BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!! BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!
My dash indicators sound this auditory alert as 2 of the indicators light - one is an Amber colored "Light Bulb" looking thing with an exclamation point in it and the other is a RED light bulb looking thing with an exclamation point in it! HUH, WHAT? I look down and the coolant temp is above 200º on the gauge. I pulled over and shut off the engine.
I got out to see of the rig and walked to the back to lift the engine cover to see if I could see what the problem was. OH, MY!! A blind man could see it in a minute in the middle of a white out snowstorm.
The belt pulley guide that connects to the back of the fan clutch assembly which is SUPPOSED to have 6 bolts holding it to the clutch assembly had ONLY ONE bolt still in place. The pulley guide was pulled away from the body of the clutch assembly and the fan belt that goes from the crank shaft to the fan clutch assembly and has a tensioner to hold it tight had totally fallen off. EEEEEEKK!
Here's a picture of the way it SHOULD LOOK:
Here you can see that their tensioner s at about a 45º angle from the pivot arm to the tensioner and that the bottom of the tensioner is virtually at the same level as the bottom of the crankshaft.
You can see the nice bright silver pulley in the middle of the picture. That is attached to the crankshaft. You can also see the tensioner arm. It is the silver "arm" that is at a 45º angle just to the left of the crankshaft pulley. The fan clutch assembly isn't quite as easy to see because it is behind the blade vertical bar and the silver air intake piece. The fan clutch assembly is silver and if you look closely has small, silver vanes all the way around it.
Here's a picture (as good as I could get it) of our belt AFTER I reinstalled it and tried to tighten it up as I was instructed to by Gary Harris the manager of the chassis department at Tiffin Motorhomes in Red Bay, Alabama.
Now, I know that the perspective is slightly different in the pictures, but you can CLEARLY see that our tensioner is virtually straight up and down and significantly LOWER than the bottom of the crankshaft. SOMETHING else in NOT there that is supposed to BE there OR, the whole fan clutch assembly has MOVED TOWARD the crankshaft because those are the 2 points (the crankshaft and the clutch assembly) that determine the distance that the belt has to span. The tensioner merely takes out what little play there should be in the belt to “keep it tight.” (My assumption is that the whole crankshaft didn’t shift toward the fan clutch! LOL)
Now, I called "Coach-Net" a national emergency roadside assistance insurance provided by Tiffin as part of the warranty of every new motorhome they sell. They got the pertinent information. We stressed to them that our motorhome had Independent Front Suspension (IFS) and could NOT BE HOOKED UP BY ANYTHING under the vehicle itself. The tow truck HAD TO BE a "Wheel Lift" tow truck. "No Problem" we will get one to you as soon as possible. Because we were on the shoulder of a relatively busy US highway with a 75 mph speed limit. They had the sheriff come by to make sure we were 'safe."
Meanwhile the rig had cooled off sufficiently that I could drive it the 7 miles to Falfurrias to park in the Walmart parking lot there. It MUST be the smallest Walmart in the world. We called Coach-Net again to tell them our new location. They were still working on trying to find a tow truck to tow us to South Texas Freightliner in Pharr, TX.
They called back about 45 minutes later saying they had found one and that it would be to us in "about 2 hours." We went to get something to eat and got gas and drove around the thriving metropolis of Falfurrias, TX (that took all of about 5 minutes). Finally at about 4:30 the tow truck shows up. The driver gets out and looks at the structure of the front of our rig and sees that it has IFS. "I can't tow this, I don't have a wheel lift tow truck!" You have GOT TO BE KIDDING ME! We TOLD them this was an IFS suspension system. "It isn't listed as one." The driver was "torqued" to put it mildly. I'm sure that Coach-Net will HAVE to pay him but they sure cost themselves some extra money and him a lot of wasted time and now WE are still sitting here without a tow and the clock it tick, tick, ticking away.
We call Coach-Net again and tell them they had sent the wrong type of tow. "We'll find one and give you a call back" they assured us. Sure enough, they called back in about 20 minutes saying that they had found a wheel-lift tow truck and he would be to us in about 1 1/2 hours. He was coming up from Pharr, TX. Finally at 7:15 PM the truck arrives - HOW ABOUT THAT its the right kind a "wheel-lift" truck. The driver tells me "OH, it's a bus! We were only told it was a regular Diesel Pusher RV. I'll have to clear this with my boss." By this time we are giddy. And just chuckle to ourselves at the SNAFU that this has been. You gotta laugh right? No sense getting upset. That doesn't cure a thing. He gets his bosses okay - easy enough.
So he starts to hook us up for the tow. It took 2 HOURS. Getting the wheels "lifted" with the equipment they have was the easy part. What I didn't know is that they have to pull the drive shaft so the rear axles are free and just roll. That took 1 hour all by itself. So, now it is 9:15 PM - TEN HOURS since we first broke down and we are ready to go ...... 75 miles at an average speed of about 35 mph. That's right folks. It took us 2 hours to drive to Pharr, TX from Falfurrias - (or FAIL FURIOUS as Irene nicknamed it). We got to the Freightliner repair shop at 12:30 in the morning. 13 hours after we had first broken down.
We were exhausted. We went and checked into a Holiday Inn Express about 1/2 mile away. We had to be at the Freightliner shop at 8 AM to get our rig onto their repair schedule.
NEXT POST - a continuation of Texas Boot Scootin' Two Step from the Nether regions of Pharr (from anywhere) Texas.
Good night.
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