Date:         Mon, 12 Aug 1996 16:55:36 -0700
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         dkane@mail.arc.nasa.gov (Don Kane)
Subject:      Home from Inuvik (Long, Part1)

<fontfamily><param>Palatino</param><bigger><bigger>It's hard to adjust
to being back at work, sitting in front of my computer just three weeks
after leaving Vancouver. It was an incredible trip, as you've read
about in the other dispatches, so I'll just update on the problems I
had with my Van ("85 GL)and my dash for home.

At Frenchman's lake, less than a week into the trip, The van wouldn't
start. The night before I had removed the aircleaner, which entails
removing the airflow box, to clean it out, as the whole two previous
days had been spent on unpaved roads eating a lot of dust. I also put
in a new O2 sensor. It started fine after doing this, but next morning,
no start. The starter was fine, lots of cranking power, plenty of fuel
after the filters and fuel pump, spark at the plugs, but nothing but a
tiny spurt of fuel from the injectors, not enough to start. My wife
says she got a picture of about 6 of us with our heads stuck in the
engine, but we couldn't get it to start. Since I had worked on it a
little the night before, my first suspicion was related to that, and I
put the old O2 sensor back on. Made no difference. @@We were sharing a
campsite  with Tobin and Christa which was about 100 yards down a bad
road from the rest of the group, and I got a tow out and to the top of
the road from a 4wd ford F350 in the area. At the top of the road I
tried starting it again, and after about 15 seconds of cranking it
started. For the rest of that day into Dawson it would usually start
reluctantly when warm, and not at all when cold. I suspected the temp
sensor, which is a thermistor that sends info the the fuel injection to
tell it if it's a cold start or a warm start. But I was also
experiencing wierd electrical problems, no lowbeams, radio coming on
for a second with the key and then turning off. In Dawson that night we
stayed at a motel, the El Dorado, and it was like Heaven. @@Our 3 year
old was being difficult about wearing clothes to protect him from the
mosquitos, and was suffering from the bites. To his credit, he hardly
complained about them at all, but he had lots of them and needed a
bath. The water was so hot at the El Dorado, that I created a steam
room in about 2 minutes, and the water pressure was so high that it
just blasted the dirt off. I think we all took about 4 showers each
during the 12 or so hours we were there. @@ Still no progress on my
starting problem, but since the van ran fine once it was started, i
figured i could keep going and push start when necessary. Jack and
Dennis were both having to push start occasionally, and it didn't seem
an overwhelming problem. @@The next night we stayed at the campground,
and in the morning headed up the Dempster toward Inuvik. About 30
kilometers up the Dempster, my alternator light went on and the temp
started to climb. I found a safe turnoff almost immediately and had the
belt changed before all of the group had even caught up, as they had
been held up getting Sue back on the road after her mishap. To
visualize the Dempster, keep in mind that it's built on Permafrost. On
a typical road, they dig down into the earth and built the road so that
it's more or less at the same level as the surrounding land. The
Dempster is built up from the ground level, and in many places is as
much as 10 feet or more above the land next to it. Sue was really lucky
to go off the road where she did and get back unscathed. The insane
family that passed us like bats out of hell didn't fair so well. They
flipped their car going down the embankment. So I was also lucky to
find a turnoff right away to change my belt. After about another 20 k I
started noticing a loss of power, and the person behind me told me on
the CB that I was leaking coolant. I pulled over again and checked it,
and I had a leak in my expansion tank. Bob Hoover pulled up behind me
and used his 12 volt welder to melt the plastic in the tank, shaving
off some small strips from the edge of the tank to fill in. On my way
again with no more leaks, I still had the power loss problem, missing
at high RPM, and the gas gauge told me I was eating up gas. I ran out
of gas after 161 miles, meaning i was getting about 10 mpg. 5 gallons
from my extra can, and 6 from Eddie's got me to Eagle Plains. It was
raining there, and very muddy, so I decided to leave the van their and
go on to Inuvik with others. I called Kyle at Volks Cafe and asked him
to send me a coolant tank, a temp sensor, an airflow box if he had it,
and a couple other things. I had it sent to Dawson, planning to nurse
my van back there after Inuvik. I rode with Jack Stafford along with
Casey, my Austrailian Shepard, My wife Bess and our son Alan rode with
Denis, and our Daughter Vivian went up with Neil and back with Tobin
and Christa. @@ Inuvik was great, and we stayed the first night in the
vans we rode up in, and got a hotel the next nigh. It was the eve of
Bess's 40th Birthday, so we had a party at the hotel before the flight
up to Tuk. Bess put together a couple of Fruit tarts with stuff
purchased at the Northern Store in Inuvik (surprisingly good fresh
produce available), and Christa provided some tequila, with a nice
bottle of Austrailian wine from Jack.@@The next day we headed back to
Eagle Plains and my van. After having read the Bentley and the Bosch
fuel injection book on the ride up to Inuvik and back, I was pretty
sure it was the temp sensor, which can affect cold starts as well as
mixture when running warm, and i knew how to check it with the
multimeter. Much to my dismay, it checked out fine, and the van was
running worse than ever. The Hall sensor connected to the distributor
had become brittle and was broken, causing all sorts of rough running
and stalling. I used duct tape and bailing wire to get it back where it
belonged. Gary Millang and I had a discussion about the starting
problem and decided it might be the ignition switch. The instruments on
the dash would go out when the key was in the start position, and that
plus the radio problems suggested the ignition switch. Bob Hoover ahd
also suggested it as a possibility. Gary hotwired it, and it started
perfectly. The only problem left was the power loss and missing. Eagle
Plains is a pit, and several people had decided not to stay the night
there, pushing on for Dawson, even though it was almost 400 kilometers
and already close to midnight. Not that midnight means as much in the
land of the midnight sun. My wife was dying to get out of there, not
wanting to spend her birthday night in the mud, with more rain on the
way. Tobin said he'd tow me if it came to that, let's just get out of
Eagle Plains. So off we went. Imagine knowing at best you're going to
get 10 mpg, leaving Eagle Plains down the Dempster highway at midnight,
and seeing a sign saying "Next services 367 Kilometers" Tobin and I
fortified ourselves with some of Christa's Tequila, and we were off. It
was a beautiful drive in the twilight of 2 and 3 in the morning, with
the mountains around us. Tobin and I both got pretty tired after a
while and parked at a turnoff to sleep. It was far more pleasant and
quiet than the Eagle Plains Hotel, and free to boot. We didn't wake up
till late morning, and looked around at the nearby mountains that had
been snowed on during the night not to far above us. We filled my car
up with from our extra cans, and made it the rest of the way to
Dawson.

End of part 1</bigger></bigger></fontfamily>