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| Alternator Barbeque | Short Cuts | ||||
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By: George Reiswig - 7/2002
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| We could smell burning rubber -- even past the diesel. A quick look... |
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| ...led to a closer look... |
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| ... then breaking out the ladder and getting SERIOUS. |
Okay... the last couple of days have pretty much sucked. The morning after our first camp, we started back down the trail and smelled burning rubber. Reasoning that it couldn't possibly be our tires, we chose to continue, but I kept an eye on things. Soon our engine began to overheat. It turns out that the rubber smell was our alternator belt departing this world in a rather spectacular way. (4x4Wire's Randy Burleson had asked for an electrical failure so that we could write about the fact that this diesel engine will run without the alternator.) No problem, except that the same belt drives the water pump. A bit of investigation revealed that the alternator had, at some point, gotten REALLY hot. Hot enough to make the threads of the main bolt go blue. That s not particularly good for the belt.
We limped in to Auburn, Washington, and called Jan Gremillion from Premier Power Welder. The next day, they had sent us a freshly rebuilt alternator. So down to the local NAPA store to install it. (thus ensuring a ready supply of belts and other miscellaneous parts) Unfortunately, the new alternator differed from the old one in the width of the saddle mount and in the pulley diameter, so we had to swap some parts.
After removing the old alternator, it was evident exactly how hot things had gotten; the wiring on the back of the alternator had the insulation largely melted off. Nevertheless, by day's end we had the new alternator in, and the engine fired up. But a quick check with a multimeter revealed another problem: our Hellroaring Technologies isolator/combiners didn't seem to be allowing charge to get to our backup batteries. More phone calls, and another night in a hotel in Auburn.
But, as I was saying, Day 4. Today we're back on the road. Mike Hines from Hellroaring Technologies is rushing new units to Fred Fitzgearld back in Oregon, and he'll bring those up with him. In the meantime, we are dependent on our main batteries for everything. But the alternator seems to be running very cool, and all is in order. I think we'll be okay until the Fitzgearlds join us.
| Answers to Frequently Asked Questions |
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More slow going on the road today. It is truly disconcerting to be driving along on a highway and to be passed uphill by a VW microbus. A red one, to be sure, but a VW nonetheless. At times, it feels like butterflies are passing us. But there's a wind, you know.
So here we are, three miles from the Canada/USA border. We've heard of a couple of large drug busts in trucks crossing the border. Our hope is that the border patrol folks have sniffer dogs, for a fast inspection, without making us unpack everything. Even so, it feels good to be moving again. Nothing against the fine folks at NAPA, but their parking lot just isn t a great place to spend a vacation.
We are quickly getting weary of answering the same questions from everyone we meet. The effect of the gawks and stares of people on the road as they spy our Unimog is surpassed only by the questions that we get when we aren't moving. In preparation for that eventuality, I had prepared a set of FAQs, if you will, to hand to people. I then made 50 copies. I ll need more, I suspect....
So there ya go. The end of the fourth day on the road, no really hard trails yet, but much of what constitutes an adventure is the very unpredictability we've been dealing with. And ahead lies some of the most beautiful country and nicest trails in North America. We move forward.
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North by Northwest Expedition: - Introduction - Sponsor List - Reviews - Photo Galleries Before Departure Shakedown Cruise Lower British Columbia More Lower British Columbia Busted in BC BC with Coast Mountain Crawlers Upper British Columbia Almost Alaska |
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