A Recce of Campsites and Posing on a Big Rock - On Rampart Range Road

 Today, it was time to do some more stress testing of the new Toyota 3K Carburetor and the Sammy's cooling system since I had the radiator flushed yesterday.

I would end up driving 149 miles round trip.  I used CO Hwy 83 to get to Colorado Springs where I picked up US24 to CO Hwy 67 and thence to the southern end of Rampart Range Road.

From there it was about 10 miles to the site of a planned gathering by motorcycle riding friends, called The Revival.  It's been going on for years if not decades and this will be the first time for me if I do end up going.

Stress testing aside, I wanted to see if there were RV-able campsites near the Revival site, since the actual Revival site wasn't doable by Umarang, the VRRV.  It was just out of my comfort level you see.

The Revival Site is next to a large outcropping of rocks and perhaps part of a rock dome as well.  No problem negotiating the "path" with the Sammy, but the VRRV would have issues with low branches and tight spaces.

After picking up a 13 lb trash bag's worth of trash at the Revival Site (people are swine); I found a couple of sites that were usable close to where FR324 and FR300 (aka Rampart Range Rd) meet.  So getting the VRRV to within a mile of the actual site is doable!  Now to figure out my schedule accordingly.

I then spent the rest of the drive, heading north on Rampart Range Rd and checking out likely camping sites.  I found several tight ones, with steep entrance paths, and most of them without cell signal.  I did find one though, about 7.5 miles the Revival Site that'll work and function as Plan B if the primary camping sites are taken when and if I show up.

Soon after exploring this last site, I entered the Fee Area run by the Forest Service and their requirement that you camp only at designated sites.  I didn't bother checking these sites out as they were too far from the Revival Site.

However, I did stop at this large rock formation, to pose the Sammy on top of it!  After a careful walkthrough, I put the Sammy into 4WD and Low Range and crept up the side of the rock, no problem!

At this point, I was standing in front of the Sammy and heard what sounded like the whooshing sound of something under pressure, being released.  Weird.

I opened the hood and looked around, didn't see anything in my quick scan.

I started the engine in preparation for backing down the rock and the Sammy was running rough!  It was the same symptoms for when the old carburetor wasn't getting enough fuel to run the engine!  

Once I got it sort of working, I started backing down, planning a more thorough inspection once I was back by the side of the road.  The engine quit about halfway down and I let the Sammy coast down and stopped.

I could now see, in front of me on the rock a trail of liquid!  It was gasoline, and had started spewing when I started the engine.  I checked under the hood and this time I spotted where the fuel line to the carburetor had come off the outlet port on the mechanical fuel pump!  Doh!  That was the pressure release noise!  

It remains unclear to me what caused this pressure that caused the line to come off...the drive up the rock and the approximately 45 degree angle of climb?  Had the dirt road's bumps caused it to come loose enough?

I reconnected the hose and the Sammy was right as rain again.

I drove north and took the usual route back to CO Hwy 105 and from there, to Castle Rock, Parker and home.  No issues except for the second instance of the day when I had to come to a stop pretty quickly due to a changing stop light.

I stopped fine but the engine died.  It had happened once before in this drive, also at a sudden stop.  Hmmm.  The Sammy started up just fine both times, I'll have to drop an email to the carburetor guy and ask him if this is normal.

Still, overall, a good day of Sammy driving!  Oh, and my souvenir from Hawaii did fine on the dashboard:

His name is Russell Crow, and represents all the chickens that are everywhere on the island of Kauai!