Our Crazy Road Trip: Day 18

Departure Time:11:00 am
Odometer:11,458
Destination: We can’t quite remember with the shock of the day’s events. But, we ended up in Lake Shasta, CA
Miles Travelled Today: 177
Miles Travelled to Date: 2,822

And now, Daddo takes the reins to bring you today’s blog. Take it away, Daddo!:

For those who are not technically inclined and/or don’t care about car stuff, I will just tell you that the truck broke pretty bad and we spent the better part of the afternoon @ Steph’s stepdad, Doug’s, house fixing it. Now you can move on to the next post…

For those who do care, here is a brief summary. The Rover had been making a weird noise for a while, and it had been getting worse. I couldn’t really figure out where it was coming from and we had to keep on trucking, so what could I do? I thought it was an axle, or the front 3rd member or something, but no real clues. I was starting to get a bit worried that we might have some kind of issue with something locking up at speed, which would not be good. When we got off the freeway in Yreka, I could hear some noise coming from the Rover, which is 36 feet behind me and AFTER a diesel engine. So that was not a good sign. We pulled over to check it out, not good. Imagine what happens when something in the driveline stops spinning at 65 miles an hour while being pulled by a 33,000 pound motorhome with 1,000 pounds of torque. It broke everything. I poked my head underneath and here are the parts that were NOT present any longer:

Front half of driveshaft
Driveshaft yoke
Front 3rd member yoke
Transmission pan and about half the guts

It basically looked like a bomb went off underneath. The front pinion shaft was completely crooked in the housing like it is broken off inside.

I was preparing to pull it all apart and make it roll freely but when I called my trusty mechanic friend Eric, he suggested going to U-Haul and getting a dolly and calling it good. This sounded like a great idea, so we headed to Doug’s house for some moral support and a ride to U-Haul. The only problem is that apparently a Rover is too heavy for ANY of their towing equipment. This coupled with the fact that their database had no motorhomes in it made this a non-starter.

“Your motorhome must be made by someone.”
“Yes, Gulfstream”
“No, who is the manufacturer.”
“Gulfstream”
“No, who makes it? It must be made by someone. Ford, Chevy, etc”
“Yes, Gulfstream”
You get the picture.

So, back to plan A. We dragged it back to Doug’s with his truck and proceeded to tear it apart. A few calls to Eric and several hours later, we pulled both front axels, split the CVs, re-installed the drive flanges so the front would roll freely. Tied up what was left of the front drive shaft with some wire, removed the rear driveshaft and pried off the rest of the tranny guts that were hanging down. Viola! Back in business.

We took Doug to dinner at the local Mexican food place, and headed on down the road to Shasta. Steph and I both stayed up all night worrying some pour sap got hit by some of our debris, so the next morning I called the Oregon State Police and the CHP to make sure they were not looking for us. So far, so good. The good news is that I have a spare transmission and I wanted to buy a new front driveshaft anyway. The front 3rd member is kind of a bummer, but if it is what caused everything I am sure the Rover guy will take care of us. If it wasn’t the cause, the Rover will be sitting again for a while until work picks back up. We are going to take it to the shop when we get back and do our best CSI impression to figure out what happened, but not before a trip to the coin operated car wash to de-slime the whole thing since it is COVERED in transmission fluid!

Waking up to a brand new day: Fifi snuggles with Rainbow and the stuffed animals while Madeline is busy looking angelic.

Fiona has a thing for chocolate flavored yogurt. She calls it "bwown yoduht," and likes to eat it, "mah own sewf."

Our camp site in Grants Pass. That's the Rogue River behind us.

We're back in Cali, baby!

We stopped in Yreka to see the house I lived in for about half of my 7th grade year before we got too cold and moved back to So. Cal.

The autopsy photos. Wait, it's not an autopsy; the Rover is just sleeping until we can get the right parts to fix it. I hope we don't end up having to send it to live on a nice farm somewhere.

Doug and the kiddos

Two very tired sisters signing off