Mini Family Weekend Recap

Tess and Chad Enjoying Mud Month on Tabaguache south of GJ

Last weekend we loaded up Zeno and made the pilgrimage to visit my parents who live just a bit south of Grand Junction, CO.  The idea was to visit with the folks and be on stage to receive my cousin Chad who is moving from Arizona to Colorado.  We left Friday afternoon in a bit of a wind and snow storm.  There wasn’t too much falling in Gunnison, but what there was came in more or less sideways from the West.  The drive over the passes between Gunnison and Montrose along Hwy 50 was challenging with wind and snow all along the way.  Aral slept pretty much the whole way even ignoring a brief stop along the way to kick off some ugly ice sickles which formed on the inside of the wheel wells and rubbed in the turns.

Ugly Sickles Are melting off Zeno in Montrose, CO

The trip north up 50 wasn’t too bad for snow as the temperature increased as the sun came out. Zeno and I still had to do battle with wind which seemed to gust every so often from the left front of the van and made some of the older seals whistle from time to time. Despite the strong head wind we still were able to cruise along between 55 and 60 MPH most of the way and north of Delta, CO, when the sun started to set, the wind also abated.

By the time we pulled into the Grand Valley the sun had sunk behind the Colorado National Monument. We made a brief stop at a department store to pick up some baby supplies and then headed up to Casa de los Abuelos. Aral switched from reasonably content, looking out the window to screaming and crying as the sky darkened and there was less to see out the windows of the van. Note to self, must make it possible for Aral to be entertained when there’s less or nothing to see or risk the loss of sanity.

Saturday morning at the Casa was slow and enjoyable. Lots of coffee sipping in the sunshine as we discussed what our plans for the day might include. Mom headed out early to go to some sort of quilting thing with a friend and eventually Tess, Chad, Aral and me loaded up in the van and headed down to go for a run along a portion of the Tabeguache Trail. The run was muddy to say the least and all three of us over dressed, but eight miles later (with a baby on my back the whole way) everyone was happy and sore. Also hungry! We drove down to town and enjoyed a burger at the Rock Slide.

After beers and beast Zeno delivered us back to the Casa. I helped Dad for a while, he’s training to be a volunteer fire man for the Glade Park Fire Department. He’s got a test coming up where he has 60 seconds to dawn his gear so I timed him and provided coaching. Eventually he got the whole shebang down to 56 seconds and then decided he had to visit the lasagna.

I used a little time after this to diagnose break light going out and ended up replacing a fuse. Anyone know if this should be more than an 8 amp bar in this circuit? Seems to be the use of hazards which makes it burn out.

Mom had already headed to the community center and Dad finished up the pasta and headed over there as well. I woke up Tess and Chad and we went about a half hour late and joined them.

Lots of people attended from all over Glade Park. Aral had a great time eating deserts and toddling around the old school house with other kids. We ate so much that I think all three of us were bursting at the seams.

Sunday morning everyone got up with a mission, head to the Grand Mesa for some XC touring. Gear was packed and reloaded into Zeno and the dogs joined us for the drive. The drive across the valley wasn’t too bad in the sunshine and no wind conditions and we cruised along I-70 at an easy 65 MPH. Things slowed down appreciably on the climb up the Mesa, but the big mirrors make it easy to see when I’m gaining a tail of traffic. I just pull off the road and let them pass.

We arrived at the dog loop just past Skyway and everyone got geared up and then we looped. I again had Aral on my back and he feel asleep almost as soon as we started to move. The sunshine was high over head and warmed the new powder. I worked on wearing my new skins in a little more and pushed the hills in an attempt to expand my training.

When we returned to the parking lot we divided up some snacks and Tess, Aral, the girls and I headed on back home via the Cedaredge side. At the intersection of Hwy 65 and Hwy 92 we turned east toward the West Elks. At Hotchkiss, CO Hwy 92 turns south toward Blue Mesa Reservoir and follows the contours of the foothills that reach down the the Anthracites and West Elk Ranges. I think this was Tess’ first time to see this side of the mountains that border us in up in Gunnison and there are some spectacular views along this very under traveled way.

After we rounded the bend from the west side of the West Elks where the road heads more or less east toward the reservoir the sun was beginning to set and at this point you’re very high up looking out over the Big Cimmarron and Little Cimmarron drainages south toward the San Juans.

The San Juans in the distance

At one point we stopped and watched the alpine glow settle out over the San Juans and the curve of the Earth. This is why I love to live in Colorado, and why it will always be my home.

The rest of the trip back was uneventful. Break lights are still working, but I need to remember to order a few more 8 amp fuses.

Site Updates and More

I’ve been busy recently and thus haven’t done the best job staying on top of posting about work I’ve done on Zeno, places we’ve been.  I’ve started to flesh out the site a whole lot more, changed the theme, included a few more dudes in the list, and may even update the URL.

Expect more posts about the van and the work and miles I’ve been ticking off.

Fiamma 45s

Picked up my Fiamma 45s awning last night. Indeed, another story in and of itself, but I got up this morning to assemble and install the thing on Zeno.

First impressions, the GW brackets I bought to mount it to my van don’t work out of the box with the high top. There is a cleat that sits in the gutter to hold the bracket to the van. It’s designed to fit a standard sized gutter (which those of us with hightops no longer have). After sitting in the slider doorway of my van for a good long while this morning I realized that the cheapest part to replace (should I botch modifications) was the bracket cleat itself. Back to the shop cleat in hand I marked off the approximate thickness of the high top from the end of the cleat and a 4” grinder with a flapper wheel to knock it down to size.

The first bracket is mounted.

Using Cozi to Organize for the Trip

Cozi List

I started this process like I always do with a pad of paper and a pencil. And as I built the manifest for the trip there were scratches and then I lost a sheet of paper somewhere along the way and Tess wanted to contribute, but I had the list. The paper list is dead and my pencil has a broken tip. It’s a great low-tech solution, but seriously we’re hip, contemporary, technologically savvy, über-apes who own devices that have “smart” right in their names.

This time around I’m trying to organize the van and by extension our lives for the next month or so in an application called Cozi. The list making is pretty simple, however, we can share each and every list across multiple devices. Additionally, I can clone lists, which means that once I’ve gotten one done I can use it as a template for another.

Last night I spent some time fleshing out a manifest of van items that would need to be packed. Tess has access to this, I might even add the location of the item in the van so she knows were to look.

The Route Out

The Route Out

Tess, Aral and I will depart sometime later this week and this is the route we will probably follow to Western Colorado.

On The Way

New tires (BF Goodrich – All-Terrain T/A KO Size: LT215/75R15/6), new black 15″ SA steel rims and the awning are all on their way and should arrive tomorrow.

Fuel Leak

Just found the friggin fuel leak. Talk about needle in a hay stack.

Road Trip/Mechanic School/Road Trip

What a freakin awesome weekend! If you didn’t get out last weekend you missed out. First, weekend of summer and everything went super well. Ok, I take that back … but it was an adventure.

So the plan was laid out something like this:

1. Friday afternoon drive to Phoenix, OR. Camp along the way, enjoy self.
2. Arrive in TurboVans somewhere around 11:00 Saturday.
3. Work on Zeno with Scott Foss’ guidance and generous use of tools.
4. Tune Zeno, repair outstanding problems.
5. Drive back to central Washington on Sunday or thereabouts. Camp along the way, enjoy self.

The drive down there was very easy. I took Hwy 97 down the interior of Washington and Oregon and ended up camping out north of Bend in the sage. Slept like a rock once I stopped looking at the stars and woke up well rested and ready to roll. I brought some food with me, but for some reason I cleaned out the van of all the kitchen ware and forgot to put it back in. I kind of munched on things until I found a café and stopped in for some eggs and coffee. Which brings up a very important question, why aren’t there coffee shops or even drive-throughs in central Oregon? Seriously, if you don’t bring it with do you know how difficult it is to find a cup of Joe?

I arrived at TurboVans at about 11:00 on Saturday morning. Scott and I started by assessing systems on Zeno and looking for problems we could address. I knew that there was an issue with #3 injector in the head and that I was having break problems. I took all four injectors out and tested their spray pattern. Sure enough #3 was all over the place and the seat where the heat shield is supposed to sit was eroded. Eek! We spent some time monkeying around with this and got everything installed so that it should run for a while longer without too much worry, but eventually I will have to replace the cylinder head.

Zeno’s breaks were a mess!

• Replaced Break Master Cylinder
• Replaced Clutch Master Cylinder
• Replaced Break Boost
• Replaced Glow Plug Relay
• Opened and Inspected fuel injectors in cylinder head
• Replaced LF Caliper
• Replaced too short lug nuts front end
• Bleed Clutch
• Bleed Breaks
• Tweaked Fuel Injection Pump
• Replaced #3 Fuel Injector
• Replaced Fuel Injector Spray guards

Like Scott reminded me, if its starting hard there is a problem.

Overdue Update

Introduction

So spring is more or less over and summer is certainly on its way. Yep, I’ve been remiss in my updates. So to remedy my negligence (and who can blame me, it’s tough to update your blog after you spend all your time off working to fix your van up) I am composing the super-mega-ultra-mondo-massive-update. Notice the sections, you can read only what you’re interested in and pass over the segments that don’t really concern you.

Interior Work

Window/Vent Installation

February saw the installation of Zeno’s brand new TimberTech High Top. We overcame some immediate issues with the installation (round about Hood River) and then I drove it back to *eBurg where, because of weather and use, the finish work languished for a couple of months. Also, I was exceptionally concerned about the window/vent installation work that was laid out before me. I mean, what if I FUBARed a cut? Then I’d have a gaping hole in my brand new high-top and no real ability to repair it. Suffice it to say that I put these tasks off for as long as I could in the hope that I could continue to enjoy the extra space without having to ignore some blunder of my own creation.

Last weekend my courage levels must have been higher than normal or something. I made templates for the vent and the windows and cut two big holes in my high top. Just like that my fears were ablated and all in the world was well. Ok, actually, because there are no magic wands in this story, I made mistakes but always on the side of caution and ended up with two holes that worked. To anyone else who has yet to complete this task I would say the following. First, get yourself a pile of brand spankin’ new fine metal jig saw blades before you start. I tried fine-toothed blades intended for wood – they did not work much more than about 3 inches. The glass and resin matrix just wears off the teeth way too fast. The blades intended for cutting metal are hard enough that the teeth stick around for a while and they are fine enough that if you crack the gel-coat it won’t leave a hole in the resin you’ll see. Still you’ll need a few of them, I used two blades per hole to ensure they stayed sharp and continued to cut well.

I started with the vent. First mistake was to cut the template for the vent hole from the side circumference of the inside cleat of the vent (it fits inside top of the vent). Ok, the first cut went really well, however, the hole in the top was about 1 cm shy of the 28 cm square needed to fit the top part of the vent into the roof. I took the vent down, thanking my lucky stars that at least I made the mistake by making the hole too small. The problem was obvious when I tried to fit the top part of the vent assembly into the hole. So I went back, measured around the outside of the widest part of the vent (no obvious to me) and then re-drew the hole gaining the missing cm. This meant that I had to make the cut twice to fit the vent in – this is not an easy cut to make because I ended up holding the jig saw above my head trying to get a nice straight line. I achieved the straight cuts and didn’t botch anything at the cost of pain to my back and shoulders. I’m still feeling it today.

The wind had picked up by the time I had the vent in and had played with it a few times. I was actually thinking it was time to celebrate with a well-mixed Cuba Libre and some self-congratulatory, father’s day sentiment in an easy chair (my back was screaming), but I was distracted with a call from my Dad and a big glass of water. We talked about the work I had just completed and also about our impending trip to Colorado. Being squarely located between these two, I finished the call with an impending sense of doom. “Poop”, I thought to myself after my call with my Dad, “this water and lime has refreshed me, and if I want windows in Zeno on this trip I better get moving.” Thus I found myself balanced on a ladder cutting the second hole in my van on Sunday evening.

This time the hole was perfect (so was the template) and once the cut was complete the window fit in perfectly. The challenge was that the inside clamp on the window didn’t fit as well as I’d hoped. I monkeyed with this for a while before I got it more or less right. It looks great from the outside, and it’s passible on the inside. I need to figure out something different on the ends of the clamp since there were no holes drilled into it they separate from the window. I’ve got some ideas however and since I didn’t seal this yet I can take them off and put them back on as I work out the kinks. Even without the RTV silicone on the inside of the window frame the clamp holds it tight enough that you can’t hear any wind leaking in while traveling down the road.

One more window to complete the install and I should be able to address it this evening as long as the weather holds (yeah for first day of summer). Late update, I just took my lunch hour to cut out the space for the second (LH) high top window. The spacer is currently drying to the inside of the top right now and I should be able to get the window in later this afternoon after work is over.

Finish Work

The weekend before last I got see my older son (who has been in the Philippines for the past year). Previous to this I had been focused on fabrication efforts to replace the headliner. There are a bunch of butt joins around the access well that leads to the high top so I wanted to ensure that this work was in and looked passably good before I started working on the access well. With Justin’s help I was able to complete the headliner replacement on Saturday which left Sunday to work on the access well. I used 1 x 4″ Hemlock to trim the inside of the well. It’s not perfect, my scribing technique leaves some room for improvement, but its solid and it doesn’t rattle or squeak. Also, I’ve had enough time with it to be able to avoid knocking my head.

I need to spend some time on the bed extension this week. Also, I’m going to invest in a few more sheets of the 1″ reflective foam insulation and use this to complete the inside of the top. I’ve identified the carpet I’m going to use to finish the inside of the high top as well the interior of the van (headliner area included), but I’ve got measure out how much I’ll need and then budget for the purchase of the carpet. Finally, I want to figure out some way to keep gear stored above the forward cabin from falling off its shelf while underway. Right now I’m planning on mounting a net over the opening which will hold it all in, but I’ve got to monkey around with this. Maybe a bulkhead is actually a better idea? Not really sure yet.

Mechanical Work

Hard Starting

Next weekend I’m headed down to Phoenix, OR to spend some time with Scott Foss of Turbovans. Scott built Zeno’s engine the spring before last. It’s been holding up great, but it could use a tune-up and some tweaking and prior to the month-long trip we have planned in July I’m hoping to get a few things taken care of before we hit the road. Hard starting is the first item on my list of things to address. When I brought the van home from Scott it started up quick and easy. Now, it can take a bit of cranking to get going and if I don’t pull the cold start advance knob it smokes a bit (regardless of temperature). I’m pretty sure that there are some basic problems with the glow plug circuit and I want to get Scott’s expert opinion and eyes on the rest to see if we can get it running as well as when the engine was brand spankin’ new. Also, I’m going to spend as much time as I can looking over his shoulder or doing the work with his guidance so I can learn how to do it myself. This is a super offer from Scott which means I should be able to overcome my fear of stranding myself messing with the timing or otherwise tweaking the power plant.

Not Starting

Yesterday evening I took Tess and Aral on a trip down to the Gorge. We pulled off north of the State Park along the old road that used to bridge the river and parked in the shade beneath a convenient cliff. Tess fed the baby and took the dogs for a walk up the road. Baby was topped off and back in his seat when I turned the key and got … nothing. The starter didn’t even click. This is the second time this has happened. Just like the last time I started at the battery, it was charged full and tested to ground just fine. I took both leads off the posts and cleaned them (they were obviously dirty). Re-installed the cables and tried again, no luck. Checked fuses, nothing was burnt out. Still no luck. Monkeyed around with the negative post on the starter and wiggled the wiring on the starter, got really dirty, and then it started without a problem.

Ok, what I know is that there *is* an intermittent electrical problem which prevents me from starting the van about 1 out of 50 attempts. The first time it happened I called the tow truck and only avoided the use of the track after he arrived by turning the engine over with the guy looking over my shoulder. I’ve been thinking about installing a button starter lead from the positive post to the starter in the engine bay to avoid being stranded, but ultimately I’d rather sort out what is causing the fault and resolve the problem. If there’s time Scott and I will try and run this down otherwise I will continue to try and fix it on my own.

Tires and Wheels

Last weekend (Saturday) Aral and I took a trip down the Yakima River canyon while Tess was getting her hair cut. We stopped along the way and checked out rafters, the really long grass along the bank, and some birds. Sand was a winner, he kicked his bare toes in it and squealed with excitement. On the way back up to pick up Mommy we motored along some of the cliffs which border the Hwy 12 and happened to roll over a rock which had fallen down. By the time we got to the meeting place back in town the left rear tire had gone completely flat.

I’ve been running 225/60R16 winter tires on the CLR 16″ rims that came with the van. Its softer rubber which works better on forest roads and for the most part I’ve been happy with the performance of the tires I have on Zeno currently, but the guys at Les Schwab are right, that rubber is much softer than I’d get in an all season tire and that increases my risk. The rock poked right through the middle of the tire, but was still repairable.

Thus I’ve returned to the practice of looking at tires and replacement wheels. Based on the availability of 6-ply tires I think I’m going to also be looking for 15″ rim replacements. More shopping and comparison is probably in order.

1st on a 5-speed

Zeno has a 5-speed transaxle on which I will inform you dear reader that I almost never use 1st. Its way, way down there. I mean, it is helpful if you’ve got to start the van from a stop on a very steep hill, but in normal driving conditions I just never get a chance to use. It starts fine in second.

Today we took Zeno for a tour of central Washington. We’re trying to get Aral, our new baby boy, ready for the big trip we have planned this July. We started off by heading down to Yakima via the Yakima River Highway 12. This is a super nice drive and the wild flowers are blooming everywhere. Quick stop at a pet store to buy a fence to keep the girls safe in the rear of the van and then we toured back up the canyon.

We stopped along the way to feed and change Aral and I got to walk the dogs along the river just north of Roza for a bit. The sun was warm and the May hatch was causing fish to rise all over the river. The dogs wallowed around in the river water and splashed their energy away.

Back in Zeno and soon Aral was lulled to sleep by the drone of the diesel pushing us back up the rest of the canyon. By the time we made it back to Ellensburg he was still sound asleep and Tess and I were enjoying talking to one another. Knowing that we’d wake him as soon as we stopped we decided to make a loop north of town.

I drove Zeno out north of town to a place that I’ve been frequenting for trail running in the morning. There was a fair amount of Memorial Day traffic headed down from Lion’s Rock, but despite the fact that the melt is well-nigh over up that far I was impressed by the fact that the area wasn’t covered in cars.

About two weeks ago I drove up this way to the point where I couldn’t go any further in Zeno because of snow. I got out and ran down a new road NF-3517 which my map told me looped back around to town via a connection with a “private” way by the name of Wilson Creek Road. I know where Wilson spills out its traffic in town, so I figured as long as the road was open I’d complete the loop and see some new parts of this country.

The road is indeed open, although when you pass out of National Forest Service land there is a sign that says something to the effect of “Entering Private Land. Stay on road next 15 miles.” The road at this point is a little bumpy and rolls a lot, but given that less than a month ago Wilson Creek flooded out some serious parts of Ellensburg I was sort of expecting at least a bump or two.

I should have known that the first bog we came to wasn’t really a fluke. I looked at it, plotted my path, summoned some courage, and plowed into the mud. In first gear! We slowed, but other than a surprising rock mid-bog we made it through without much worry. I drove on, but shortly thereafter we encountered the next in a series of some seriously rutted, mudded out bogs which at this point made me thankful to the German engineer who thought to add a 1st gear way, way down there on ‘83½ diesel Vanagons. Whoever owns that land will probably never close the gates on either end of the easement, he doesn’t have to because the “road” for most of that way is little more than a series of obstacles.

The right front wheel has some serious mud collection on the inside of the rim which unbalanced the front end a tad, but I’ll wash that off and carry on. Zeno just proved he’s more than I deserve.