Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2013 20:57:45 -0500
Reply-To: Dennis Haynes <d23haynes57@HOTMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Dennis Haynes <d23haynes57@HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Therein, lies a tale.
In-Reply-To: <4A6BA8FB-8C81-4908-8CF8-0A8FA0C9C752@mac.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
That is indeed a tale. Just pull the fuse for the power locks. Nothing like
getting locked out but worse than that is the amazing ability of those
things to suck the battery down to also leave you stranded.
Spring will be here soon!
Dennis
-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
KIM BRENNAN
Sent: Saturday, March 9, 2013 12:08 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Therein, lies a tale.
I was heading to my WV place by my normal route over Briary Gap (near
Reddish Knob) in George Washington National Forest. This road is normally
plowed on the Virginia side. The WV side was recently paved, and the sign
saying "No Snow Maintenance past this point" removed (or possibly stolen.) I
assumed that meant that WV would now start plowing it...occassionally. When
I got to the top of Shenandoah Mountain, I found a sizable drift of snow,
but the WV road appeared otherwise to not be too deep. There were no car
tracks. This should have clued me in. So I and my Syncro Westy plowed ahead.
I got about 30 feet in and my wheels were spinning. No trouble, just engage
the diff lock. Now I have 3 wheels spinning. Hmm.
I need to take a leak too. Well, let me hop out of the van to take care of
business. I drop out of the driver seat and the snow goes up to my waist.
Erk. Its heavy and stiff and very difficult to move in. I twist backwards,
and find some purchase on the van, and manage to chin myself back into the
van. I'm finally beginning to get a realization of the difficulty I'm in.
My travel snow shovel has been carefully left at home. Oh, wait, I've got my
disc golf discs (think stiff frisbees). I can use one of them as a shovel.
Not great, but definitely possible. I start getting into my winter wind
breaker (my brief plunge into the white stuff and revealed to me that it was
chilly out there, circa 25F) and gloves. As I'm doing this I see lights over
on the clear pavement. A Jeep. I wander over to talk to them. They had come
up to play in the snow. They have a winch. I get hauled out and start my 40
mile detour.
There's a saying, you can tell the difference between four wheel drive
vehicles, and 2 wheel drive vehicles, by how far off the pavement they are
before they get stuck.
But the tale isn't over. I get up to my WV place. I have a 1.5 mile dirt
driveway. No one has plowed it (of course no other houses are on it.) With
difficulty I get the first gate open (snow here is only about 10 inches
deep.) I engage the diff lock and start in (I close the gate). As the drive
steepens, the snow starts mounding up in front, and eventually stops me
(drifting snow is about 14 inches deep, but frozen fairly stiffly). Back up
and go again. I get further. Repeat. Many times. I make it to the first
crest on the driveway (there are 2 more, with increasing levels of
difficulty.) After about an hour, I finally make it up to the house. There's
4 feet of snow on the deck in front of the door (the snow having come down
off the roof in the previous days). Pardon me. 4 feet of glacier. Eventually
I make it inside.
BTW, my Westy has the power locks, and just recently started having the self
locking symptom. I haven't taken the effort in this cold weather to dig into
the wiring to correct the problem. On a Westy the power locks will lock all
doors (and the hatch). Of course, if your drivers door is open, the
preventative mechanism will prevent the door getting locked.while open. The
lcok just keeps cycling trying to lock. Once the door is close, it locks. So
I hop out of the Westy (engine running) top open a gate. My drivers door
swings shut. Click.
Fortunately I had previously manually unlocked the sliding door, which stays
unlocked through all of this nonsense. Whew.
Next day, I need to add some oil to the engine. Hatch is locked. Unlock
doors, go around to the back. Hatch is locked again. Get wrench. Go to
battery. Loosen ground strap. Unlock doors, remove ground strap. Go add oil
to engine.
Last activity is get 6x6 ATV to run up and down driveway a few times, to
make it (slightly) passable (if you have 4wd). It's March. I'm ready for
Spring.