I finally packed up and left Colorado Springs on Monday, the 10th of October, considerably later than I had expected to stay in Colorado. Colorado Springs lies at 6,000 feet altitude, and snow general comes early in these high altitudes.
I headed for Moab, Utah with the intent of stopping overnight at the Montrose, Colorado Elks Lodge.
But alas, Fate had other plans for me.
I made it all of 72 miles from Colorado Springs, and was heading west on Highway 50, deep in Arkansas River canyon, far out of cell phone contact, when the truck, an International diesel Medium Duty Truck, started acting up - Engine Warning light, Oil/Water warning light, reduced speed, so I pulled off immediately at a state recreation area alongside the river. Inspecting the engine as best I could (NO mechanical knowledge here...), I found leaking oil, coolant was way down, vapors coming from the oil dipstick tube(!), and vapors being blown out from under the engine.
It really didn't look too good, y'all.
What to do - what to do!
I put the hood up, stood by the roadside and stuck out my thumb.
Within 5 minutes I had a ride with an old grizzled couple, really kinda dubious looking folks, but a ride is a ride. Actually, they were very pleasant, and they took me east into Canon City to a truck & auto repair shop. The guys at the repair shop, something like Billy Bob's Truck & Auto, were really doubtful as to whether they'd be able to do anything on the truck, but they allowed me to relax in their waiting area while I called the Good Sam's Emergency Road Service, which took way to long.
Unfortunately, the young lady who finally answered after several minutes on Hold had absolutely no idea as to what a medium duty truck was. She quizzed me if it was like a Ford F-150! After several minutes of question and answer, she finally looked it up on the Internet, then came back to say that it looked like a big truck...!
After at least an hour on line with her, she finally located both a repair facility (in Canon City), and a tow truck (in Colorado Springs) large enough to tow both the truck and the attached trailer to Canon City.
Another hour was spent waiting for the huge tow truck, but by pre-arrangement, he called me as he approached Canon City, and we agreed upon a spot where he could pick me up, at a Quik-Stop right across the street from Billy Bob’s. The driver was a young fellow, and the truck was just about as old as himself, but as we rode along and talked, I found him to be quite knowledgable, experienced and serious about his job and about safety. And the truck was in good condition.
We drove the 21 miles west to my truck and trailer, where we set about hooking up, with him checking and double-checking all connections and safety equipment, including his disconnecting the drive shaft to prevent overheating. Once properly hooked up, we did a very sharp turn back onto the highway, heading east back to Canon City at low speed, pulling off occasionally to allow backed up traffic to pass us.
My truck had failed about noon, and by 5 PM we were finally into Canon City and parked at the Royal Gorge Truck & RV facility, a nice place with lots of large bays. We disconnected everything, manually pushed the truck back into a parking spot for the night, and the foreman used a forklift connected to my trailer’s kingpin to move my home to a nice parking spot with 20 Amp electricity, and they told me we'd do the paperwork and all on the morrow.
Next morning, about 10, the foreman knocked on my door to update me, looking very serious: told me they'd have to drop the oil pan to determine the full extend of any damage, but that the truck had blown a piston!
I'm no mechanic, but I told him it sounded like thousands of dollars. He agreed.
The next day, with further investigation and tear down, it appeared that the underlying culprit was water in the oil - and I’d just had an oil change a couple hundred miles ago - the mechanics agreed it should have been noticed then.
But on with the story - the engine block head was shipped off to Pueblo, Colorado for whatever work they do on them, and it came back late Friday. Saturday, the shop owner/manager said that they should have everything back together by Tuesday afternoon, a worker will take the truck out for an extended test drive, bring it back, retighten the headbolts, and I should be back on the road by Wednesday, the 19th of October.
In the meantime, I’m enjoying Canon City as much as I can without the truck, but I do have my bike, and I’ve been out on the attractive Canon City River Walk a couple times for 11-mile roundtrip rides; there’s a WalMart right across the street (busy Highway 50) from me; my rig is positioned to catch early morning sun and afternoon shade, and the temps have consistently been up in the high 60’s/low 70’s with absolutely clear blue skies.
All in all, I’m very OK.
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