I remember last Saturday, the day before we left, I told Rebecca that once we start driving that we won’t know what to do with ourselves. I am now wishing I would have bitten my tongue because the way I am going, I am going to have to buy all new Levi jeans before we get to California since all I am doing is getting them greasy, dirty and oily. We are trying to stay positive because we are determined to have a little fun on this trip but it’s hard when day after day you become plagued with issues. We did spend the Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday night (August 24th, 25th and 26th) at Hickory Acres campground where we got a little relaxing in, in between trying to shuffle things around to make the trailer usable again. We also got four new tires and wheels for the trailer from Jason Dietsch Trailer Sales in Edgerton, Ohio. Weeks before we started this trip I ordered new wheels and tires but I made a mistake and didn’t factor in that I would lose a half an inch of backspacing because the new wheels are 15″ x 6″ whereas the factory wheels were 15″ x 5″. Using the spacers did bring the wheel out enough to be able to use them but using spacers adds stress to the wheel lugs and I didn’t feel comfortable with them. So now we are back to 15″x5″ wheels on the trailer and we now have a whole bunch of spares which I will have to sell once we get to California. While running around on Thursday, the truck was once again began to be a little finicky and it was dreading to me that it was going to need a serious fix. We did our best to ignore it because as long as the truck wanted to go forward, we were going to march on. On Friday, August 27th we repacked everything up early to recontinue our journey west. With our positive thoughts and prayers we made it 13 miles before the truck said it was done moving forward until it was fixed. Of course we had to be in hick country, right at the town line of Edon, Ohio but in this case, it was actually good. The fine folks at Xtreme Equipment LLC allowed us to use their parking lot as a repair location and offered assistance if we needed it. Doing a little checking on what the truck was trying to tell us, I came to the conclusion that the transfer case was the issue. It was again an issue I should have taken care of a couple weeks back when I went to replace the rear seal on the transfer case and noticed some shaft play on it. I didn’t, because it wasn’t a “big” issue at the time and well… Now I face a bigger dilemma because now I need to find someone that can replace a transfer case fairly quickly. Calling around to a couple shops left me disappointed really quickly when most didn’t want, or couldn’t take on the job. There was that one transmission shop that would do it but couldn’t do it for two weeks and they wouldn’t even know if they could get a replacement transfer case since they didn’t rebuild them. I also spoke to a guy at Xtreme Performance Solutions in Fort Wayne, who had a rebuilt transfer case for $1600 although I could tell that I was bothering him and he just wanted to get off the phone. I told him I would call him back once I found a shop that would be willing to do the job. After speaking to Rebecca about our options, I decided to take on the job myself since it seemed that one wanted to work on a Friday morning. I had a rough idea of what was involved so I decided to call Xtreme Performance Solutions back to see if I could possibly get him to deliver me a transfer case to me since I was going to spend 1600 bucks with them. I figured it was worth a shot since we were about 40 minutes away although all I got was their voicemail. Shortly after another repair shop called us back and although he couldn’t help us, he did offer us a lead on where to find a transfer case. He gave us the name, Hicksville Auto Recyclers which was 20 minutes down the road. I gave them a ring and it was a true pleasure to talk to someone that wanted to help me. They normally had rebuilt transfer cases on hand for 1100 bucks but with being out of them, they did offer us a used, like new one for $750. It was also a nice feeling that they would have come out and helped me install it if I ran into any issues. Once we got the “new to us” transfer case, work began on removing the old one which wasn’t all that bad. The toughest issue was the weight and balancing it enough to get it down and out without injury. Installing the new one had the same issues although we had to be a little more cautious not to cause any damage since I would not have known where to find another one. Replacing the transfer case made it a long day but by dark we were ready to get out of Ohio. We made it to an Indiana service plaza where we called it a day and woke up on Saturday with a little positive outlook. We planned to make it to Davenport, Iowa but as we got across the state of Illinois, another gremlin came out and said, hey… fix me! Ah yes… the generator. Another thing that I should fixed before this trip, but again, it wasn’t a “big” issue at the time. The generator has always had a small oil leak but now it was more like a spray bottle spritz and it had to be fixed. I could live without AC and power but I just couldn’t put our dogs through that. So here we are again, now on a late Saturday afternoon trying to fix something that I did not know how too. I figure that I would try to take off as much as needed to find the oil leak but even if I could find the leak, what are the odds that I can fix it. This generator as seen in the photos is very compact which is great but the design is terrible since they made it all cosmetically pretty with metal and plastic covers. Of course these covers are meant to be removed when you remove the top cover of the generator and that was something I just couldn’t do in a rest area. My only option was to go in through the only opening I had and cutting off plastic to find the troubled area. I had nothing to lose so with a little cutting here and there, I think I found the problem where they had two bolts holding down this breather cap that were totally loose. Between the expansion and contraction of the metal on the motor, I think the threads just left loose. The real problem I had was getting to them and how to fix it. I didn’t want to cut any more plastic shrouding than needed but at this point I had no choice. I always carry a supply of nuts and bolts and was also glad I had two metric bolts that were just a little longer to replace the two troubled ones along with a tube of gasket sealant. We got everything buttoned back up, hit the start button and the generator purred back to life. I fixed the major leak although I won’t know till later if I still have some minor ones to address. It’s been seven days since we left and I am ready to be bored. Fixing things is great and thank God he has given me the ability to do so but my perseverance is drying up. On a positive note, the generator has been running 12 plus hours without issue and we are about 15 miles from Des Moines, Iowa. We are hoping to reach Nebraska by this evening but all in stride. If anything from this trip I have learned not to rush and to always fix those, not so “big” issues…
Oh and that shop, Xtreme Performance Solutions… they sent us a text back a whole 8 hours later after I was done installing the new transfer case. Disappointing…