of the distributor. I opened the hatch and put it out with the extinguisher. WHEW! John's quick thinking and
"reflexes" saved the coach! The fire department and police showed up as someone must have called 911. The fireman wanted to confirm
that the fire was out (it was) then noted that we were lucky to have the AFFF fire extinguishers as the dry powder will put the
fire out but they leave a real mess behind!
I called Progressive to have us towed but as a lot of others have discovered I wasn't happy with their service, we were only 58
miles from the storage facility I wanted it towed there. I was told that my policy included towing to the closest qualified shop or
15 miles. I told their dispatcher that I would pay the difference and advised it was a GMC front wheel drive motor home that weighed
12,000 lbs and had to be towed with the front wheels off the ground so the tow truck had to be able to lift 5000 lbs (to be safe).
After what seemed twice forever the towing company called and asked how long the GMC was and when I told him 26 feet he said he
couldn't tow it! By that time John had investigated the problem and found that someone had installed a transmission cooler hung
from the cruise control cable with a couple of tie wraps with the hoses located in close proximity to the exhaust manifold and over
time they had baked, cracked and trans fluid sprayed on the manifold. John disconnected one end of the cooler and connected it to
the other line taking the cooler out of the loop. The police escorted us to a parking lot up the road a bit where we hooked the HHR
to the tow bar and off we went.
We monitored the trans tamp and it never got above 260° F for the rest of the trip and rolled into the storage facility with a sigh
of relief!
Regards,
Rob M.
USAussie - Downunder
AUS '75 Avion - The Blue Streak TZE365V100428
USA '75 Avion - Double Trouble TZE365V100426
USA '77 Kingsley - No Name Yet
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Regards,
Rob M. (USAussie)
The Pedantic Mechanic
Sydney, Australia
'75 Avion - AUS - The Blue Streak TZE365V100428
'75 Avion - USA - Double Trouble TZE365V100426
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