"Mercy Mercy me"

So, I find out that summer leave is coming up and that I will have 2 weeks of free time away from Ft. Lewis. For leave I decide to head back home to Palmdale, and that I should drive the truck (1960 Chevy pickup) home and drop it off, and bring Daisy (197five cj five) back up to WA.

The day for we sign out for leave arrives. After final formation, we all sign out. I then change out of uniform as quickly as possible and enlist the help of some friends (it takes several people to push a kayak out the window of a room on the 3^rd floor and lower it somewhat safely to the ground) to start loading the kayak and several tough boxes into the back of the truck. Once everything is loaded I do a few last minute checks and then hit the road on my way. Normally the first leg of the journey goes pretty smoothly and is the easiest since its daylight and im still wide awake (not that I ever really get tired while driving). I should have realized this trip would be different when I found myself in traffic before I even got off post, but I just chalked it up to typical Friday traffic. Six hours later and I had only made it about 130 miles!!! I should have already been almost half way home by now, but instead I had not even made it out of Washington yet. At this time I decide it is less effective to try and fight the stop and go traffic, and that it would be better to pull off and get something to eat in the hopes that once I was done eating the traffic would have dissipated. As I pull into the Wendy’s parking lot, I notice that several other cars seem to have the same plan. In talking to the other folks getting food, I am informed that there were five car accidents all within about a 30 mile stretch of the highway, and that is why traffic has been backed up for so long.

After taking plenty of time enjoying my frosty and fries, I decide things should be cleared up by now and that I should get back on the road. I’m on the road for about a half hour before I start to notice a fair amount of blue smoke pouring out from the back of the truck as I drive down the road. My first thought is that this is not good, since blue smoke is a good indication of burning oil. I glanced down at my trusty oil pressure gauge (the only gauge in the truck that works) and see that I still have plenty of pressure, so I figure things cant be that bad. I start to go over in my head all the reasons that I could be burning oil (bad piston rings, blown gaskets, cracked block, and so on). During this process I decide to call my dad and have him use the magic of the internet to double check my suspicions. After a little research, I figure it is most likely that the piston rings are ruined, and the oil is burning because its leaking through into the combustion chamber. So, one of my favorite shows is called roadkill. It is about 2 guys who drive junk cars long distances for different reasons and have to stop and fix horrible problems on the vehicles every episode. Since I watched an episode where they successfully drove an el camino from LA to Reno with bad piston rings, I figure I should be able to make it the rest of the way as well.

After driving for a couple more hours, it is now dark and the oil pressure gauge is starting to drop a lot quicker than I would like. I decide to pull off on the next exit and see if I cant figure out exactly what is going on. The next exit turns out to be one of those ranch exits, that has no services, no lights. Its sole purpose is to provide some rancher access to his land. As I pull off the road into a dirt lot, I grab my headlamp and hop out to see if I can see why im losing oil pressure. By the time I get out and walk around to the other side of the truck where the engine will be most visible from underneath, the truck has had enough time to drop a small lake of oil on the ground and continue emptying what is left from the oil pan into the dirt which the light from my headlamp gladly reflects off of. I decide that time is short, so I hurry up and dump a gallon of oil in the engine (doesn’t everyone carry an extra gallon of oil everywhere they go?) and head off in search of a truck stop before I run out of oil and get stranded. About 10 miles down the road I come across a “Loves” truck stop and decide to pull in. I find a parking spot, and immediately start making a new lake of oil under the truck. I do my best to try and see where the oil is coming from, but am unsuccessful. I then head into the store in search of more oil, and a mirror on a stick. Once inside I find the oil rather quickly, but spend the next twenty minutes looking for the mirror. I figure since this is a truck stop they are bound to have one, and I am just not seeing it. After repeated failure I finally resort to asking the cashier where it is, and she just gives me a confused look since she has no idea what I’m talking about. I quickly describe to her what it looks like, to which she replies “we don’t carry anything like that here”. I buy about 2 gallons of oil, and head back out to my new man made lake. I do a little more peering and straining in an attempt to find where the oil is leaking from, and come to the conclusion that the rear main seal is probably broken and that it would be best to try and find an auto parts store. I top off the oil and quickly get back on the highway and head on down the road. After about a little over an hour (about 3 am) of driving, I notice the oil pressure start to drop again. Luckily I am coming up on a rest stop. I pull off, and decide that instead of topping off the oil, that it would be better to stop until daylight and then continue on when it would be easier to find. Once I pull into a parking spot, I get out and put my oil drain pan under the leak so that I can capture as much of the oil leaking out as I can. I figure since I have a limited amount with me, I will need to reuse any that I can manage to prevent from becoming a dark lake under the truck. I then get back in the truck and attempt to get some sleep. I spent the rest of the night waking up about every half hour convinced I had heard someone trying to take stuff out of the bed of the truck. Some time a little before sun up I decided attempting to sleep was a lost cause. I got out and grabbed the extra bottles of oil I had and pulled the drain plan out from under the truck. I quickly dumped the contents of the pan along with 3 quarts of oil into the engine, and then was on my way.

At about the same time that the sun was starting to rise, I found a small town ( I don’t remember the name of it) that looked promising. Upon exiting the freeway, I immediately happen across a small chevron station. Once I am inside I locate the oil and start grabbing every bottle they have. The cashier gives me a funny look and informs me that the oil is expensive. I then fill her in on my situation, and that I need the oil no matter what the cost is to make it farther. She then informs me that there is a Walmart, and an O'Reilly's auto parts store in town, and gives me directions on how to get there so that I can get cheaper oil. Gotta love small towns! After driving around for about fifteen minutes, I was able to find both of them right next to each other. Since it was still rather early, I had to sit around for about an hour for the auto parts store to open. I got out and put my drain pan under the truck, and then used this time to call my brother Jake and see what he was up to for the day. Once the store opened, I went in and made my way straight to the section with the mirror on a sticks and bought one. Since it was now light outside, I decided this would be a good opportunity to further diagnose the issue. I took a good look underneath using my newly acquired tool. Because the starter was blocking my view, I was still not able to see what was causing the problem for certain. It still looked like it was leaking from the rear main seal. So I went back in the store and bought several five quart jugs of cheap oil. Once I had filled the motor back up I was quickly on my way again. Since I was not completely sure what the problem was, I opted to keep driving and just stop every fifty miles or so and add more oil. This plan worked alright, all the way till I got to the foot of the grapevine.

I had decided it would be a good idea to stop one last time to get more oil before heading up the pass. I tried paying Credit, and when that didn’t work, tried ATM. That failed also! (turns out when you drive a thousand miles stopping every fifty miles to get stuff, the bank thinks its suspicions activity and puts a hold on your card) Luckily I had enough cash for 2 quarts of oil. After topping it off, I preceded up the pass and was able to make it the rest of the way without incident. Once I arrived home and had access to the necessary tools, upon removing the starter I discovered that the cause of all my troubles was an 8 inch crack along the side of my oil pan. I went to the parts store in an attempt to buy another one, which turned into its own mini adventure. In the end I wound up just taking the pan off and welding up the crack on my own. A trip that normally takes between 16 and 20 hours ended up taking 2 days.