b to b2

       Well to continue  on with the story of the truck change and having just found a camping site. we being myself and the camp owner decided we were going to take the truck to the local repair shop. i am not going to mention the name of the shop and only that they couldn't take it right away but instead it would have to wait for Monday. so it was Thursday at this point and so i waited till monday and took the truck in and waited for them to check it out. 

       They seemed to think it was a speed sensor and there preliminary guess was right . the problem was it also melted a nylon bushing on the main tailshaft that the speed sensor rides in and gives you your odometer speed by which you judge how fast you are going. and that all these little pieces parts about a good handfull was floating around inside a a supposedly wet transmission. 

      But there and again was the problem that the tail shaft assembly was dry despite having a fill plug that was never checked although i had a local garage with a reputable business insist that they did check all relative fluid levels. it makes no difference as it could just as easily been a tailshaft seal that went bad from the truck sitting all those years. this is why you should not let a vehicle sit for more than a month at a time. you need to keep all these seals moistened. the problem is getting it fixed. They put the truck back together and put transmission fluid in dry tail shaft area and let me drive the truck home till they had the time to pull the tail shaft completely off which required removing the emergency brake cluster. They said this will be at least a two day , maybe longer job and wanted me to leave the truck. well being that far away from home and having nothing to get around in was a real pain in the butt. so i rented a pickup from enterprise car rental . This allowed me to freely visit the surrounding area, go to hospital in the event i need to., and all those fun things we take for granted. 

       Well i dropped off the truck and then went about visiting and didnt bother them for that whole day as they were going to remove the tail shaft assembly to see the extent of the damage and replace all necessary parts. And again the second day i heard nothing but i did stop by their business to see the progress that was being made. although the tail shaft was designed to be taken apart, the mechanic was having trouble separating the one part from the rest of the transmission and was afraid he would break something. He was frazzled by the whole thing and suggested i take it to a regular transmission repair shop where undoubtedly they would face d the situation before. so they put it back together and don the property owner where i parked my trailer took the truck another 30 miles to another repair shop. 

     Don had expressed interest in buying the truck because his son was a commercial welder and the truck was set up for welding. i was just going to play with the welder, and i had it in my mind that if a situation like this came up , that the welder would be a good point for resale, This whole transmission repair was throwing some serious wrenches in my travel agenda. Don jumped at the chance when i suggested to him a price for all welding related equipment. for me to sell all this welding equipment and buy a truck was going to lighten my load considerably , considering that gas prices took a hike the day i took off and have been steadily climbing. the welder was part of my generator for any off grid camping i was going to do. But in the end to me it was a chance to get back on the road and in better comfort with a lot more fuel efficient vehicle.

       Don and I took the old truck to the repair shop where i assume it still sits today because the guy was dragging his feet to get it in. Then we took my rental vehicle and went truck shopping , and finally found a decent deal in the f150 I have now. If I had not made the decision to sell the truck , i would hardly be as far as i am today on my journey. 

Back to Bloggin

     

Back To Bloggin

 It literally has been over a year since I blogged , and really i have no excuse for my absence, outside of pure lack of drive. i have had things to say, but just lacked the wear with all to sit down and force myself to type. a lot has happened since the last time i blogged. we sold the farms and I am still in the process of moving.   

     Though i moved out of the farm , I am still moving, now from one place to another and trying to accustom myself to developing a comfortableness to my travels. Having a cold hasn't helped along with troubles of a mechanical nature that was associated with my choice of the first truck. also I am still getting used to the camper and finding out what works and what doesn't. 

      Currently I'm in Clovis,N.Mex. and in  a nice reasonably priced RV  trailer park for the next two days. iI started from home and made it to the southern edge of Kentucky before having any problems with the truck. Getting ready to leave and packing up years of stuff at the house where i was on the farm was a different story at some point i will go into more thoroughly. but as i was coming into Williamsburg , Kentucky I noticed the speedometer wasn't working right and that the truck wasn't shifting right. Also I noticed an odor of burnt oil ,although the oil pressure was still good in the engine , i had no clue what was going on with the transmission. my first thought was to find a place to do the basic checks i need to give me a better idea. there was a truck stop and a Walmart parking lot which is an RV'ers best friend when travelling. 

        I filled the truck with gas and checked the engine and transmission oil and both looked normal. I grabbed a bite to eat, and ran into an apparent resident of the Pilot truck stop I was at and I talked to him about his traveling woes, apparently he was at the end of the line with his RV. he still thinks he can get it to run but from the sounds of it he had been holed up in the Pilot truck stop for awhile. a few minutes talking to him , made me want to make sure that his fate wasn't going to happen to me. I decided to head next door to the Walmart parking lot in case I couldn't find a campsite for the night. also i climbed under the truck and didnt notice anything suspicious as to what may be going on , but I just needed a spot that was open and not much traffic to safely really inspect the truck and transmission. Walmart parking lot offered that to me. Also i needed time to find a campsite. 

        Although i still found nothing wrong with the transmission and it was still shifting though making a noise but nothing that sounded serious. I found a campground online that seemed like a good place to be , not too far out of town and the owner answered and told me had several sites available. So i just headed out to his place. the route was twisting and strangled at times as it curved around the mountains while dragging the trailer , but the truck , though shifting hard was going through the motions and never once let me believe that it was going to strand me alongside the road. My hope was to find a a place to park the trailer for awhile till i could trouble shoot the problems with the truck. one of the reasons i chose a fifth wheel trailer over a bumper pull trailer, is that if i wanted to leave it someplace , it is much harder to steal a fifth wheel trailer as it does a a bumper pull. also the weight is centered over the rear wheel and that increases the traction on the truck and eliminates sway. it is also more maneuverable. 

       Anyhow i made it to the campgrounds and was able to get set up. after talking to the owner of the campground i felt that I may have came to the right place as he seemed knowledgeable about where to get it fixed and it was a relief that i wouldn't have to drag the trailer to a repair shop or live out of it at the repair shop. I had no water onboard except bottled water because when i left Ohio it was still freezing daily. my next blog will go into my trials and tribulations with the truck from that point.