June 18, 2013

Waking up in the parking lot of a garage can never be good.

We talked to the mechanic and he said he too thought it was a belt, maybe the serpentine, as we suspected, and could get working on us in about 30 minutes.

A quick breakfast for the kids and the repair work began. The kids watched from inside the RV and I washed dishes.

It wasn’t the serpentine belt, but another one deeper in the engine. A belt buried below 2 other belts. We said change them all. And since we’re here let’s change the fuel filter – try to get rid of that bad gas and gunk, the air filter, top off the power steering fluid, and change the oil. And anything else you think we might possibly need for another 3000 miles of travel.

The parts took a bit to arrive and the kids played in the RV. When they got restless we set up a movie to pass some time before we can hit the road.

The mechanic pulled a handful of hail from the freezer that they saved from the storm that passed through a few days ago.

The ones they had were golf ball size but some, he said, were as large as a tennis ball. I had taken this picture of a truck in the lot earlier in the am. I know found out it is our mechanics truck.

The work slowed when a missing bolt in the pulley system was discovered. They were able to fix this and also a missing bolt that closes the manifold gasket.

2pm we hit the road thinking Flyer was better than ever. That was short lived. We still have the sputter that we thought was bad gas. We have since worked through all this gas and replaced filters yet we still have this power loss. Maybe the fuel pump or sparks. Again we are in the very desolate parts of Montana. Sigh, I don’t feel a very friendly vibe from Montana.

I call ahead to, Billings, the next town we would come to hoping a garage would look at us tonight so we could keep going. It was 4:00 and we would be into town within 20 mins and even though folks said they were open until 5:30 or 6 they wouldn’t even look tonight.

Finally found a place, Ville Auto that said they would look.

The kids jumped rope again while the shop changed another fuel filter and tightened the belts. Then we were on our way.

Things seemed a little better but soon enough the hesitation started again.

We made it all the way to Livingston, MT to a beautiful KOA Kampground nestled into the base of the mountainside. This is our place for tonight. The kids enjoyed a swim before bed.