What I really like about these big pusher motorhomes is that there is so
little to go wrong with the motor. They are very simple and reliable. It's
the same motor the over the road truckers use, a million mile motor. We
have 10,000 miles on ours.
That's how many miles on ours when it lost power. Cruising down the freeway
at sixty-five miles an hour and we lose power. Wait! We have 990,000 miles
to go!
It happened gradually, the power loss, just after crossing Monument Hill.
It didn't sputter or blow smoke like a fuel problem would. It just wouldn't
go when I pressed on the accelerator, like we had a governor, like a
computer needed to be reset or something. We pulled over at the next exit
to a truck stop. We let it sit for a few minutes and fired it back up.
Perfect. So off we went again. Until the north side of Colorado Springs.
Loss of power. We pulled off on the shoulder and called for help. We have
a 24-hour service line to Monaco (who owns Beaver Coach). They found a
repair shop for us on the south side of Colorado Springs. They told me if
we could get there, they could look at it tomorrow and we couldn't stay in
the coach on their property.
We limped there. Judy went inside to talk to them. They said they'd get to
us as soon as they could, and in the meantime we could park in the next lot,
put our slides out, and stay there as long as we needed to. Things always
get better after Judy goes in to talk to people.
They got to us by one o'clock.
We were done by dark, drove a few more miles south, and hooked up for the
night at the KOA. A ninety-mile day. The problem didn't have anything to
do with the engine. It's a Caterpillar C9. It's not going to break down at
10,000 miles. A duct in the air cleaner system had come loose. Sensors
detected conditions they didn't like and powered down the turbo. When we
pulled over and shut it off, the abnormal conditions went away, the sensors
relaxed, and everything would work fine again until the sensors realized
there was a problem again. We were parked stern-into-the-wind during that
last storm in Golden. Maybe the hurricane force wind blew it apart. At any
rate, an easy fix.
We're set to continue on our way tomorrow morning. Two temperature zones
south, to West Texas and Montezuma Quail.
