We took off from Franktown Wednesday morning after a I got an hour of sleep from finishing packing the car. And it was a fine packing job if I say so myself! Lots of Tawnya, Megan, and Mindy stuff from the old house to drop off at their places.
Sadly, several miles past Rifle, CO (the ONLY city with that name in the USA, we learned!) another car pulled up alongside us to let us know we were smoking. When I pulled off and looked under the engine there was very badly burned (black) transmission fluid pouring out so fast, I had to quickly move out of way of the puddle that was already reaching the front of the car (yes there are still some things I can do quickly).
We got towed back to Rifle to a mechanic's shop that was able to get us right in. All the other places told us it would be several days before they would be able to get us in. Possibly even as long as next Monday, so we were grateful to find this shop owned by a Ford "die-hard".
He took a look at it when we got there and diagnosed the front seal as needing replacement (which requires removing the entire transmission while cradling the engine in place since the motor mounts are removed in the transmission removal process. In other words, hundreds of dollars for labor to replace an $18 seal. He also warned us replacing the seal wouldn't fix whatever had caused the pressure to build up. It could last a day or could last for the life of the vehicle. Rebuilding the transmission would have been three times as costly. I was leaning towards the rebuilding because of the badly burned state of the fluid (even the mechanic, Billy, said he'd never seen such badly burnt fluid), however, when we dropped the tranny pan it was clean as a whistle, not a piece of metal to be found anywhere, so I decided to just have the seal replaced and to not allow the tranny to do a lot of down and up shifting as we went up mountains. Use overdrive for the flats only.
Billy told us the keys were in his truck and to take and use it since we were pretty well stranded and he couldn't leave us that way, especially with the hotels clear on the other side of town and the river (which turned out to be only about three miles!). We got the last room at La Quinta and got a lot of help from the front clerk (Megan) with a discounted rate and extra time before check-out.
In fact, we kept meeting nice and pleasant people, from the tow truck driver (Al) to Billy & Randy (the mechanics), and then Megan at the hotel.
We picked the car up the next afternoon and headed out of town around 5:00. At the Utah border we had to stop and check things out because the "Check Engine" light had come on.
About 115 miles from Rifle, near Cisco, UT, the transmission went out completely. No matter where you moved the shifter (other than park) nothing would happen other than the engine revving when you stepped on the gas. No leaking fluid, though, so the seal is still good! I guess it did last the life of the vehicle after all!
Another tow into Green River by Leon Clark a former professional basketball player from San Diego state who had returned "home".
Leon's hobby is a 615 horsepower jet boat for the Green River and he invited us to go out with him if we ever passed through town again. Little did he know, we should be doing exactly that the first part of August. Maybe we will have to take him up on his offer!
I can't tell everyone how wonderful and helpful the GPS I got for father's day has been. We were able to pull up mechanic shops, tow places, hotels, restaurants, gas stations or whatever!
I absolutely love it and I think Bonnie likes it even more!
While waiting for the tow truck we called several hotels in Green River and there was one person (Keith Brady) who was so helpful because of our situation he even told us our towing company was on the other end of town and there was a hotel right across the street, so we wouldn't have to pay extra for towing our car clear to the opposite end of town. After calling that hotel, we decided Keith had been so nice we would stay at his place, the Robber's Roost.
He and his wife, Kristi, were very kind and helpful, even to the point of allowing us to leave our car in their parking lot rather than towing it to Provo. I had posted it on Craig's list and had already received several inquiries.
Bonnie's brother, Steve, came to our rescue, driving the six hour round trip from Provo and loading all our stuff into his pick-up and dropping us off at Megan and John's place and coming back the next morning to unload Tawnya's stuff at her and Kyle's storage unit, which had been closed at the time of our arrival.
We bought a 98 Dodge Caravan yesterday (Saturday) which we are having cleaned tomorrow and hope to hit the road to Rexburg Tuesday to see Austin and Mindy. Oddly it is the same color and same inside as the 99 Plymouth Voyager we sold last Saturday at our moving sale!
o MY GOSH! Such stress, and yet, you two are still smiling. Amazing. I'm glad that you two are ok and were able to take care of everything. Snot is doing well, he's my magnet. His glucose was 302 yesterday so I upped the fix to 17cc's and will check him upon my return home this afternoon. These pictures are fantastic.
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