Winston-ClassB
Senior Member
For most of our existence we’ve taken a rather laissez-faire approach to vehicle maintenance - - if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But our thinking began to mature when we built our DIY Promaster - - not because this vehicle is a piece-of-junk and breaks all the time; rather, because of the distant, remote, and obscure places we now target - - e.g. back gravel roads in Labrador; the Dempster Highway (600 miles of gravel) enroute to the Arctic Ocean in the Yukon and Northwest Territories. Our Promaster is a magnet drawing us to some of the most obscure, rustic places on the Continent. A vehicle breakdown can be more than massively inconvenient, it can be life threatening.
Todate, our 8 years of travel have netted 210,000 miles of exploration and fun. And, as reported in the Threads of this and the Promaster Forums, we have been confronted with the inconveniences of catastrophic failure (including the difficulty of locating local repair facilities willing to “fit” a traveling motorist into their already over-booked schedule):
Transmission failure, 11/19, Indianapolis, Indiana;
Engine “falling off”, 3/23, Jackson, Mississippi;
Radiator Cooling Fan, 9/22, Yukon Territory.
These were not “happy” experiences, but they could have been far worse. Indianapolis and Jackson are both good sized cities with mostly competent and “willing” repair facilities within just a few miles. The radiator fan in the Yukon, well, we learned to drive without these fans for several thousand miles until repair could be arranged.
But the specter of a total breakdown of the campervan - - which is our home while on the road, the location of all food and clothes, housing, everything - - in one of those obscure Canadian reaches, or Alaska or even in a lesser populated Mississippi village - - only increases in direct measure to our van’s increasing mileage.
So, last year, we started a discussion with our mechanic - - the feasibility of replacing the “drive train” including all components having anything to do with its ability to move forward in a controlled manner.
We had hoped to find a low mileage ‘used’ drive train - - maybe a vehicle that had been rear-ended or one of those high-tops where the driver failed to heed the sign: Clearance 7' 6". Well, if such bargains exist, we have yet to find one.
Then, two weeks ago, after our van had sat for several weeks, its transmission started to slip. Our mechanic ran some tests, did some research and concluded that, for now, letting the van idle in neutral for a period would allow the transmission fluids to ‘relocate’ and the transmission to operate - - but he sternly warned: “I wouldn’t drive too far until you replace the transmission.”
The need to replace the transmission re-enforced our desire to replace the “drive train”. And this is what we’ve decided to do. We’ll report more, later, including the ultimate expense involved. But we’re learning things that, we suspect, many of us lay public don’t know . . . for example, when you replace an engine, you’re really not getting a whole engine. You’ve got to reuse the oil pan and, by the way, there’s also a rather significant “upper oil pan” casting that must be recovered/reused. And, at one end of the engine, there’s another huge “timing chain cover” casting. And don’t forget the top, two plastic, lower and upper, intake manifolds. Do we reuse or replace these plastic components? We’ve replaced the upper manifold before, but what the heck, the lower one is just $500. And did we consider the two alternators, the water and other pumps? And this lay person had no idea of the literally dozens of pipes, hoses, cables, clamps and other attachments that must be removed before the engine/transmission yields to removal. Would love to see how the factory assembles these things - - although we’re more interested in how our mechanic is going to reassemble - - even our mechanic admits that available manuals tell one what has to be removed, but do not elaborate on the exact order of assembly to obtain proper positioning of all that was removed.
In any event, the process has started and hopefully we’ll not learn of too many other surprises.
Todate, our 8 years of travel have netted 210,000 miles of exploration and fun. And, as reported in the Threads of this and the Promaster Forums, we have been confronted with the inconveniences of catastrophic failure (including the difficulty of locating local repair facilities willing to “fit” a traveling motorist into their already over-booked schedule):
Transmission failure, 11/19, Indianapolis, Indiana;
Engine “falling off”, 3/23, Jackson, Mississippi;
Radiator Cooling Fan, 9/22, Yukon Territory.
These were not “happy” experiences, but they could have been far worse. Indianapolis and Jackson are both good sized cities with mostly competent and “willing” repair facilities within just a few miles. The radiator fan in the Yukon, well, we learned to drive without these fans for several thousand miles until repair could be arranged.
But the specter of a total breakdown of the campervan - - which is our home while on the road, the location of all food and clothes, housing, everything - - in one of those obscure Canadian reaches, or Alaska or even in a lesser populated Mississippi village - - only increases in direct measure to our van’s increasing mileage.
So, last year, we started a discussion with our mechanic - - the feasibility of replacing the “drive train” including all components having anything to do with its ability to move forward in a controlled manner.
We had hoped to find a low mileage ‘used’ drive train - - maybe a vehicle that had been rear-ended or one of those high-tops where the driver failed to heed the sign: Clearance 7' 6". Well, if such bargains exist, we have yet to find one.
Then, two weeks ago, after our van had sat for several weeks, its transmission started to slip. Our mechanic ran some tests, did some research and concluded that, for now, letting the van idle in neutral for a period would allow the transmission fluids to ‘relocate’ and the transmission to operate - - but he sternly warned: “I wouldn’t drive too far until you replace the transmission.”
The need to replace the transmission re-enforced our desire to replace the “drive train”. And this is what we’ve decided to do. We’ll report more, later, including the ultimate expense involved. But we’re learning things that, we suspect, many of us lay public don’t know . . . for example, when you replace an engine, you’re really not getting a whole engine. You’ve got to reuse the oil pan and, by the way, there’s also a rather significant “upper oil pan” casting that must be recovered/reused. And, at one end of the engine, there’s another huge “timing chain cover” casting. And don’t forget the top, two plastic, lower and upper, intake manifolds. Do we reuse or replace these plastic components? We’ve replaced the upper manifold before, but what the heck, the lower one is just $500. And did we consider the two alternators, the water and other pumps? And this lay person had no idea of the literally dozens of pipes, hoses, cables, clamps and other attachments that must be removed before the engine/transmission yields to removal. Would love to see how the factory assembles these things - - although we’re more interested in how our mechanic is going to reassemble - - even our mechanic admits that available manuals tell one what has to be removed, but do not elaborate on the exact order of assembly to obtain proper positioning of all that was removed.
In any event, the process has started and hopefully we’ll not learn of too many other surprises.
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