Our short Little Trip, or, The Trip to Be Forgotten.

[Dallas]

Yesterday morning stated out as usual, coffee, Bulletinboard, more coffee... etc.

Then the time to get ready for our move from KOA to a state campground for a week of relaxation.

After a couple of hours of putting junk away and getting everything ready to roll, I fired up the old girl and pulled out of our spot with no problem.

Cat was following in the car and had to stop at the office to finish paying our bill. It seems we used almost 750KWH @ .10/KWH.... hmmm, pretty expensive coach considering we didn't use the heaters or the A/C's except for a couple of hours on 2 or 3 different days. Oh, well.

I pulled out from the spot where I'd pulled off the road to wait for Cat and decided I would head on over to the truckstop and wait.
As I pulled out onto the main road, the bus was running great, the old Screamin' Jimmy was as happy as a clam in the sand.
Until I went to shift from 1st to second that is. She wound up just fine, I let off the accelerator, dropped the clutch, pulled her out of 1st, gave her a little goose of fuel, clutched again and slid neatly into 2nd.
Except... when I stepped into the fuel again, the pedal went straight to the floor, and laid right there on the floor, kinda like dropping a dead mouse... it don't move much. Oh, and I was still idling merrily along.

I checked the mirrors, nope, nothing laying on the road behind me.
I reached down ad pulled the pedal up. It fell to the floor again.
I thought to myself, hmmmm, What could this be? 

I also thought about pulling off on the shoulder and seeing what the problem was right then, but pride got the better of me.... I idled the next 1/4 mile to the truckstop. By the way, high geared buses do not like to climb itty bitty hills like driveways, even in 1st.

I finally got parked in the RV zone and got out to see what the problem was.
It seems the cotter pin holdin the throttle linkage together had rusted through... no problem, right? HAH!
GM put that piece of linkage directly behind the upper radiator tube and almost up against the bulkhead.

Cat got there and we went in for coffee while the bus cooled off.

We went back out after an hour or so and I figured it would be no problem to change one little cotter pin. NOT!
The part of the pin that was left inside the hole was rust welded in, so I figured i'd take it off, back one joint, .... nope, it was impossible to reach. So the next choice was to unscrew it from the adjusting rod.... that worked, 1/16 of a turn at a time.
After removing it, I had to drill out both of the cotter pin holes, and do some oiling and greasing, but it all went back together just fine.

Finally, time to hit the road for our short little 50 mile trip.

Not a Chance.

I pulled out on the road, headed toward the freeway, shifted, 1st, 2nd, 3rd.... no 4th..... oops, no 3rd now...... finally, got second again. The shift linkage between 3rd and 4th seemed to be stuck.
Instead of getting on the freeway in second, I chose to go on down the side road and parked at a Truck Sales driveway.... they were closed.... sunday.
Got out, got a lever, a bar, a hammer and some choice words and got 3-4 linkage working again.

Figured since we were already headed this direction, we'd continue on to the campground via state roads, no problem.

Pulled out, shifted 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, wow, that was easy!

Went about 5 miles and had to shift down for a red light and right turn. Hmmmm, no second gear. Not good.
The light turned green, I romped on it in 3rd and made the corner... Cool! Flea Market 2 miles, I'll pull in there and see what's wrong.

Well, I got there, burnt the clutch a little moving amonst little cars not paying attention, and got parked.

I started at the back and fiddled with the linkage, working my way forward. Everything looked fine until I got to the spot over the front axle. It looked like a bunch of broken spaghetti in there! Geeez!

I spent the rest of the day tearing it all apart and we spent the night at the flea market.

Today we went looking for some new rods, and I finally found some usable stuff I could fabricate into shift rods at a small machinery shop. I spent all day making new rods and replacing 55 year old grease in the shift tower.

It shifts like a dream now, but now i have no tail lights or brake lights, so we are here for one more night.

Gee, 48 hours to go 6 miles.

ain't bussin' fun!

Maybe tomorrow, I will have power back and beable to be on line more!

Later
Dallas and Cat

[NewbeeMC9]

At least you made forward motion, thats good!   

One great thing bout the bus is your always at home if you have trouble.  Usualy not a big deal to deal with

Good luck!!  remember "It's the jouney thats the adventure, not just the destination"

[NJT5047]

Dallas, ain't you glad you're a bus mechanic!  What you reckon the road service tab would be by now?   
Don't fret too much....I just spent the last two days working on Mr. Bus too...'course, there wasn't anything really wrong...just adding more crap so I'll have something to fix later! 
When's the....Timmonsville Get together?   
Good luck, JR

[jjrbus]

I bet your glad you got a bus and not some Sticks and staples that you would be having lots of problems with!

[Hartley]

Dallas,

Are you taking an online course of "Travels with Christy Hicks "?

Sure starting to sound like it. Mary (wife) stopped laughing long enough to say it sounded like you upset
your gremlins...They are not happy unless you drive at least 300 miles... That first 50 is the bear though.
The trick is to plan a 1,000 mile trip and only drive the first 50, Throws them off the scent for a while!:)

Dave.....

[Nick Badame Refrig/ACC]

Dallas,

The only way to get thoose gremlins out is to do 80 mph......and faster.

Well, at least you didn't have a boooaring trip!

Hope all goes well tomorrow
Nick-

[bubbaqgal]

One thing that Dallas failed to mention is that our house batteries are old and are not holding a charge very well.  We can be online only briefly, or...we can watch TV.  It also means that our fridge cannot run all the time. And that is a true disaster.  I just bought 5 containers of Edys icecream (5 for $10.00) and since I am an ice cream fanatic I was thrilled until I went to serve some up the other night.  Even Edy's isn't good when it is mush.  Woe is me!!!   

To add insult injury, Dallas asked me to strip some aluminum down so we could sell it and get it off the load the bus is hauling.  I, smart woman that I am, decided to put on a tank top so I could get a little sun.  Yeah, right, Now I have a burned upper back AND lower back where my top kept riding up.  When I questioned Dallas about how bad it looked, he said (with a laugh in his voice) "Well, your lower back is smiling where the burn is curved"  Gee thanks honey.....That makes me feel better.  As long as my burn is smiling it must not be hurting!!!!!   Cat

[FloridaCliff]

Dallas and Cat,

Sorry to hear of your troubles.

But, you couldn't be in better hands. 

I know Dallas will have you back on the road in no time at all.

Best wishes

Cliff

[Busted Knuckle]

Dallas & Cat,
Glad to hear all is well, and yer hav'n fun! LOL! By the way just look at the $ your saving by staying at the flea market, instead of that state park. Kinda cool to hear about your traveling adventures, even though it does sound sorta like a re-mix of "Larry & Christy's"! And what's this about weak house batteries? I thought you'd done something to them to revamp 'em a while back ( I can;t think o the exact words I'm looking for at the moment!) Good luck, have fun and remember it ain't bus'n if at ain't fun! LOL! BK 

[bubbaqgal]

BK....WRONG..... We never make reservations in advance but...this one time....we decided to go ahead and do that so, we had reservations so we lost 2 nights of $$$$$ by not getting here.  We made it here, with only 1 slight problem and got set up and found out we have no phone signal.  Right now we have 1 tower showing so we could get online but it is sloooooowwww.   

Dallas worked on the engine batteries, not the house batteries. 

Cat

[Christyhicks]

HAHAHAHAHAH   You guys crack me up! 

Actually, we decided to pass the torch to Dallas. .. we hated to be the "funny-hogs", so while he was helping us get things under control in Tampa, I slipped the gremlins through the BBS right on to him. 

Now, here's the tricky part  . .. you have no way of knowing when he's passed the "torch" on. . . but I'm thinking that teasing someone is a good way to let down your guard, ha ha.

I'm sure we'll find out who was the recipient of those gremlins soon enough. . . as soon as the target goes on his next trip. ..  . could it be.. . . . you?    Christy Hicks

[JackConrad]

Cat,   
    Maybe we would not stop by next month, unless we know the "torch" has already been passed.  Just kiddin', we hope to see ya'll mext month (gremlins or not!)  Jack

[FloridaCliff]

Christy,

If only being a previous recipient of the gremlins would offer some sort of protection from a future

attack.   

Where the Gremlins are headed next.......Only the shadow knows for sure!!!!!!!!!   

Cliff

[Dallas]

Well, as Cat said, we made it.

The "Little Problem" she spoke of was the clevis pin on the 3-4 shift arm falling off. I really do have to believe it's caused by gremlins. I'd just looked at that one while working on the shift rods and noticed that it wasn't in the best condition but that it wasn't unuseable. It seems to have just blinked out of existence! 
It also happened as I was going from 4th to 3rd and turning the corner onto the ((narrow)) road headed to the campground turnoff.
Again, no place to pull off and 55 mph speed limit. I slid the clutch and let it build up speed gradually in 4th until the road speed was higher than the engine speed.
I finally found a place to pull off 2 or 3 miles later just before the entance to the campground.

It's amazing what you can accomplish with a 3/8" shoulder bolt and nut! 

We got in and got parked and chilled out for the rest of the day. I also spent about an hour in the shower washing all the grease dirt and crud off. Then another hour just enjoying the hot water and stinging needle spray! Not bad for a state campground!

BK:
The batteries have just past their 9th anniversary and even those faithful old servants are reaching the end of their lives.
It also could be that one of the battery conectios is loose or dirty, I'll find out tomorrow when I finally get some energy back to do something other than fish and eat! 

Christy,
I don't mind the gremlins, shoot, I use to have some inlaws that had Gremlins, also some Hornets and a Javelin or two. If a trip went totally without incident, I might as well own one of those fancy Marathon Stick and Staple numbers!
We may hang onto the gremlins for a while, or we may pass them off to someone that little suspects our ulterior motives!

That's one reason I own a bus. I like to be pretty much self sufficient and able to deal with nearly any eventuality. Not many of the camper owners that I've met can say that.... I had one guy pay me $50 at the old campground just to change the tire on his 5th wheel. He couldn't figure out that it had left hand lugnuts on the drivers side.

So far the weather is good hear, suppose to be 83° here today, but we have a slight chance of rain. The lake have quite a few large fish in it.... I just can't catch them... I would have to put bait on the hook to do that, and then cast the line! Hmmmm, maybe after my nap.

We don't know where we'll be going from here, but, it will be an adventure!

Go Bussing!

[brojcol]

FROM BUBBAGAL:

To add insult injury, Dallas asked me to strip

I'm glad I read the rest of that sentence before I jumped to conclusions!

I started thinking, hey, maybe ya'll should break down more often