After one stretch of summer block
leave, I decided that I wanted to take Daisy back up to washington so
that I could do some off roading in my free time. After some of my
other driving experiences, I decided It would be a good idea to leave
my self some extra time just in case something bad happened during
the drive, so I left a couple days before I had to be back. For the
first couple hundred miles, everything went well, or at least as well
as can be expected when driving Daisy. For those of you who have
never had the priveldge of riding daisy, its an adventure to say the
least! She constantly wants to change lanes on her own, and its not
so much that you steer her down the road, but more like your playing
pong inside the lines of your lane, constantly bouncing back and
forth correcting the wheel each time you hit the line in order to
prevent yourself from leaving the road (so for those of you who ever
wondered why I dont let you drive her, now you know). I was doing
really well at guiding her down the highway swaying back and forth
and managing to stay in my own lane, though I am pretty certain that
the other drivers on the road were expecting me to leave the road at
any moment. I figured my best option was to just take it slow and
easy. All was going well till I crossed into oregon. At around
2330, I was somewhere in the mountains, going up a rather steep
stretch of road, when all of a sudden the jeep started to sputter and
lose power. I glanced down at my oil pressure gauge ( the only
working gauge on the dash) and saw that I still had plenty of oil
pressure, which meant that I was almost out of fuel. Because I dont
have a working odometer, or fuel gauge this is not an unexpected
occurance. I pulled off to the side of the road, and used once of
the five gallon fuel cans I carry to fill the tank back up enough to
continue on down the road to the next gas station. Once the can was
empty and secured in the back, I hopped in and was back on the road.
After about 10 miles, i came across a small town. I figured it was as
good a spot at any to stop and fill up. After getting gas, I hopped
back on the highway and continued on with my trip. After going about
2 miles, I heard a loud bang, and saw liquid shoot out several spots
around the edge of the hood. From all of my previous experience, I
have learned that this is never a good sign. I immediately pulled
off to the side of the road again, and opened the hood so as to
assess the situation. When I opened the hood, water was still
spraying all over the place. At first glance I thought I had broken
one of the radiator hoses, which is no big deal, since I carry spares
for just an occasion. After careful inspection, I couldnt find any
breaks in either hose. My next thought was that maybe it was just
the pressure cap on the radiator releasing steam/water. So I shut
the hood, climbed back in and decided to ease it up the road a ways
and see if it happened again. After a couple miles, I started to
see water shooting out again. Since I happened to be coming up on an
exit, I waited till then, and then once I was off the highway I
pulled off the side into a dirt lot for further diagnosis. This time
I decided to grab my headlamp, since I was still convinced there was
a hole in one of the hoses and that I had just missed it in the dark.
After searching for a good ten minutes and not finding anything
broken or torn, I decided it would be best to head back to the gas
station where I had filled up, and wait till morning when I could
better determine exactly what was wrong. When I got to the Cheveron,
I picked a spot in the parking lot, turned off the jeep and attempted
to sleep. When the sun finally came up, I noticed the gas station had
a water spicket. I pulled over in front of it and started to refill
my radiator. Once the radiator was full, I turned off the water, and
started the motor. Almost instantly I saw water shooting up.
Instead of coming from one of the hoses, I noticed it was coming from
right behind the fan out of the motor, and at a very rapid rate. I
hop in the jeep, and head across the street , where luckily there
happens to be an Oriely's auto pars. I then sat there waiting for
them to open so that I could see if they had a water pump for an
older chevy motor. Luckily for me, auto parts stores tend to still
be open on memorial day. When the store opened, my luck held out,
and they had the water pump that I needed. I took my newly aquired
water pump out side, and after emptying all the tools out of the back
of the jeep, I proceeded to remove the old water pump and replace it
with the new one right there in the parking lot. As I was working on
it, every time an old man walked by on their way into the store, they
all paused, looked at me, and said “ looks like the old change the
water pump in the parking lot trick”. Apparently this was
something all of them had done at one point or another. After about
an hour, I had the old pump off and the new one on. I then fired the
engine up to test out my handy work. Immediately water started
covering the ground! I quickly looked into the engine bay with hopes
of discovering where the water was coming from. As I looked, to my
horror I saw that the water was pouring out of the middle of the
radiator. I quickly shut the engine off, and went back inside the
store. After searching the isles, and asking a few questions, I came
back outside with a bottle of copper stop leak. For those of you not
familiar with this product, its sole purpose is to stop radiators
from leaking, so you dont have to use egg whites. For those of you
wondering why I didnt just get a new radiator, the one I have is not
an original from a jeep, and for the last 5 years I have not been
able to find another one that is the same. I then headed back over
to the gas station to use their water spicket. I filled the radiator
with water, only to see the water start pouring out faster than I
could put it in once it got about half full. I then quickly added
the bottle of stop leak and fired up the motor. The radiator
continued leaking, and the stop leak never acomplished its task. I
then made a judgement call, and decided I would fill as many
containers as I could with water and then try and drive anyway and
see how far I could make it. After heading back onto the highway,
leaving a nice trail of water the whole way, I made it less than ten
miles before the motor started to over heat. I then took the next
exit I came to, and pulled off so that I could let the motor cool
down and evaluate my situation. I made a phone call to my dad so
that he could jump on the internet and look for the nearest u-haul
store. As it turns out almost all of them are closed on memorial
day. After several minutes of searching he was able to give me the
number to several dealers that were anywhere from 14 to 60 miles
away. After giving them all a call, I was lucky enough to find only
one of them was open, and that one happened to be the one that was
closest to my location. It was in Weed, oregon. The guy who was
running it told me he had one truck, and one tow dolly left. I told
hime to hold them for me cause I was on my way and then quickly I
jumped back on the highway, and gradually limped the jeep to their
location, stopping every 4 miles or so to let the engine cool off and
add more water. After about an hour I managed to make it to the
dealer, which turned out to be a one stop shop. It was a liquor
store/mini mart/pawn shop/ gun store/ bait and tackle shop/ u-haul
dealer. After filling out all the proper paperwork, I hooked the tow
dolly up to the truck, then hooked the jeep up to the tow dolly, and
disconected the transfer case. After making sure the jeep was secure,
I jumped in the truck and began the rest of my journey back to Ft
Lewis. It was a very different and pleasing experience finishing off
the trip with climate controls and a radio. I pulled into the
batallion parking lot just a little under 2 days after I head left on
what should have been a quick 16 hour drive. Once again, another
adventure from behind the wheel!
