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My GMC at Home
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October 2003 Travels In the process of getting ready for a long overdue trip south. It's not a long journey but at least it's a journey. Final destination will be Circus Circus, Las Vegas to attend the SEMA automotive show at the LV Convention Center with visits to a few customers en-route. Planned route is I-5/99 to Bakersfield and then over the hump via Barstow to the pavement of the Circus Circus RV Park.
As part of the getting ready I'm starting this page today (October 16th) in the hope that I can keep it updated as I go, or rather anytime I can get an Internet connection. I hope to make use of some of the WiFi hotspots that are becoming more and more readily available. Not sure what or even if I'll have anything to say but I thought I'd get this page started, just in case. I hope to be traveling with an Apple iSight camera running continuously and if/when I encounter something worth reporting I hope to be able to post pictures/clips here. If it looks like we might cross paths, email me and lets see if me can't get together for a coffee or beer. This page was last updated on: Friday November 14, 2003 11:21 AM Monday, Oct 20 - PM: Horses are hitched, or rather the Yamaha is loaded and almost ready to roll 17:00: Groceries restocked in Blaine. Rain (downpour) stopped too. I'll take it as a good sign and make a few more miles. Tuesday, October 21 - AM: Well, it's 6:45 AM and I'm in Portland or rather Wilsonville, waiting for Camping World to open. I had originally planned to stop in Tacoma (Flying J) last night but as I wasn't quite sure where it was and the rain was miserable enough that it didn't really favor to go sightseeing in the dark so I just kept going. As I left Blaine in late afternoon, by the time I got to Seattle the traffic was almost normal... Seattle normal that is :-) Latched on to a Trucker that was driving with common sense in place and just followed him through Seattle and Tacoma. Rain eased up around Olympia and I called it quits at the Rest Area near Chehalis. Woke up at 3 and figured it was a good time to go as that would put me south of Portland before the morning rush. As it was early I figured I'd go straight through on I-5 instead of 205. That almost turned into a big mistake as traffic crunched to a halt coming down the hill on the Vancouver side. Turned out to be only a bridge lift so while it didn't take too long it did bunch up traffic into a mini rush hour of it's own. Fifty miles north of Portland it dried up and made it a pleasure to drive. One deer on the side of the road. Brought back bad memories... ran over a fresh carcass one dark night (pre-GMC). What a mess. I keep wondering if the deer horns actually work. I used to have them on, but as they fell off I didn't replace them. Instead I try and keep night driving to a minimum these days. Hit Camping World when they opened the doors. Got out of there cheapest ever, 80 bucks and that included the Presidents Club for another year. Wasn't that lucky at Fry's :-) Tuesday, October 21 - PM: Departed Portland noonish with Medford as destination for the day. Cresting one of the smaller (compared to Ashland) hills I lost fuel pressure and a stall would be imminent. As I was coming up over the top and eased on the throttle it recovered. This time I was reasonably full of fuel so fuel slosh uncovering intake was discarded. Instead I went on to consider fuel starvation at high power setting. I didn't make it to Medford. Stopped at Wal-Mart in Grants Pass instead. My plan was now to start up the Ashland hill with a new gas cap and a new fuel filter. Bought a new gas cap in Grants Pass but no luck on the fuel filter. My fuel filter is a twist-on add-on re my EFI so would be easy to change once I got one. Installed the gas cap right away so that I'd be able to check for vacuum woosh on removal in Medford. Wednesday, October 22 - AM: Slept in... didn't get up until five this morning. Noticed a Gent in the next row over sitting in his lawn chair next to a nice older model hardtop enjoying his AM/PM coffee. During my walk-around he came over to admire the coach. Turned out he was a retired tool and die man that used to work on missiles, etc. His current occupation was minister and for the last year and a half he had been living in the hard top. The Lord does work in mysterious ways. I did not ask his denomination but bid him farewell and made for Medford and a NAPA store. I already knew where that was as I've made purchase there every now an then during my I-5 travels. Got to the NAPA store before it was officially open but the guys were already there so I got my filter, installed it and scooted southward after topping off the tanks. The plan was to stop at the rest area just south of Medford to make coffee and have a danish, bear claw actually. That plan went to h... as the rest area was closed. Ok, we'll get off the next exit that sports a McDonald or Burger King and we'll do a fast-food breaky. That plan went off the rails too as a my eyes and signage weren't completely in sync and I went left instead of right. That's when I decided to just get back on the freeway and head over the hill on an empty tummy. Thanks to GPS I paralleled I-5 for a bit and rejoined it at the next exit. (I hate back tracking :-). Trip over the top was uneventful and I had a late breakfast at the Viewpoint just north of Yreka. I usually don't pull into viewpoints on a downhill run but made an exception. Had the whole viewpoint to myself. Bear Claw and milk and on our way again. Didn't even shut the motor off. The 'we' on this trip refers to the GMC and myself as Louise has had her fill of parking lot RV'ing and decided to stay home. In case you're wondering re leaving the motor running... If I'm only stopping for 5-10 minutes and don't leave the coach, GMC stays running. In my (and only mine) opinion it makes for more stable temps as there is no heat rise due to soak etc. One less catch up cycle for alternator and batteries as juice keeps flowing. As I said, just what I do. Just as I rarely move the GMC until temps are up and oil pressure normal instead of artificially high due to oil being cold. Perhaps this stems from my time in the North. I can still recall heating a quart of oil on the stove to add to my 6cyl '59 Chevy before starting the engine with the rear wheels jacked up off the ground before starting the engine at 65 below. After start we ran if with wheels up until everything was warmed up a bit. Went to town and never shut it off until we got back home. Kind of extreme but it worked. Of course that was after catching cabin fever during a 3 week 65 below spell... and we were still developing experiences. Of course we're still developing experiences but no longer at 65 below, at least not intentionally :-)) Got to Redding at noon and stopped at my regular parking lot, Long's Drugstore and K-Mart except that Long's was no longer, it was a 99cent store instead. Too bad, used to like browsing at Long's, usually found some 'neat' stuff to clutter up the GMC with. Stopped at the Willows rest area to shower and empty holding tank. It's easy to get water but not so easy to get rid of it so more planning goes into emptying than filling. Thanks to a nicely uneventful trip thus far I arrived in Sacramento early. It's nice not to have to use trip interruption allowances. Another pleasant surprise was that I-5 condition has improved since the last time I made the trip. Quite a bit of resurfacing had been done. I still travel without cruise control so occasionally I found myself creeping up to the 63mpg threshold speed where some vibration from the rear is introduced. I'm suspecting my front right rear badly out of alignment. Have been putting up with it for quite a while as I wanted to be sure that chance of correction was good, I.e. find the right place. Hopefully I have found it in San Jose. Will find out next week as I have an alignment scheduled for Thursday. In case you're wondering why I've put up with it for so long, I like traveling at 55-60 so in a way it acts like a "hey, you're going faster than you want to" alarm. Got to Sacramento in time to get power and WiFi so all is well. Monday/Tuesday it'll be on to Stockton. Hope to have some pictures and clips posted over the weekend so be sure to come back. Tuesday, October 28 - AM: Sorry, didn't make it re posting clips. Moved on to Stockton yesterday afternoon. Currently parked across from the Port of Stockton. Not as quiet as it used to be in years past. Wednesday, October 29 - AM: Still in Stockton put managed to get a clip together. To view the screen of my PC during the Ashland climb click here. You may need a fast connection. Feedback as to connection used and how it was would be appreciated. You may need to view it full screen. It was captured 1024x768. Some readings to disregard on the Engine Monitor: Manifold Pressure and Oil Pressure. A couple of readings I don't use: Miles to Go and probably a few other ones :-) Wednesday, October 29 - PM: Off to San Jose for rear wheel alignment. Got in early enough to go by the shop to get my bearings as to where to go. Headed up to Manny's for the night. Took the coach to the shop before traffic got bad. Manny was kind and picked me up so that I wasn't in Marty's hair all day long. Gave me an opportunity for a closer look at Manny Transmission too. Thursday, Oct 30 - AM: It's rear alignment day in San Jose.
Friday, Oct 31 - early AM: Still awaiting completion of the rear alignment. Only doing the rear as front-end is scheduled after I get back home. Going to replace A-frame bushings. Not critical but it's time. It was real close getting it back on the road yesterday but after it was all together for a final check, camber was out on one wheel. Possible caused by the plastic spacer used on my rig compressing more than a metal one would. (Just my babble observation :-). While the jury is still out on success of the rear alignment I'm very optimistic as Marty and crew certainly project knowledge, which includes the GMC. I'm being cautious with praise at the moment as I don't want to jinks my optimism :-) My paranoia category spares set paid off yesterday as we were able to replace a failed Bilstein and more importantly a rear bearing. Seems that somewhere/sometime/somehow I got some water into the right rear as it showed a little rusty/dirty grease. It was worse though... take a look.
A comment made was that the bearings seemed tight. I 'fessed up did those myself following the instructions on the Timken Website. That brought out the comment: ....and they are in the business of selling bearings. Some food for thought. I thing I'll go back to how I was taught: tighten, turn, back off to first cotterpin hole. Rather than water/moisture getting into the bearing from outside it might very well be an act of condensation and lack of use. It's possible that the brakes weren't hot enough to dry out completely and condensation pooled. This is just babble but perhaps a possibility. The left showed same symptom but not as advanced. Thankfully I carried two sets of bearing stuff in my spares kit so no delay. I guess I'll be carrying four in the future. Wheels were also re-balanced. All were out, I imagine due to the alignment being out every which way. I can hardly wait to get back on the Freeway. Actually, I hope to get the tires tru'd and then rebalanced but the trick is going to be to find someone that does it.
More food for thought, courtesy of Manny, will cause me take out my external tranny filter. It was very enlightening to see all the bits and pieces of the tranny in various stages of being cleaned and assembled, etc. Manny's willingness to show and explain went a long way towards taking some of the mystery out of the Transmission. Thank you Manny. Friday, Oct 31 - PM: Had to hustle to get out of Dodge (San Jose) before rush hour. Up the hill to Manny's to load Yamaha and off we (Rig and I) went. South to Garlic City (Gilroy) and east on 152. Traffic got snarled up where 152 joins 156, or vica versa. Slow, slow going for a few miles. Once I got on to I-5 I was finally able to evaluate whether 2 days spent in San Jose were worth the effort. YES. This may sound stupid but it just felt better. Perhaps the placebo effect but I don't care. I still have a little un-smooth at 65+ but I attribute that to the messed up set of tires that have only been corrected by lots of weights. If I can get the tru'd I expect I'll salvage the tires but if not a new set is going on when I get home. Got into Bakersfield early enough to get a good (an excellent) meal at the Hungry Hunter and to get WiFi connected. What more can one ask for. Lots... but not in the same spirit. I.e. Tucked away with power and online., that'll do for the night. Thursday, November 6th - Eve: Time to try for a little catch-up. Also a topic of discussion was my Caspro steering damper. I use the term loosely as it's more of a centering device. Marty's recommendation was to remove it once I got home. I decided not to wait so I did a little Rest Area wrenching in the Mojave Desert to remove it. My main reason for doing it then was to be in a position to better compare behavior with and without. The verdict? It's staying off. I'll have to have another go at reinstalling the OEM damper, which I was told is a true damper, without springs, etc. Trip to 'Vegas went well. Got there 10 minutes after guaranteed arrival time and I was cancelled out already. Durn computers anyhoo. Reservation got salvaged though and I was tucked in by Sunday afternoon. Got good use out of the Yamaha, did all my travels in with it. Sure a lot easier to park. Got a day of Internet via a DataStorm/DirecTV. The coach with the system was about 300 feet away and I was able to WiFi, but marginal. Did some direct browsing at the coach with the Setup and wasn't overly impressed. Might've been my imagination. The 300 feet of WiFi was marginal, but it did work. Am I going to run out an buy one? Not just yet... need some more convincing first. I'm still hoping that Telus and Verizon get their act together and allow roaming on the X1 system. Got by with my CDPD modem when I wasn't able to get direct Internet so I'm getting by. Left Las Vegas Wednesday afternoon after the obligatory stop at Fry's. Had supper at Peggy Sue's 50's Restaurant just north of Barstow. It was excellent. A real step back in time. Called it quits for the night at the Rest Area near Mojave. Got up early to get to Lamont for my tire tru'ing appointment. I guess I arrived with sleep in my eyes as I had one heck of a time to find the place even though it was right on Main Street.
Back to my bags on Auto or Hold dilemma. I can't say that I like the pump running frequently and I have to wonder just how effective it really is. By the time the bag catches up to any new setting I have to wonder just how much it has changed already. I don't think my rig likes riding on Auto. It told me so by throwing away the connection piece from air valve to bogie. Back to running with airbags on Hold. Guess I better install my remote gauges when I get home, maybe then I'll try Auto again. Time for a nap. Friday, November 14th: Got back home yesterday. I'll elaborate a little more later... have to get back into the home groove first.
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