From Veeduber@aol.com Wed Oct 18 20:19:29 1995
msgnum: msg17874
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 1995 21:18:48 -0400
From: Veeduber_at_aol_dot_com
Subject: Grendel: Home & Dry
Grendel: Home & Dry
In Washington I worked on Grendel for four weeks before
commiting her to the run south. During those nearly three hundred
hours of labor I gave her brakes and lights and signals and
steering and heat and wheels and tires and a single, ragged
windshield wiper. But I also gave her a bad alternator. In return,
she gifted me with a wounded transmission that would see me
groveling in the oil beneath her ten minutes out of every hour for
the duration of my journey, even after I discovered my failure
and corrected it.
During the trip she displayed myopic vision and an uneven wear
pattern on her new-but-used tires. Then there were the worn-but-
should-make-it parts I promised I would replace at the first
opportunity. Modesto provided that chance and I tried to kept
my promise.
Sunday, my son and I cleaned the cockpit, removing the rug
and rubber mat beneath, giving me access to the gear shift which
had come adrift. I checked it again, tightened it down, put the
mats back in after cleaning them and checking the brake fluid
level. In Washington I'd discarded the panels of carpeting glued
insecurely to the doors; there were no inner panels. Monday I
continued the process of restoring Grendel's dignity with liberal
applications of soap and water, a nicety ignored in the swampy
climate of the north. Here the day was fair and dry, parts
cleaned dried quickly and stayed that way.
Monday morning, October 16th, my son and I went to the Harbor
Freight outlet for a new 2-1/4 ton floor jack and a small three-
jaw puller then scoured the junkyards for early Volkswagen vans,
we didn't find any but I took a good pulley from a late model bug
and the axle nuts and washers from a 1968 bus. Richer in parts
but poorer in pocket, I spent the warm afternoon making minor
repairs, continued into the aqua light of evening, targeted by
mosquitos attracted to my work light, abused by a neighbor's dog
who felt I'd chosen a poor place to work. And besides, the light
was keeping him awake.
I could not heal Grendel's bleeding wound, which appeared to be
the failure of the axle tube retainer gaskets but I did what I
could to make her comfortable, whispering promises of a new life
if she would carry me home.
I checked the link pins and found they needed adjustment, as did
the toe in. Lacking a camber protractor, I was limited in what I
could do but after adjusting the link pins the toe-in was a
whopping two inches, explaining the uneven tire wear; it should
have been about an eighth of an inch. I adjusted it using a pair
of cedar laths, rolling Grendel back and forth on the level
portion of my son's concrete driveway until I was satisfied that
the error was within reason.
I adjusted the brakes yet again. The rough drums had been ground
smooth by the new shoes and accepted a tooth or two of further
tightening. The front wheel bearings with their ragged washers
and old fashioned dual nuts and locking tabs received careful
attention and the installation of new washers and later-model
nuts, the ones secured with an Allen-head machine screw.
The left king pin consented to six strokes of lube from the
grease gun, the other fittings one or two, spitting out the old
as they took in the new. The thousand miles had been an easy
jaunt for the steering knuckles.
The small day's work left me strangely tired, the trip had taken
an unseen toll. When I played football in high school I weighed
185. After twenty years in the Navy I weighed 195 and have
stayed near that figure in the twenty years since. I now weighed
180 and found the warm Modesto evening chilly, decided to leave
the heater wired open. I would be making an early start and it
would be cold.
My son, a truck driver for a commercial nursery, is an early
riser. By six a.m. I was bidding him farewell as he went off to
deliver a load of trees to Sacramento. I pulled out about twenty
mintues later heading in the opposite direction, my home in Vista
being 436 miles to the south.
Grendel handled much better thanks to the link-pin and spindle
adjustment. And for the first time I didn't have to struggle to
find reverse. But her heater couldn't cope with the pre-dawn
cold. Or I couldn't. One of those. I rolled south wearing a
heavy shirt, a towel across my knees. I had made an attempt to
re-aim the headlights but hadn't liked the result, yet they
proved better than before, although the lamp on the passenger-
side could use a bit more adjustment.
Two hours south of Modesto I pulled off highway 99, found a level
stretch beside the railroad tracks and did the Oil Routine, by
now almost a habit. With the new floor jack it was a breeze and
I was back on the road in twelve minutes. The tranny took only
four ounces, the smallest amount so far. I assumed my re-
torquing of the axle tube retainer plate had reduced the flow of
the leak and raised my speed to 55.
Four hours out of Modesto I was just north of Bakersfield and
Grendel took only eight ounces. My original plan had been to
avoid the steep Grapevine, taking Tehachapi Pass east into the
desert, continue south down Cajon Pass so as to approach San
Diego on I-15 thus avoiding both mountains and the clotted
arteries of the Los Angeles basin, although doing so would cost
me an extra two hours. But with Grendel running so well and
losing so little oil I decided to take the shorter route,
crossing the 120 mile wide Los Angeles basin on I-5.
Grendel crossed the 4,100 foot summit of Tejon Pass with style
but at the top she took an alarming twenty-one ounces of tranny
lube. Worried that I'd made a bad decision, I tried to keep her
speed down on the long descending grades but it proved impossible
without riding the brakes. Rolling on compression, she
maintained between 55 and 60 miles per hour. Worse was yet to
come. Twice I had to boost her to 70 to stay clear of traffic as
we became a part of the serpent of vehicles slithering through
the smoggy basin. The tranny noise increased, a sure sign of low
oil level but there are no rest stops in Los Angeles and pulling
off the freeway onto surface streets is like tumbling into a
maze. By the time I found a suitable place to refill the tranny
I might never find my way back to the freeway. I kept on south.
I was nearly home before I came to another rest stop, the one on
Camp Pendleton a few miles north of Oceanside. Less than twenty
miles from home I considered not taking the trouble to stop. But
I couldn't push Grendel even one mile, let alone twenty and the
tranny noise nudged me toward caution.
Grendel gulped 27 ounces of lube, more than a quarter of her
capacity. She immediately quieted down.
I stopped for the mail at the foot of the drive, parked Grendel
in the grove below the house. The 436 mile run from Modesto had
taken ten hours and thirty-eight minutes, a respectable pace for
a twenty-eight year old Transporter. In good condition. The
engine had accumlated 1,536 miles since being installed at
Shelton, during which it consumed a pint of oil. Mileage varied
during the trip from a high of about 32 mpg _at_ 40 mph traveling
down the Willamette Valley in Oregon, to a low of 27.1 during the
last stage of the trip when my speed ranged between 55 and 70
mph.
If these figures seem high it may be due to odometer error and
the use of P185/70-14 tires. But here is a typical example of
the fuel consumption method I used: I refueled at Tulare,
mileage = 1173. I didn't need fuel again until I arrived in
Vista, taking on 10.51 gallons, filling the tank to the same
point each time. The mileage at that time was 1,459 [ie, 286
miles traveled]. Grendel's odometer read 99,933 when I drove her
away from Shelton, Washington; 00012 when I began the run for
home. Anyone wishing to verify the fuel consumption can
calculate the map distance between Tulare and Vista.
Loading myself with baggage and presents, I trudged up the hill.
I'd stopped at a florist in town for some flowers but my wife was
still at work. They'll make a nice surprise for her when she
comes home. My quick week-or-ten-day trip to Seattle had taken
six weeks, less one day.
All journeys end when we reach our destination but the journeying
remains a thing apart, unique unto itself. Most of us make
life's journeys without understanding that the journeying is a
separate thing. I hope this tale has given you a glimpse of
both.
-Bob