Indiana to YellowStone Trip Update

[bufbooth]

Hello All, I am about half way completed on my Indiana to YellowStone trip. I am currently in Sheridan WY. I have seen about a dozen other Toyota motorhomes on my trip so far, about a 50/50 mixture of 4 cyl and 6 cyl models. I flashed my head lights at each one and received a light flash and a wave from each one. If anyone seen me on the road, I would like to hear from them, I was the 1990 Toyota Odyssey with the canoe on top.

Just 5 hours into the trip, I found out the hard way that I have a 15 gallon gas tank. I read my Toyota truck manual and it stated that I either had a 13.5 gallon gas tank or a 17 gallon tank. Since I put in 14 gallons of gas on a past fill up, I thought I must have the 17 gallon tank. While traveling in I-74 just North of Peoria Illinois I noticed I was getting close to Empty. After driving for about 30 miles without seeing a single gas station (whats the deal with that?) I found three stations that closed at 10pm, the current time was about 10:30pm. I ended up running out of gas as I approached what I thought was a closed BP. The next morning I realized that the closed BP was an out of business BP. I ended up taking a one mile walk to a Casey gas station that was open, but only had a one gallon loaner gas can. The old girl fired up on the single gallon and I made my way to the Casey gas station and ended up putting in 14.8 gallons of gas. I made a new note of this and created a new driving policy, start looking for gas at a quarter tank. I still cannot believe that I could not find a gas station NW of Peoria, I expected to have this problem in the middle of WY, not Illinois.

Two days into the trip, I noticed water leaking from my gray water tank area. It turned out to be the T-connector on my cold water line. I did an on the road repair, I pulled the water heater out in order to get to the leak, but I only had a 90 degree PVC connector and not the T connector that I needed, so I had to bypass the hot water heater in order to stop the water leak, the showers are a bit cold at first, but bareable. I was driving on highway 14 from Cody WY to Sheridan WY and was hitting some 7 and 8 percent grades, the old girl was doing okay at keeping above 30mph, but after about 40 minutes of this I noticed she was getting a bit hot, especially in the 92 degree weather. I saw a scenic overview and decided to stop, which was a mistake. I had stopped for about 30 minutes and when I got back to the motorhome, she started but ran really rough and would die. My first thought was a clogged fuel filter or a bad fuel pump, but when I looked at the heat gauge, it was pegged almost all the way to the right in the hot zone, I then realized I was vapor locking due to the heat. A motors hottest point is usually a few minutes after one turns it off. The newer engines have a fan that runs a few minutes after the engine is off to handle this. I openned my engine hood for about 5 minutes and noticed the heat gauge move a little to the cool side, so I tried to start it again and after about 10 seconds of very rough idleing, she powered up and within 10 seconds the heat gauge moved to the middle, I assumed the water pump send cooler water thur the engine and the fan helpped. She ran great for the remaining of the 70 mile trip.

I had a water leak in the overhead bed the day before I left but I appearred to find the spot it was leaking and patched it. In Yellowstone I had three days of rain, two of them really heavy and did not find any water so I think I stopped the leak. I did noticed that my rear window channel did fill up with water thru the vinyal glass seal and it currently does not have any water vents like the side windows do, I will correct this after the trip. My front window channel also has some water in it, but it was due to the moister from the fast temperature drop a night.

More later on the trip, so far a lot of fun and good sights.

Dennis

1990 Toyota Odyssey (Mrs. Clark)

[smokepolehall]

Sorry to hear you ran out of gas,bummer. Then had water leak in fitting, hope it didn't do any damage. So repair held up during those bad rainy days up in overhead, great! I like to hear trip reports and someday we will get to go again. I am working as my extra chump change will allow. At the rate i am going it will be sept. before it will be ready enough to go. I will look for gas when i get down to the half mark.