Click on a photo to enlarge it.
I flew back to join Kirsten in Canada at the end of September and took a few days off to recover from the 2 month long walk along the Camino through France, Spain and Portugal. Kirsten had picked up Winnie out of storage near Vancouver and, despite being kept in a former cow shed, he had managed to survive. Filthy on the outside but no problems inside. All we needed was a new front battery which we'd needed before the storage anyway.
In October we spent 12 days on a free campground in Greenwood whilst we waited for our new vehicle sticker to arrive by post and then we drove across the border from Canada into America at a small crossing in Lainier. It only took 30 minutes which must be a record!
Unfortunately we started having problems with Winnie. After only a couple of days, our radiator blew in Butte, Montana, leaving a 250 yard trail of coolant along the road. We lost all the water within seconds and only just managed to pull onto a Walmart car park as our temperature gauge shot up! The new radiator cost us $370.
The next day we headed south but we almost overheated and our overflow bottle was full. This time it was the thermostat that had got stuck - another $120. We only managed 200 miles to get down to Salt Lake City when we nearly overheated again! Our head gasket needed replacing!
We had our entire engine taken out to be sent off and checked. The result was that the head is not serviceable anymore as it is too thin, after three earlier repairs, to be worked on again. So we had the choice between just getting a new head (inc. labour work at Napa around $3000) or paying for a completely refurbished engine for $4000 in total.
Winnie is 28 years old and it wasn't worth spending so much money on him except we didn't have an alternative. Just getting the old engine put back in without repairs was going to cost us $1000. No matter what we did it would cost us a lot of money.
So we decided to get a refurbished engine put in - new ones are no longer being built. At least we had a 3 year and 100,000 miles guarantee so we're hoping that Winnie will last that long!
Whilst deciding what we were going to do with Winnie, we checked the internet to look at similar models for sale and what kind of price we would get if we had the repairs done. Kirsten looked on the Pan American forum and found an ideal motor home for us to use in South America! So whilst spending a bucket load of money on repairs we also bought another motor home for around $6,000!!!
It's a 1999 Fiat Ducato 2.8 litre turbo diesel that doesn't look like a motor home but has been turned into one with a very well thought out design. The current owners have done a lot of repairs on it and will be shipping it from Germany to South America in January 2015 where they will be travelling in it for 6 months before returning to Germany. I will fly down in August 2015 to complete the transfer.
Apparently the engine is the best that Fiat ever built but then that's what we heard about Winnie's Toyota engine so we'll have to wait and see. It will have about 130,000 miles on it by the time we pick it up and we have already completed a contract and paid a deposit. Hopefully the German family won't have any problems with it whilst on the road.
We are both looking forward to spending time in our "second home" which we have provisionally called "Winnietwo" aka Winnetou. Our plan is to spend the summers in Canada and the winters in South America (which will also be summertime!) We are hoping that Winnie will get us down to Mexico and back to Canada by June 2015 without any further problems. Fingers crossed on that one!
The engine repairs in Salt Lake City took 15 days (30th October to 13th November 2014) and we stayed right next to the Napa Autocare Center. They were really good and allowed us to use our extension lead to plug in. We needed the electricity because the temperature dropped to below freezing overnight and we needed to use our heater. We could also use the computer every day and even had an internet connection. Without an engine we certainly weren't going anywhere!
Winnie was pushed into the garage using an ATV and mechanics to get him in. Even Helen had to push whilst Kirsten took the video! Despite the high cost of repairs - around $5000 - it would be worth it. Including these costs, Winnie has only cost us $7 per day for the two of us over the 11 years. There's nowhere else you can get transport and accommodation for such a low price.
Winnie gets a new engine in Salt Lake City.
We did some test drives to make sure everything was working well before we left Salt Lake City but the snow was coming so we needed to head south. However, we found out that there were a few things that weren't re-attached when the engine was put back in! The first thing we noticed was when we went for a smog test in Phoenix. We failed the first test because a tube hadn't been attached but then got through easily the second time.
Then we had an odd noise that seemed to be coming from the front right tyre that got worse very quickly. It turned out that the mechanics had unscrewed a bolt in the front axle as if they were going to realign the tyres but had forgotten to tighten it. We could easily have had a major accident and done a belly flop if that bolt had come out completely!! Fortunately, we got it checked out straight away and it was just a matter of tightening the bolt and reattaching the alignment pieces that were, surprisingly, still lying on the wheel arm - even though we'd driven almost 1,000 miles from Salt Lake City!!!
We stayed with our friends Beth and Bill and their twins in Chandler and spent Thanksgiving with them. At first we thought we had the wrong house because there was a dog barking and we knew they didn't have one. Well, they do now so we also met Zula, a very friendly Doberman and a real sweetie, and helped out by taking her for walks and playing ball with her.
Besides the Thanksgiving treat (roast turkey, stuffing, all the trimmings and yummy pecan pies) we were also treated to a night in their cabin, an afternoon at the spa/gym, and went to a Melissa Etheridge concert with Beth.
We bought the cheapest tickets available which were $60 each and got the last but one row on the fourth floor. Each time we've been to one of her concerts we've been upgraded and it was the same in Mesa. We got better tickets and then, once the concert started, we moved even further forward.
Melissa Etheridge concert in Mesa - Part 1
We danced and sung along and had a great time even though most of the crowd were older than us and stayed seated! Towards the end we went right up to the stage and Melissa gave all three of us a clap on the hands. Despite the loud music you could still hear my shout - "I got touched by MELISSAAAAAAA!"
Melissa Etheridge concert in Mesa - Part 2
On the 12th December we crossed the border into Mexico at Nogales.
