Focht Family Blog

Today we spent most of our day on the side of the road. We stayed at a Walmart last night and got an early start today. We were going to try to make it all the way to Seattle by tonight. However, about an hour from the Oregon border while we were still in California we heard a pop followed by a hissing noise. Nathan didn’t hear the noise but then noticed that he was losing power although the engine was still running and there were no alarms. I told him it sounded like a hose had blown.

We pulled off onto an exit but it didn’t look like there was anything on the road but snow so we limped back up the on ramp and parked on the side. We put some flares out (thanks to the police at our last breakdown) and put the slide out enough to open the access panel. When Nathan opened it we found that a metal elbow had been blown off of a hose. It was the turbo so without it we would not have enough power to get up any of the mountains unless we were going about 4 miles an hour! We called Spartan and all they would do is send a tow truck. They wouldn’t get us a flatbed tow and said we would have to sign a release for them to tow us. After the last one damaged our coach we didn’t want to do that.

We called Cummins and tried to track down the part so Nathan could fix it on the side of the road. We found one that said they had it in Oregon. We arranged for a courier to pick it up and bring it to us. When the man got to the shop to give the part to the courier he found out that although the computer said he had it, he did not. He said he could have one at his shop first thing in the morning. He arranged for a tow truck to come and get us and while we were waiting Nathan decided to try to patch the problem. Here is a picture of the elbow that blew off after Nathan patched it. The rim was sheared off when it blew so Nathan had to use some duct tape and tighten the collar a bit more to get it to hold.

Nathan thinks it blew because it is rubbing against the metal plate on the side and when the engine is flexing on the bouncy roads it was putting to much pressure on it. He thinks when they put the new engine in they didn’t check to see where everything was rubbing when they replaced all of the hoses. If there is something good that has come out of it, I noticed that one of the bolts on another collar was rubbing a hole in one of the air conditioner hoses, so we can get that fixed as well. This is a picture of the hose after Nathan moved the collar and taped the hole that was starting to develop from the rub.

We did a few trials of speeding up the ramp and backing back down. There was some air escaping around the elbow because we could hear hissing but the elbow held up to the pressure. We tried going up one mountain pass and when we made it over we canceled the tow truck and decided to limp to Oregon to get the part. The good part is that so far on this breakdown we haven’t had to vacate the RV. On the way to Oregon we found a place with a wide pull-off that had lots of snow so we stopped so the kids could see it. Timmy was up front but for some reason the other two did not answer when I called them multiple times to come out in the snow. So… here is Timmy playing in the snow.

Here is a picture of the trees that were behind Timmy while he was playing.

By this time we were starting to get into flurries and we were glad we weren’t being towed after dark in this weather. Here is a picture of the snow hitting our windshield and a picture of some beautiful snowy scenery we were driving by.

After we got into the town in Oregon we were driving to we stopped at a mall and walked around and ate dinner. We then drove to Cummins and parked for the night. Hopefully when we get up the part will be here and we can repair and get out of here in a timely manner so we can make it to Seattle tomorrow.