SalemRover
02-19-2008, 10:21 AM
I thought I would share my experience this weekend with you folks. Most humbling rover weekend I have had.
First offroad event I made after the 5 door and engine conversion. My mechanical Karma seems to be as strong as the US dollar at the moment. The quick list of failures was, fan belt(on highway), 12v line to alternator and water gelling in the diesel fuel filter. The last took quite a while for me to figure out. It was quite and educational experience in Diesels having made the trek and camped with the rover at -15f in the back of Bruce's farm.
I should have known that karma was getting ancy on Thursday. I was replacing the rear u-bolts when the grinder kicked and sliced a brake line. I did not have a spare and had to have a custom one made that day. Topped up fluids, filled the tank and went off to pick up my nephew. When my friend Andy(94 D-90) and I hit 128 it became obvious that I forgot to open the radiator muff and pulled over briefly to open that up. 30 minutes down the road I noticed the charge light went on... immediately started thinking about the charging issue I had earlier and as soon as that crossed my mind the temp gauge started climbing rapidly. Pulled over immediately with a steam show going on under the hood from the broken fan belt. A quick measurement with some rope and Andy went down the road to Napa while I stayed with the vehicle. Called George at RDS who scrambled to find a measurement for me last minute, I do really appreciate his help he continues to give with my 2.5NAD. Traffic was fairly heavy... in a few hundred cars that went by only one person stopped to ask if everything was ok. 15 minutes later and the new belt was in and off we went. The travel up to Bruce’s was uneventful after that. We arrived around 4pm Friday, stopped to say hi and pitched camp and cooked steak. I knew going in that Friday night was going to hit 0deg. Fahrenheit and decided to keep the rover in the woods hoping that a jump start was all I would need in the morning. Well even with cables the truck would not start. A good friend who dragged my gas engine out after a -25f night and directly into a snowbank was there in the morning to re-visit this old tradition. A quick pull down the road and she fired up. From there we went out to Big G’s for breakfast and to warm up after such a cold night.
There were not many trails open this year and we teamed up with Jimmy Salmon for the moderately insane group. The snow was a couple inches of ice and bout 12-16 inches of powder underneath. Either side of the narrow trails was about 3 feet of snow and thin ice. Spent the morning pushing a range rover about 1/8th of a mile to the trail head we were supposed to go down. The trail head for the power line climb was not broken and our trail leader with a very well equipped D-90 only managed to break in about 40 feet. After assembling everyone at the trail head we decided to make a try down another section up the road. We proceeded back down one at a time so momentum would carry the lower vehicles along well. While I was waiting I turned the truck of for a second to find out my battery was close dead (nothing going to the alternator). Had to run the jumper cables out of the back to get a jump. Had enough juice to keep the fuel solenoid alive and head back to Bruce’s to figure out what had happened. 12v going to the alternator had failed. Jumped a wire quickly from the charge to the 12v in to make it a one wire as a quick fix. We headed back out to find our group to discover that everyone was getting hung up out there. By this time it was 2:30 or so and we decided to collect firewood for tonight. We tooled the trucks around Bruce’s yard (most fun we had all day) and prepped our wood supply. With the camp ready to go we all piled into the 109 to meet everyone for dinner and a few drinks. All was uneventful til the drive back. About 3 miles from the farm the truck died and would not start. Despite additive the fuel had gelled and the tank ran low enough to draw some water/fuel into the system. We hitched a ride from a neighbor of Bruce’s driving by, a nice older gentlemen replete with tatoo’s, Mohawk and a colorful vocabulary for diaper pushing minivan drivers. We thought it was just out of fuel and my fuel sender was not reading right. Tried to re-fuel and could not start it. We towed it back to Bruce’s garage with the Defender. Doing 30mph 15 feet behind a Defender was the absolute scariest part of the trip for me. Andy kept trying to talk to me on the CB but I was too scared to take my hand of the e-brake just in case. After a time some folks showed up and we spent a good while around the truck trying to prime the pump with atf, and making a variety of guesses as to the problem. Hung it up late and headed back into the cold for a few beers and a warm fire.
Sunday morning was pretty cold, negative teens or so. Leaving my warm sleeping bag was hard to do. Straight from camp we went into Bruce’s garage to warm up a bit and start troubleshooting. There was an outside possibility that the injector pump was gone and I might have to abandon the 109. This left a lump in my throat as my rover always got me home and forfeiting this comforting thought was a bit hard to take. Bruce gladly agreed to let the rover stay if it needed to. We tried a lot of things(read: fluids) to get her going. So much so I think we flooded it. So after a few hours of trying to get the starter to kick it over we decided to try and pull start it. Same Range Rover from yesterday and years ago dragged me yet again down the road in front of Bruce’s farm. She fired up at about 20-25mph and dropping into 3rd. A plume of atf fluid, diesel, wd-40 rose quite dramatically from the tail pipe. From there I drove back into the garage and one of the kind folks at the Romp, Quintin I believe picked up wd-40 and fuel filters for me. Such mundane things made me elated. From there we packed up camp and headed home uneventfully. I want to thank Bruce Fowler who let’s me break my rover every year up there, Matt Browne, Quintin, JL, for help with the Rover in the garage. Richard who never got tired of pulling me down the road. My friends who put up with me and my wife who was nothing but supportive even when told repairs could cost an arm and a leg and I would have to leave the Rover behind. It was quite a humbling and educational event for me. Different every year.
-Jason Wachtel
First offroad event I made after the 5 door and engine conversion. My mechanical Karma seems to be as strong as the US dollar at the moment. The quick list of failures was, fan belt(on highway), 12v line to alternator and water gelling in the diesel fuel filter. The last took quite a while for me to figure out. It was quite and educational experience in Diesels having made the trek and camped with the rover at -15f in the back of Bruce's farm.
I should have known that karma was getting ancy on Thursday. I was replacing the rear u-bolts when the grinder kicked and sliced a brake line. I did not have a spare and had to have a custom one made that day. Topped up fluids, filled the tank and went off to pick up my nephew. When my friend Andy(94 D-90) and I hit 128 it became obvious that I forgot to open the radiator muff and pulled over briefly to open that up. 30 minutes down the road I noticed the charge light went on... immediately started thinking about the charging issue I had earlier and as soon as that crossed my mind the temp gauge started climbing rapidly. Pulled over immediately with a steam show going on under the hood from the broken fan belt. A quick measurement with some rope and Andy went down the road to Napa while I stayed with the vehicle. Called George at RDS who scrambled to find a measurement for me last minute, I do really appreciate his help he continues to give with my 2.5NAD. Traffic was fairly heavy... in a few hundred cars that went by only one person stopped to ask if everything was ok. 15 minutes later and the new belt was in and off we went. The travel up to Bruce’s was uneventful after that. We arrived around 4pm Friday, stopped to say hi and pitched camp and cooked steak. I knew going in that Friday night was going to hit 0deg. Fahrenheit and decided to keep the rover in the woods hoping that a jump start was all I would need in the morning. Well even with cables the truck would not start. A good friend who dragged my gas engine out after a -25f night and directly into a snowbank was there in the morning to re-visit this old tradition. A quick pull down the road and she fired up. From there we went out to Big G’s for breakfast and to warm up after such a cold night.
There were not many trails open this year and we teamed up with Jimmy Salmon for the moderately insane group. The snow was a couple inches of ice and bout 12-16 inches of powder underneath. Either side of the narrow trails was about 3 feet of snow and thin ice. Spent the morning pushing a range rover about 1/8th of a mile to the trail head we were supposed to go down. The trail head for the power line climb was not broken and our trail leader with a very well equipped D-90 only managed to break in about 40 feet. After assembling everyone at the trail head we decided to make a try down another section up the road. We proceeded back down one at a time so momentum would carry the lower vehicles along well. While I was waiting I turned the truck of for a second to find out my battery was close dead (nothing going to the alternator). Had to run the jumper cables out of the back to get a jump. Had enough juice to keep the fuel solenoid alive and head back to Bruce’s to figure out what had happened. 12v going to the alternator had failed. Jumped a wire quickly from the charge to the 12v in to make it a one wire as a quick fix. We headed back out to find our group to discover that everyone was getting hung up out there. By this time it was 2:30 or so and we decided to collect firewood for tonight. We tooled the trucks around Bruce’s yard (most fun we had all day) and prepped our wood supply. With the camp ready to go we all piled into the 109 to meet everyone for dinner and a few drinks. All was uneventful til the drive back. About 3 miles from the farm the truck died and would not start. Despite additive the fuel had gelled and the tank ran low enough to draw some water/fuel into the system. We hitched a ride from a neighbor of Bruce’s driving by, a nice older gentlemen replete with tatoo’s, Mohawk and a colorful vocabulary for diaper pushing minivan drivers. We thought it was just out of fuel and my fuel sender was not reading right. Tried to re-fuel and could not start it. We towed it back to Bruce’s garage with the Defender. Doing 30mph 15 feet behind a Defender was the absolute scariest part of the trip for me. Andy kept trying to talk to me on the CB but I was too scared to take my hand of the e-brake just in case. After a time some folks showed up and we spent a good while around the truck trying to prime the pump with atf, and making a variety of guesses as to the problem. Hung it up late and headed back into the cold for a few beers and a warm fire.
Sunday morning was pretty cold, negative teens or so. Leaving my warm sleeping bag was hard to do. Straight from camp we went into Bruce’s garage to warm up a bit and start troubleshooting. There was an outside possibility that the injector pump was gone and I might have to abandon the 109. This left a lump in my throat as my rover always got me home and forfeiting this comforting thought was a bit hard to take. Bruce gladly agreed to let the rover stay if it needed to. We tried a lot of things(read: fluids) to get her going. So much so I think we flooded it. So after a few hours of trying to get the starter to kick it over we decided to try and pull start it. Same Range Rover from yesterday and years ago dragged me yet again down the road in front of Bruce’s farm. She fired up at about 20-25mph and dropping into 3rd. A plume of atf fluid, diesel, wd-40 rose quite dramatically from the tail pipe. From there I drove back into the garage and one of the kind folks at the Romp, Quintin I believe picked up wd-40 and fuel filters for me. Such mundane things made me elated. From there we packed up camp and headed home uneventfully. I want to thank Bruce Fowler who let’s me break my rover every year up there, Matt Browne, Quintin, JL, for help with the Rover in the garage. Richard who never got tired of pulling me down the road. My friends who put up with me and my wife who was nothing but supportive even when told repairs could cost an arm and a leg and I would have to leave the Rover behind. It was quite a humbling and educational event for me. Different every year.
-Jason Wachtel