Most of you in the ODSS have seen my old 87 Class C Camper. My trip to Mike's place a few weeks back was sort of a test run for a longer trip we made last week. THIS WAS quite a surprise filled trip ! We left around mid morning last Wednesday headed for McClure, VA for a Bluegrass festival. We were 20 miles away from home when we heard some hideous banging which turned out to be one of the rear tires peeling off all the rubber. (After, driving to Mike's place, I noticed the front tires were showing cracks so I had replaced them and the back 4 tires looked good, looks were very deceiving). I called around and found a shop in Charlottesville with 3 in stock so we eased on another 15 miles to the tire shop. About $750 later, we were back on the road with only one old tire still in use. We were about to climb Afton Mountain when that last tire peeled off. I slipped through the Emergency turn around spot and started easing back towards home. I called my friend in Richmond at Dyke tire and was able to get 2 more tires ordered for the next morning with the idea of having a new spare tire also. I made it home only to discover that I had just driven 50 miles on that old tire with literally no tread and the adjacent new dually tire was punctured by a piece of the exhaust tail pipe that was wacked off by the flying tire debris. Well, after cutting off the second flattened tail pipe, opening the pinched shut tailpipe, installing two more new tires, and wiring the two tail pipes back into place with several wraps of wire, it was time to go down the road again the next day.
We made it there on the second day and really enjoyed the event! I managed to win a 50/50 raffle on Friday and collected $631 cash ! That really helped take the sting out of the tire surprises. On Sunday, we started back home on the 300 mile Journey and all was looking good from the start. The old camper, with it's old 87 technology, would display a check engine light from time to time and this trip was no different. The check engine light came on and went out several times so we continued on without incident. However, we started to lose power climbing hills on I-81 and were down to about 45 MPH over the top of the next hill. I punched the gas pedal going down hill and could hear the engine coughing and missing. We got to a gas station at the Natural Bridge exit, I shut off the engine, hit the key and only heard clicking so I pulled out the multimeter and read about 11.5 volts on the battery. I found someone willing to give me a jump start. Once the engine fired up, the voltage was decreasing so I felt certain that the Alternator was the issue and we had been running on the other on board deep cycle battery connected in parallel to the one under the hood. There was a nice local Gentleman there that saw our situation and offered to call the local auto part store near Lexington. He gave me a fast ride down to get a new alternator and we were back on the road in about another 45 minutes !
I had made 4 trips to Hershey, several trips to Cape Hatteras, Winchester, Hunting trips, and Maryland with no troubles so I guess I was due for a few surprises, even though I try to keep up with vehicle maintenance !
