Husker6.5
135' diagonal 16:9HD, 25KW sound!
Well, the saga continues. I'll let Jody (3bals) fill in the gory details when he and his wife get to their campground at the Grand Canyon either late today or early tomorrow and post the pictures. Suffice it to say that about 2:15 PM on Tuesday (6/18/13) I get a text from Jody : R u working? Call me
So I call back about two minutes after he texted me, just after I got off of work (talk about timing, I had just turned my phone back on seconds before he texted) only to go to his voicemail. So I texted him with: What's up?
Jody calls me back and tells me "I'm here in Lincoln."
Now this in and of itself didn't surprise me, as Lincoln is on the way from the Twin Cities to the Grand Canyon's South Rim, and we did have a Most Excellent Adventure driving from here to Reno in his Aveo to pick up the 6.5 motor home and back to here in February of 2011, but his next words kind of floored me.
"The motor home's dead," was the first thing out of his mouth after the opening statement, "It was running kind of rough when I stopped at the camp ground office and shut it off to check in, then when I came back out it wouldn't restart, just turned over and didn't fire off. I think I found that noise that I thought was an injector on number eight, there's a gash open in the valve cover from something inside over the number eight cylinder. Do you know where the Camp-a-Way campground is?" he asked me. "Sorry I didn't answer when you called me back, but I was on the phone with AAA at the time, and they wouldn't tow me the 100 yards from the campground office to my RV pad, but they WOULD tow me from in front of the office to a shop in town. 40 years a member of AAA, and they can't tow me 100 yards? I had a few choice words for them!"
"Hell, Jody, why don't I just hop in the Suburban and come down there and pull your motor home to your pad? The 'Burb will pull 15,000 pounds of motor home no problem, screw Triple A, I got a 25' length of 3/8" high test chain with a clevis hook on each end for emergencies, I'll be there in about 20 minutes!"
So, I grabbed my chain and the insert for my receiver hitch and headed the couple of exits east on I-80 from my house to the Camp-a-Way off I-80 and I-180 at the Superior Street exit. Chained up the Suburban to the front frame of the motor home, and because of the one-way loop through the campground, even though it was 100 yards, if that, from where the beastie died to the pad site (going the "wrong" way and not being lined up right to tow it into its pad site), it was closer to a 1/4 mile drive, across a one-lane bridge, up and down a hill and then a sharp 90* left just past an on ground transformer box followed by an immediate 45* right across the grass, missing an ash tree on the right and the water and electrical hook ups on the left, as I towed the 25' motor home into the pad site from the back of the pad, instead of backing in at an angle off the access road like it was designed. Passed several Duramax Pickups with fifth wheel travel trailers as we made the grand 6.5 tour around the campground.
After disconnecting the chain, I gave Jody a lift over to the near by Harbor Freight to buy a 1 1/4" to 2" receiver adapter and a 2" receiver cargo basket to put on the back of the Aveo, as "Plan B" was to load a couple of coolers and stuff on the cargo carrier, pack the back of the Aveo, and continue the vacation to hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon (starting on the North Rim) and back up to the top of the South Rim as originally planned - except without the motor home parked at the South Rim awaiting them with a shower, kitchen and a soft bed - now with a tent and two sleeping bags instead, while the dead beastie stayed a couple of weeks parked in the camp ground here in Lincoln.
Back at the campground after the Harbor Freight run, over a couple of beers and some munchies, Jody asks me "How much do I owe you for the tow, you burned fuel driving me around and stuff?"
"Not a damn thing, Jody. It's the six-five brotherhood thing. If it bothers you that much, you'll be back here on July 4th for the first day of the 40th Anniversary Zoofest Outdoor Blues Festival (an annual event celebrating the anniversary of the World Famous Blues Bar, the Zoo Bar here in downtown Lincoln) and you two were planning on going. So tell you what, the Fourth is my 52nd birthday, there's vendors there at the Zoofest, just buy me some BBQ from Famous Dave's and a couple of beers and we'll call it even."
So there it stands, Jody and his wife are in Moab right now for the night looking for a place to stay, having continued on with the Aveo, headed to the South Rim tomorrow to set up camp before getting a ride back to the North Rim to start their trek, the motor home is sitting here in Lincoln with a ruptured valve cover from as yet unknown cause, and it won't start, like either a second Heath remote PMD has died on it or it is in a no-fuel situation from another cause. Oh, yeah, Jody was having electrical problems right before the No-Start, kept blowing the fuse for the instrument panel every time he tried to move the electric seats back to pull the dog house cover off. To be dealt with one way or another when they return July 4th.
So I call back about two minutes after he texted me, just after I got off of work (talk about timing, I had just turned my phone back on seconds before he texted) only to go to his voicemail. So I texted him with: What's up?
Jody calls me back and tells me "I'm here in Lincoln."
Now this in and of itself didn't surprise me, as Lincoln is on the way from the Twin Cities to the Grand Canyon's South Rim, and we did have a Most Excellent Adventure driving from here to Reno in his Aveo to pick up the 6.5 motor home and back to here in February of 2011, but his next words kind of floored me.
"The motor home's dead," was the first thing out of his mouth after the opening statement, "It was running kind of rough when I stopped at the camp ground office and shut it off to check in, then when I came back out it wouldn't restart, just turned over and didn't fire off. I think I found that noise that I thought was an injector on number eight, there's a gash open in the valve cover from something inside over the number eight cylinder. Do you know where the Camp-a-Way campground is?" he asked me. "Sorry I didn't answer when you called me back, but I was on the phone with AAA at the time, and they wouldn't tow me the 100 yards from the campground office to my RV pad, but they WOULD tow me from in front of the office to a shop in town. 40 years a member of AAA, and they can't tow me 100 yards? I had a few choice words for them!"
"Hell, Jody, why don't I just hop in the Suburban and come down there and pull your motor home to your pad? The 'Burb will pull 15,000 pounds of motor home no problem, screw Triple A, I got a 25' length of 3/8" high test chain with a clevis hook on each end for emergencies, I'll be there in about 20 minutes!"
So, I grabbed my chain and the insert for my receiver hitch and headed the couple of exits east on I-80 from my house to the Camp-a-Way off I-80 and I-180 at the Superior Street exit. Chained up the Suburban to the front frame of the motor home, and because of the one-way loop through the campground, even though it was 100 yards, if that, from where the beastie died to the pad site (going the "wrong" way and not being lined up right to tow it into its pad site), it was closer to a 1/4 mile drive, across a one-lane bridge, up and down a hill and then a sharp 90* left just past an on ground transformer box followed by an immediate 45* right across the grass, missing an ash tree on the right and the water and electrical hook ups on the left, as I towed the 25' motor home into the pad site from the back of the pad, instead of backing in at an angle off the access road like it was designed. Passed several Duramax Pickups with fifth wheel travel trailers as we made the grand 6.5 tour around the campground.
After disconnecting the chain, I gave Jody a lift over to the near by Harbor Freight to buy a 1 1/4" to 2" receiver adapter and a 2" receiver cargo basket to put on the back of the Aveo, as "Plan B" was to load a couple of coolers and stuff on the cargo carrier, pack the back of the Aveo, and continue the vacation to hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon (starting on the North Rim) and back up to the top of the South Rim as originally planned - except without the motor home parked at the South Rim awaiting them with a shower, kitchen and a soft bed - now with a tent and two sleeping bags instead, while the dead beastie stayed a couple of weeks parked in the camp ground here in Lincoln.
Back at the campground after the Harbor Freight run, over a couple of beers and some munchies, Jody asks me "How much do I owe you for the tow, you burned fuel driving me around and stuff?"
"Not a damn thing, Jody. It's the six-five brotherhood thing. If it bothers you that much, you'll be back here on July 4th for the first day of the 40th Anniversary Zoofest Outdoor Blues Festival (an annual event celebrating the anniversary of the World Famous Blues Bar, the Zoo Bar here in downtown Lincoln) and you two were planning on going. So tell you what, the Fourth is my 52nd birthday, there's vendors there at the Zoofest, just buy me some BBQ from Famous Dave's and a couple of beers and we'll call it even."
So there it stands, Jody and his wife are in Moab right now for the night looking for a place to stay, having continued on with the Aveo, headed to the South Rim tomorrow to set up camp before getting a ride back to the North Rim to start their trek, the motor home is sitting here in Lincoln with a ruptured valve cover from as yet unknown cause, and it won't start, like either a second Heath remote PMD has died on it or it is in a no-fuel situation from another cause. Oh, yeah, Jody was having electrical problems right before the No-Start, kept blowing the fuse for the instrument panel every time he tried to move the electric seats back to pull the dog house cover off. To be dealt with one way or another when they return July 4th.
