So a bit over a week ago, we welcomed Chris and Lori Z to Colorado, as they were making their way to Oregon where Chris planned to work as a camp host for a few months.
Lori writes a blog on their Overlander Journey here: https://blazeourway.wordpress.com/
Making their way through Kansas:
Unfortunately, while transiting Kansas, Big Stewie (called thus by me since Martha has little Stewie the scooter) had to be towed to a shop due to the transmission on the truck having gone into "Limp Mode". While there, it also suffered a small fire in the engine compartment resulting in more repairs having to be made.
Apparently, the air heater relay had failed catastrophically, causing what was fortunately a small fire which fortunately was put out quickly by the shop's technicians.
So, after that fire's damage was repaired, along with the transmission work, Chris and Lori continued towards Colorado. Here's a video of them arriving at hour home, Thursday before last.
Unfortunately a couple days later, after Chris and I (mostly Chris) had fixed a leaking oil fitting, Big Stewie sprung a much bigger oil leak at the air compressor where it mated to the engine while at the car wash getting cleaned up!
Chris and Lori then arranged to have Stewie towed to a truck shop in the Denver area where it now sits awaiting a replacement air compressor.
Readers of this blog might find it a bit of a change for me to not be reporting failures in my own vehicles. The Samurai or Sammy is actually running quite well, I've got the carburetor behaving pretty much well and no major problems exist.
In fact, its the Sammy which we've been using to run errands and such with Chris and Lori! Here's a video of them borrowing the Sammy for a trip to the shop to check on Stewie last week:
She looks and sounds pretty good eh? No big clouds of smoke on startup!
The hope is for Big Stewie to start being work on by tonight (the compressor has been received). In the meantime, we continue to enjoy the company of Lori and Chris as we go through a particularly wet bit of weather here in Colorado.
10 comments:
No videos in the blog post. Though I did see them on YouTube.
RichardM, yeah not sure what's going on with in phone browsers and videos...you have to scroll to end of posting ( I put notation next to link but must make it bolder) and click on "View Web Version" when using phone app.
Wow! What a rig. The videos worked great on the computer version.
thanks for the feedback Oz, I've changed settings on blogger so it defaults to the "web version" aka computer version of posting vs mobile version. Let's see where that goes....
Stewie is a monster (but a nic3e one). Keeping fingers crossed that things will go back to running smoothly for Lori and Chris. Very kind of you to take them in an let them use the Sammy, too. Oh, and thanks for your recent email. Cheers, Sonja
You're quite welcome SonjaM! We go to pick the truck today and give it a workout.
Lori and Chris have the patience of Job. I visited their blog and read all the entries and was shaking my head at how many failures there were with Stewie. It seemed they were crossing the country in 10-mile increments between tows to truck shops! They must really love that military vehicle. Makes my air conditioning compressor repair in the Honda van seem absolutely negligible.
I'm hooked now on following their progress in that machine. It looks great and once-reliable like something you can explore with.
I chuckled when I saw them leaving in the SAMY. You have a habit of giving your vehicles to visitors! ;)
BTW -- the videos appeared fine in the browser on my MacBook.
Thanks for the feedback Steve, you may have visited the website after I changed the default setting to go to web version versus mobile version. We had tested it before on the iPhone browser and it didn't show the video links as expected now it does.
And yes Chris and Lori are definitely having quite the adventure in terms of endurance, maintenance, repairs, and just on the road angst due to mechanical issues that I believe they will persevere.
There are not enough words to express the appreciation Chris and I have for Dom and Martha (and the kids) for letting us come in for one night, and wind up staying for 14!! We couldn't have asked for a better place to break down, having a shop nearby that could perform the work, while having great friends that took us in and let us have our own emotional breakdown. The drinking might have helped too. ;)
Sonja!! :) Thanks for the kind words! I hope you are doing well!
Steve! Thanks for taking a look at the blog. You are correct, it is full of trials and tribulations. I think that is why the blog lagged...no energy. I will try to pick it up and start filling in the missing pieces.
Drinking always helps in such recent situations Lori!
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