Pre-Thanksgiving Fiasco

Tuesday morning we woke up, made breakfast and headed out towards Sacramento to go and visit my “adopted sister” Dee and her husband Ron to spend Thanksgiving with them.  We headed up 395 until we hit Route 89, which goes over this pass.  It’s pretty steep.  We stopped at the juncture to have some lunch and then headed up towards the pass.  What we did not do, and should have done, was check the fluids in the truck…  (Insert foreboding music here)

Kevin turned on some music and we headed up to the pass.  About 2 miles up the truck started steaming… not a good sign.  We pulled over and there was a whining sound coming from under the hood.  We popped it open and heard the bubbling of coolant.  Uh oh.  Not good.  So we sat there and waited for the engine to cool down, put some fluids in the coolant reservoir and tried again.  Not less than a 10^th of a mile and the temperature was rising quickly.  Time to pull over again.  This time we waited longer and let the engine cool more.  Looked at it, poked at it cautiously and started it while stopped to see what would happen.  As we let it idle, we noticed that it was idling rather higher than usual.  1000 RPM’s instead of the usual 2 or 3 hundred.  Hmmmmm.  Then it started revving.  The engine started revving all by it self without either of us touching the gas pedal.  This was not a good sign.  We hung out and waited and then decided the best thing to do was to coast back down to the bottom of the hill and check in a the BLM fire station that was at the juncture where we’d had lunch not long before.  As we coasted down the hill keeping an eye on the temperature gage the engine continued to rev all on it’s own. 

We stopped in at the BLM fire station office and the gentleman inside let us know that the closest mechanic was about 13 miles away.  This seemed doable.  We called and there was no answer.  Well, the two day’s before Thanksgiving you’re not likely to find an open mechanic.  So the next place was in Gardnerville, about 30+ miles away in Nevada.  We called, got an answer, and headed off.  The engine seemed to continue to rev on it’s own when in neutral but was ok while in gear, but it started getting hot fast, so we found a good place to pull over, just over the border in Nevada and called a tow truck.  $187 later we were in Gardnerville at the mechanic.  We dropped off the truck and headed to a hotel for the night to shower and worry about the truck.

Next morning, the day before Thanksgiving, we called the mechanic and were told that Betty Truckasaurus was doing just fine.  Whew!  They told us that they put more coolant in the radiator, did a pressure check for leaks, and drove it around for 20 miles, and that it seemed fine.  We paid them $85 and headed off towards Sacramento with a stop in Lake Tahoe.  (Insert foreboding music here)

We made it up to South Lake Tahoe, parked in a recreation area and went to walk around by the lake, in snow.  We spent a good hour or so walking around and then started out of town towards Sacramento to spend our Thanksgiving with Dee and Ron.  Kevin had noticed when we were driving up to Tahoe that the truck hadn’t been responding with the normal power it usually did.  As we stopped at the “Y” to continue on 50 west away from Tahoe towards Sacramento the truck was a-shakin’ somethin’ fierce.  As we turned and drove down 50, coasting, the engine decided that it didn’t want to run anymore and shut off.  Yikes!  Thankfully there was a lovely gravel clearing that we were able to pull into.

We looked at the engine, poked at it, and made some phone calls.  We finally got in touch with a guy Ron had recommended and we met him at his garage, thankfully less than a mile away from where we had broken down.  The car started again, and as long as we were giving it gas, it wouldn’t stall, so we made it to “The Auto Shop”, a bright yellow building across the street from a campground on Melba Drive.

When we arrived at “The Auto Shop” an older man came out with a long white beard, long white hair and gnarled hands from working in the mechanic business for 30 years.  He felt around in the engine, hopped in, started the truck and revved the engine a bit and said, “Well, I could waste your time and money and do a deeper analysis, but I can tell you right now, you’ve blown a head gasket.”  He pulled out the oil dipstick and said, “Cream cheese.  Yup, you’ve got water in the engine.”  He told us that if the guy we took it to in Greenville had diagnosed it and replaced it, we’d have been ok, but since we’d driven on it, it was kaput.  He said, “I could do the head gasket for ya, replace it and spend $1,500 of your money, and in about 3,000 miles you’d have to replace the whole engine for another $3,800.” 

Wow.  What would you do?

We’d quit our jobs, packed up everything we owned and headed out on a grand adventure, and now we were in South Lake Tahoe, with snow on the ground and a dead, or mostly dead truck.  If we replaced the head gasket, we may or may not get to where we’re going; we may or may not break down in the middle of nowhere.  Not good.  If we replace the engine, we’re down $3,800 and the trip stops.  If we decide to scrap the truck and buy a new one, we’re still down 2-3 grand and the trip stops.  Kaput.  If we don’t fix it, we have $4,000 to play with, but no way to get anywhere, and no major asset to sell if we get in a bind.  The truck’s worth more alive than dead.

We called Dee.  She came and got us, and we went to her and Ron’s to stay and have Thanksgiving dinner the next day and try not to think about our truck for a day.

Thanksgiving was great, we went to Ron’s sister’s house and hung out with his sister and her husband and his parents and had lots of delicious food.  Stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans with walnuts, pie, wine, Euchre (a strange card game we learned how to play), and Trivial Persuit (we “won” sort of).

Friday was decision day.  Kevin found a rebuilt motor with 86,000 miles that would go in our truck for $850.  The Auto Shop guy told us that he’d charge $1500 to do the work, and we decided that the truck’s worth more with an engine in it than out of it, did some math and decided to fix the truck and just cut the trip a little shorter, 2-4 more months instead of 5-8.

So, we’ll be in Georgia in February instead of April, and we may not be able to take a trip to NH in January.  It just means that we probably won’t do all the things we wanted to, but we’ll still be able to do a lot of them.  It’s still a grand adventure, instead of a big bust.

We bought the engine, we picked it up, and it’s currently sitting in Dee and Ron’s trailer waiting to go to South Lake Tahoe on Monday. 

THANK YOU DEE AND RON!!!!

We’ll post more about the adventures that happened in between The Subway and now soon.  For now, know that we’re back on track and will be adventuring again soon.  Just not for as long.