Escape From California: Complete

I woke up this morning from five days of driving and just couldn't resist a post about my successful escape from California. Please don't be offended my San Diego friends and neighbors, I still love you all. Skip to the end for an explanation.

This was after a week earlier bombing it across the USA in my pickup truck and this trailer in tow, filled to the brim with mostly tools from my home shop.

I got it done in 3 days because I was dodging Hurricane Barry before it swept up into Louisiana and Mississippi. Since pretty much that whole section of the Gulf Coast was doing the same thing, I didn't even get any sleep the second night. No vacancies in the hotels due to all those hurricane refugees. Instead I napped in my truck on the side of the road a few times to make sure I didn't fall asleep driving. I got there about dinner time on the third day and crashed hard that night. Two days later i was in the air flying back and spending the following 3 days packing up and loading our stuff. Lucky for us my brother, sister and brother-in-law all helped, which got us out of there almost on schedule.

In the first pic above you'll see my box truck with trailer in tow, which if you've been following my blog, you're already familiar with. Why no Flex on the back you ask? Notice that UHaul trailer in the background? That's why. Our stuff wouldn't all fit in the truck and last minute we called and audible and rented that thing to be towed by the Flex. Like the boss that he is, my brother flew out from Buffalo, NY the day before and not only helped us move out of our house, but got in that car and followed behind the box truck and trailer for five days. Yes, five days of pure hell punctuated by moments of good times hanging out chatting over our meals and hotel stays on the road. I sure owe that guy a few favors to put it mildly.

Only about 40 minutes into the trip, I kicked on the AC in the box truck and thrump! The belt self-destructed, taking several others on the motor with it. We spent the next couple hours tracking down as many new belts for the motor as we could find and installing them. We had to call and/or drive to about half a dozen auto parts stores to get them all in such short order. We even had to measure for the AC one and look it up based on length since the AC didn't come on the truck from the factory and was installed by the upfitter who did the box. We did this with a piece of #12 automotive wire wrapped around the pulleys that I purchased from Napa.

While we were under the hood addressing the belt situation, I noticed that the radiator cap was spewing coolant, even though the temp gauge read a cool 175 the whole time we were driving up to that point. This radiator cap looked like it had been replaced fairly recently, and that T-9 designation means that it's a 9 psi unit. I looked up the part online so I could give it to the guy at the parts counter. You see, most auto parts stores don't list anything for an old UHaul box truck, but a common part like this cap or the belts we replaced can be tracked down using a part number. Chances are you'll find them there because they were probably also used on some other type of vehicle. Turns out that this truck doesn't take a 9 psi radiator cap, thus the reason it boiled over at normal temperatures. It takes an 18 psi unit, so I gave the part number I found online and boom, problem solved and back on the road.

Climbing the mountains out of San Diego County on I8 was excruciatingly slow. I mean, there were times when we were going 25-30 mph with the 7.3 IDI diesel just screaming to keep it moving. At first I thought this was normal because I'd heard that the IDI was a bit of a dog, but this problem continued once we got onto flat ground. It wouldn't even maintain highway speeds on flat ground, which was not my experience when I first bought the truck. It had enough power to stay with traffic at 65-70 mph on flat ground then, but I was struggling to maintain 55. We barely made it to Arizona on day 1.

Day 2, we got back on the road and same problem, but it was getting worse and black smoke started pouring out the tailpipe. A little puff of smoke here and there on an old diesel like this is pretty standard stuff, but it was a steady stream, and it was just struggling with even the slightest of inclines. Part way through the day my brother put in a call to his brother-in-law who drives truck and is familiar with this engine. He said right away "change the fuel filter." Turns out that the biodiesel blends that you find at the pump these days will clean off all the varnish and gunk that builds up over the years in the fuel system. It took some time to find a parts store with the filter, but a few hours down the road we found one.

Again we had to use a part number to track this one down, but eventually we found a Napa that had one somewhere in the Arizona desert along I10. We bought a Jerry can too, filled it with fuel, and asked the gas station attendant if we could use the shade under the pumps to change it. They gave the go-ahead, so we got to work. With the engine being so hot from driving, it required a tool of some kind to spin the filter off. The gas station had some old tools for sale and charged us the absurd price of $5 for a crappy old used screwdriver, knowing full well we'd pay it. It was worth it too, because it got the filter off by hammering it through the sheet metal and levering it counterclockwise. We filled the new one with fuel using the Jerry can and spun it on. Luckily there wasn't too much air in the fuel system from changing the filter and it started right up.

The truck continued to smoke pretty bad for about a mile and had similar power to before because of the air bubbles that we had introduced to the fuel system, but once those cleared out, it was a huge difference. The truck didn't feel like it was going win any races, but you could actually feel the torque shove when you hit the throttle, and we made good time the rest of that day. The truck did start to smoke a bit again, which we figured was fuel filter again, so at the end of that day, we passed by an O'Reilly and decided to stop. Sure enough, they had a filter, so we purchased it, waited until the next morning, now in Texas, to change the filter when both the outside air and the engine were cool. That was no fun the day before in the 110^oF heat, burning our hands on the engine trying to change that filter. This went much better, and took all of about 2 minutes to get it done.

Back on the road on day 3, we actually started to make pretty good time. It was still a bit slow since that old beast still loses speed even on slight inclines, but the rest of the trip, the engine pulled hard. Then it was just drive, drive, drive for the next 3 days, covering a little over 700 miles per day, and we finally arrived in Raleigh last night about dinner time. My wonderful wife very kindly had pizza, wings and some Popeye's chicken waiting there for us. After stuffing our faces and throwing back a few beers, we were out like a light.

Since the last day of the move was so chaotic, my clothes that I wear every day got packed away somewhere, which are still MIA, so I made a run to Walmart this morning just to get something to wear until I can find my regular clothes. When I went through the checkout line, she double bagged them for me and I heard angels sing at my good fortune when I wasn't charged $0.10 a piece for each of those beautiful and hygienic disposable plastic bags. I realized right then and there, that I had finally escaped the radical leftist, economically fascistic and humanity-despising policies of the California government. Now I can get started moving on with my life in wonderful Raleigh, North Carolina. They claim to be first in freedom. I sure hope we can help with that.