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The lesson of the Grub Screw!

I have to admit that I hadn’t heard of a set screw called a Grub Screw before. In 24 hours we had 2 lessons on grub screws.

  1. We took this rough, sandy, 4WD track up a canyon outside Kanab heading to Montezuma’s Cave. Local lore states that Montezuma hid his gold there. We didn’t find the gold and when we got back to the pavement our transmission was stuck in first gear! Bummer! A couple of calls and we learned that we needed to check the grub screw that links the shifter to the transmission. 20 miles later at 10 miles per hour we were back at camp! The next morning and 45 minutes later the grub screw was snug and we were back in business.
  2. The next morning while taking down the tent a couple of poles had loosened up from the relentless pounding of the wind over the past few weeks. Guess what! The grub screw was missing from one of the tees! A quick trip to the hardware store and the tent was all snug again!
These are Grub Screws.
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As Fun as Watching Paint Dry!

Actually I was able to help…M let me hold the can of paint while she worked her magic! She had the great idea of painting a message on the “junk drawer”, after seeing a similar bumper sticker, informing trailing vehicles of our status. I think it looks great!

A little painting in between swims…still in the 90’s!
Tada!
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The wee Rover Grew Wings!

One thing we have been needing was a bit more work space while in camp. Remote camping without a table means things like shaving, food preparation, and cooking mostly happened on the rear door’s folding shelf. It’s worked fine, but some improvements were needed. The problem was our loose rule that most things need to have more than one use. I had thought about bolting a simple plywood sheets to the side of the rover prior to leaving, but couldn’t justify the single use as a table. So, we found the waffle traction boards. Good for bridging a ditch, recovery from being stuck in sand or mud, as well as a table for cooking, shaving and drying clothes!

We turned our fireplace into a machine shope to bend brackets for the new wings.
They came out perfect!
Tada new wings…in their travel position.
As a kitchen…
A shaving station…
And even a good spot for drying clothes!
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New motor tweak #1

Just added an “oil catch can” to the valve cover vent circuit. Normally the Benz venting goes into the air filter, since we didn’t use the Benz system we added the $18 amazon system and it works great, no more puff of oil smoke on start up!

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Our First Oil Change!

We have a few thousand miles on the new motor now and it is time to change the oil due to the break in process. Very simple but for 1 thing. The custom oil pan from the conversion is sloped to clear the front differential so we had to jack the Rover to get the last few drops of old oil from the pan. Motor runs great so far!

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Diesel Conversion: our new heater!

The image below is our new diesel heater. It is spliced into the Rovers heating system and is set up to produce nice toe toasty warmth without running the motor. In short, we can pull in, pop up the tent, fire up the heater, and be cozy, warm, and dry! No power required, only a bit of diesel. Sweeeeeeeeet!!!!!!!

Eberspaecher – Hydronic S3 Economy heater

Tidbit: Happy wife! Toasty toes!

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Ewoks of Endor

Yesterday, we spent a chilly day at ReInvent the Wheel working out a few bugs, changing out the break-in oil and hooking up my new diesel heater (no more chilly toes no matter what the season! Thanks to Richard from the Alaskan Ferry who suggested the heater!)

So, today we were back to putting down some more break-in miles for the next oil change. Since the sun was shining, a rare occurance in Oregon this time of year, we decided to head down Rt. 199 to Crescent City, CA, a round trip of 160 miles. We chose this route because it had a nice elevation change and a variety of speed changes. We started in Grants pass at 960ft, went up to the Collier Tunnel through, you guessed it, Collier Mountain at 2,000ft, down the other side to the ocean at 15ft and back to Grants Pass. The Wee Rover and her new motor hummed right along. We only belched out a bit of smoke on the way up to the pass doing 55 in overdrive.

Weeeeeeeeee!!!!
Collier Tunnel was finished in 1963 and saved 3 miles of road, over 100 turns and 5 switchbacks. It turned a Jeep track into a main route from Oregon to the coast.
The Wee Rover isn’t afraid of a little snow. See the tunnel in the background?
The Smith River looks a little chilly, probably only a single dunker.
Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park. I should have taken a video, it was beautiful.

Tidbit: Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park also know as Forest Moon of Endor (home of the Ewoks) is where Return of the Jedi was filmed, well the Ewok portion anyway.

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Diesel Conversion, First Drive

Wow! Just Wow!

I didn’t realize just how conditioned I had become to dreading, scoping, planning, and grabbing momentum for every uphill.

The Wee Rover now just wants to pull and pull. Granted we still haven’t put her back together into traveling form so she was very svelte, but Wow! I found myself jabbing the throttle on the hills just to feel her jump forward.

More to follow as we settle in with the new motor.

Next up, 200 miles of breaking in, and her first oil change.

Tidbit: Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!

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Reunion Day!!

You know the greeting you get when you pick up your dog that had to spend a few days at the vet. Tail wagging! Peeing a little! Wiggling all over! Where have you been? I knew you wouldn’t leave me, but you were gone soooo long!

We are reunited with our little companion, the Wee Rover!!!!!!!

My boy and the Wee rover are both happy, again.

Tidbit: It is the same greeting we get every time we visit our good friend Sheba next door (she’s a dog, just in case you thought we had a human friend who peed everytime we saw them😁

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Heart Transplant Update

The Wee Rover has been an amazing patient.  Her old heart is out, the new motor is in and she is doing great under the excellent care of Dr. Fred! Now to fine tune her new bling 😁.

Old engine out

New engine ready to go.

New engine in place.