TN4 Hop 7
38 miles via I-84. Truck miles: 52. Cumulative tow miles: 1504. Cumulative truck miles: 1673.
This was supposed to be the last hop of the TN4. Not so. 37 miles into the trip the “check engine” light once again reappeared. And was persistent. We waited, on the side of the very busy I-84, for about 25 minutes before the light went off. The good news, if there is any, is that we were able to pull over at the top of Exit 6 and that a Pilot Truck Center was located at that exit. When I got the engine restarted, We were able to take the exit ramp, wait at the bottom through a light cycle, make a left turn and travel about a tenth of a mile to the light for the turn into the truck stop. Then the engine failed again. We had to wait about 10 minutes in the left turn lane, hazard lights blinking, until the engine restarted normally and I was able to pull into the truck stop. Where the light came on once again.
Three failures in a mile. I suppose we could have made it to Massachusetts a quarter of a mile at a time, but it would have taken a week.
Time to get this annoying problem fixed for real.
The $100 diagnosis
I went into the truck stop and talked to the mechanic. He had no diagnostic equipment, but gave me the number of a guy who did. I called the number and he appeared within 20 minutes. Diagnosed the problem as a voltage issue on injector 2 – same problem we had in NC. No surprise there. Paid him $100 for that bit of information (cash – it would have been $200 on a credit card – don’t tell the IRS), got permission from the truck stop manager to park the RV overnight, got it parked, found a local GMC/Chevy dealership 3 miles away and drove there in “safe mode”. The truck actually can travel in safe mode, but sounds like hell and is useless as a tow vehicle. I talked to the service guy at the dealership. There was no real hope of fixing the problem before Monday (they had one “diesel guy” who was swamped) and very likely wouldn’t be looked at before Tuesday. So… get a rental car (the service guy called Enterprise for us), take what we needed from the truck (not much – some sewer hookup stuff and the dog), book a site at the closest RV park (a KOA 10 miles away), make arrangements to haul the RV there the next day (the RV park had no sites on Friday), get a hotel room for the night, go back to the truck stop to get what we needed overnight and drive to the hotel. Then find a pizza place for dinner.
Tough hop. We will lose everything that we have in the freezer. We were smart enough to dump the ice so that we wouldn’t come back to a pool of water on the floor tomorrow.
Oh – almost forgot the other “fun” aspect of this day: the broken glass. When we pulled out of the River Beach Campsites park, the right RV tires dropped into a pretty deep hole. I saw the RV rock behind me as I made the turn. The severe dip/tilt/rock was enough to toss the recliner about 2 feet and throw open one of the kitchen cabinet doors, allowing two glasses to tumble out onto the countertop, break and spread glass all over everything. Just a little insult on top of the injury.
Broken glass
This was arguably the worst hop in our 5+ years of traveling. To come on the heels of our disastrous cruise makes it even more painful.
We had to call Lamb City (our summer campground) and tell them that our arrival would be delayed indefinitely. They were sympathetic, but still insisted on full payment of the balance. I guess I would call that limited sympathy.
Jett says that we should be grateful for the good fortune that we had – we were able to get the rig into the truck stop and make arrangements to fix the truck and stay in Newburgh, all within a few hours. I guess. But let’s say that I have limited gratitude.