Chasing a dream

I think at this point, we are waaaay beyond the finer details...
 
I did some pretty gnarly wheeling today. Small spot about twice 3x the size of Gulches, but with some really awesome stuff. Probably hitting that place again before I leave here.

The truck runs a ton cooler with the JB Welded clutch. Today is about 10* hotter today than the last time I ran it but coming up the same hill with the buggy on the back today, the truck was 206* at the top vs 227* the other day.
 
We really like this campground here. We are right outside Mesa Verde National Park. We are actually considering coming back here and doing a work camping gig for several months. 3 days on and 4 days off, 20 hours a week between the 2 of us. That would put us in the 4-6 hour range from some incredible places.
 
rockcity said:
We were there and stayed at the Mesa Verde KOA. It was a bit pricey but we liked it. Nice and clean and organized but the pool was out of order.
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It's beautiful here. We hiked past the cliff cities and to some Petroglyphs on Thursday. We didn't plan take that hike, it just kinda happened since we were there. It was not a good decision as we were not prepared. We had one battle of water between us and that was it. We also hadn't ate much of a breakfast. We found ourselves all pretty bad off about 2/3 of the way thru. Turns out we'd totally overlooked the signs warning about how strenuous the trail is. However, we were one of many groups of folks who'd made the same mistake.

I'm glad we did it, it was the most beautiful hike of my life. But man what a recipe for feeling awful. Lesson learned on that!
 
77GreenMachine said:
It's beautiful here. We hiked past the cliff cities and to some Petroglyphs on Thursday. We didn't plan take that hike, it just kinda happened since we were there. It was not a good decision as we were not prepared. We had one battle of water between us and that was it. We also hadn't ate much of a breakfast. We found ourselves all pretty bad off about 2/3 of the way thru. Turns out we'd totally overlooked the signs warning about how strenuous the trail is. However, we were one of many groups of folks who'd made the same mistake.

I'm glad we did it, it was the most beautiful hike of my life. But man what a recipe for feeling awful. Lesson learned on that!
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Glad you all got to hike the trails. When we were there was right during Covid and Mesa verde was one of the parks with the most shut downs. We went on every open trail and saw everything in 1 day because it was closed down so much. Had to see everything from a distance. 😬
 
Well the fixed fan did wonders for the truck! I had to cross the San Juan Mountains in southern Colorado to get to La Veta, where we are currently at.

There was a long scenic climb I had to take, and also had to stop at the bottom due to one lane being closed. It was 2nd gear and slow going for some of it but it actually wasn't a problem at all. The truck did amazing. I'm so happy to not be dealing with it like that anymore.

My EGTs do seem a bit high still, and is probably related to the ambient air temp but I should probably look into it some more, and may consider the intercooler upgrade mentioned above. Seems if I'm not paying attention and lug it in 5th gear it will shoot to 1250* easy. I have been trying not to do that and keep the RPMS up more when pulling. Sometimes it just happens on flat though when trying to increase from 60 to 65. However, many things look flat out here but they're not.

In the past I always tried to avoid 1100* if possible because it would spike the coolant temp so bad, but now that is not an issue, I can actually let it run up to that 1200ish for short intervals. This is nice cause many times under a hard pull it seems to want to hang around 1150-1225* and pull the best there. Before I could not do that and was always backing out of the throttle and losing boost trying to control the EGTs. Now the truck barley gets above 220*, and hangs out anywhere from 185-195 most of the time.

It did hurt the power a little, but its a trade off for the lower temps. I'm not sure if it hurt the mileage or not yet. I will report back.
 
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I think my EGTs are a little higher due to a bad boost and MAF sensor. I will address that soon.

I've done a bad job at keeping this up to date, but if you follow social media you kinda know what's been going on.

We were supposed to be in Sand Hollow again by now, in fact I was supposed to be staying in the actual state park. However we left Thermopolis Wyoming to head to Moab for a week. There I met up with an internet friend from TX and we wheeled Hells Revenge and Pritchett Canyon. Neither were very hard at all, however both were extremely beautiful. PC was gorgeous, I even managed to fly my drone thru an arch for a cool shot. But Moab was 100 degrees, luckily we had shade where we were camped. But we knew where we were headed in Sand Hollow was not going to have a drop of shade and has been over 100* for a while. So we rearranged our schedule and went back to Mesa Verde Colorado. We've been here now for about a week and then was asked if we could stay and work camp here right up till Trail Hero. We loved this place the first time we stayed here (Mesa Verde RV Resort) and planned to come back next year. It worked out great to stay here, in the 85* weather with shade, a pool and 2 hot tubs!

I'm leaking coolant in the truck, and I can't find where it's coming from, I believe the cheap radiator, but I have to remove it to confirm. I will do that eventually, it's rather slow.

The bumper on the camper is actually meant for storage, not use as a bumper. That ripped off in Steamboat springs and is being addressed today with a new thicker piece of steel and a cheap welder I bought on the Zon.

We have done some flooring improvements to the camper while here as well. The carpet in here was awful. It was cheap, coming apart, and smelled horrible. So that's gone now!
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I do also have this random issue that has been worse as of late and I really need to figure it out. My buggy will just lose all throttle, out of no where. It used to only be when I was beating on it and really opening it open across the sand or an open trail/road. But now sometimes it does it at start up, or just randomly cruising. It just stops and goes to idle, the throttle does nothing. I have to cut it off, kill the master switch and restart. sometimes a coupe tries, and the throttle will come back. I've put dielectric grease at the pedal plug, and the throttle body plug. This is going to leave me in a bad situation, like on a ledge or technical climb at some point and it would be very expensive to switch it out for drive be cable. Any suggestions?
 
77GreenMachine said:
I do also have this random issue that has been worse as of late and I really need to figure it out. My buggy will just lose all throttle, out of no where. It used to only be when I was beating on it and really opening it open across the sand or an open trail/road. But now sometimes it does it at start up, or just randomly cruising. It just stops and goes to idle, the throttle does nothing. I have to cut it off, kill the master switch and restart. sometimes a coupe tries, and the throttle will come back. I've put dielectric grease at the pedal plug, and the throttle body plug. This is going to leave me in a bad situation, like on a ledge or technical climb at some point and it would be very expensive to switch it out for drive be cable. Any suggestions?
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Have you hooked a scan tool to it and watched live data when it shits out?
 
Maybe basic but a bad Throttle Position Sensor or a IAC?
Loop break on the wires, like a burn or broken circuit.
I'd say the cut out to idle is the program default like a safety. You know so it doesn't end up in WOT in the worst place either.
 
77GreenMachine said:
I do also have this random issue that has been worse as of late and I really need to figure it out. My buggy will just lose all throttle, out of no where. It used to only be when I was beating on it and really opening it open across the sand or an open trail/road. But now sometimes it does it at start up, or just randomly cruising. It just stops and goes to idle, the throttle does nothing. I have to cut it off, kill the master switch and restart. sometimes a coupe tries, and the throttle will come back. I've put dielectric grease at the pedal plug, and the throttle body plug. This is going to leave me in a bad situation, like on a ledge or technical climb at some point and it would be very expensive to switch it out for drive be cable. Any suggestions?
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Maybe a bad drive by wire throttle pedal and/or damaged plug/wires from the pedal. I’ve had that happen before.
 
1stgenxxx said:
Have you hooked a scan tool to it and watched live data when it shits out?
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I have not but I have one and will see if I can duplicate the issue with the scanner hooked up. Might take a while, but that would help.

I initially thought safety in the ECU as well, like a lean or rich scenario killing the throttle. But as of recently it’s just been happening at random with no rhyme or reason, no consistency to narrow down a why.
 
Not entirely sure what the setup is...however:

If it's a DBW GM setup, it's usually the pedal (potentiometer) itself that dies first, in my experience. I have a couple of throttle bodies you could try if you want though. It may even have a code stored in the history if you plug in a scanner and take a look.
 
77GreenMachine said:
I do also have this random issue that has been worse as of late and I really need to figure it out. My buggy will just lose all throttle, out of no where. It used to only be when I was beating on it and really opening it open across the sand or an open trail/road. But now sometimes it does it at start up, or just randomly cruising. It just stops and goes to idle, the throttle does nothing. I have to cut it off, kill the master switch and restart. sometimes a coupe tries, and the throttle will come back. I've put dielectric grease at the pedal plug, and the throttle body plug. This is going to leave me in a bad situation, like on a ledge or technical climb at some point and it would be very expensive to switch it out for drive be cable. Any suggestions?
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My jeep is doing the same, and has had a combination of 3 throttle/pedal position sensor codes at random times. It's only doing it at startup and my Bluedriver can clear codes while running. So, I fire it up, clear codes, and drive.

My scanner is not sofisticated enough to say if it's the pedal or throttle body.
 
If you're scanning TPS % and it doesn't go from 0 to 100, it's going to be the pedal. The ECM gets those values from the pedal itself. The throttle body just does what it's told (and puts the lotion on its skin!) :D Inversely, if everything reads properly and it doesn't actually do it...then the servo crapped out in the throttle body.

A little Joe Dirté reference for you guys!
 
Yesterday was one year since the last day of my job. What an incredible journey this has been.
Back in Sand Hollow for Trail Hero, wife is representing. Funny thing is we bought that hoody at the Veterans Ride that I proposed to her at!
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Well we all knew this day could come. It was always a risk, and I know some of you hoped for it…. Yesterday was your day then.
Things had been going so great. The truck was pulling so good, no overheating issues or anything for a long time. All of a sudden it just jolted and it sounded bad, lots of smoke.

I got off the highway and the truck had tons of blow by and piling oil out the vent, and tons of smoke.

I was able to get back on the highway and limped to a rest area 1 mile ahead where we spent the rest of the day and night since nothing was open.

Whew, man what a day! My head is spinning and I’m mentally and physically exhausted. After spending the night in the rest stop, and going non stop in some form since 7am this morning between the logistics and phone calls, considering all options, calling mechanics, by lunch time we had a plan.

A fellow wheeler that was tagged in a post on FB offered to help, among many other offers, and I caught a ride to a rental place an hour away. We rented a ford ranger for the wife and kids, the biggest Uhaul I could find, and transferred everything over. The same person I used for shipping my buggy from TX to NC was able to schedule my truck to be shipped back to NC and it was picked up today.
It’s missing bad and has oil coming out the exhaust. With the lead time with good shops, it just seemed best to get back to NC where I have 2 vehicles, a good network and can hang for a while as we sort this out.


Sucks, I was supposed be at Wide Open Design in the morning and interview with Adam, and then go look at 2 properties I am interested in further east in TN.
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Good you were at least this side of the country, and you came up with a workable get-home plan.
 
77GreenMachine said:
Well we all knew this day could come. It was always a risk, and I know some of you hoped for it…. Yesterday was your day then.
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Stupid people are everywhere.
You've done more travelling in 1 years than most people will do in their whole life.

Just do your thing, whether it's stopping the travels or not.
I appreciated watching the updates.
 
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