D figured while we were hanging here we should take advantage of our down time and replace the rear brakes; he was planning on installing new rear drums and shoes prior to leaving, but we ran out of time and it kept snowing and snowing and snowing. Since we will soon be Turbo Charged, good braking is a bit essential!
45 minutes later and fancy new rear brakes are installed!
Once we install the new motor we will be ready to vroom and screeeeeech:)
Old brakesNew shoesNew drum – now don’t I sound like I know what I’m talking about!
We got a couple of things done on the Wee Rover while we have been living on the Oregon coast.
Our odometer gave up the ghost on a dusty road in the Yukon. This coupled with the fact that google maps only works with cell coverage pushed us to purchase a GPS! We found the cheapest, highest rated, Garmin on Amazon and ordred it up. We now have odometer, speedometer, and mapping for North, Central, and South America. Such modern technology!)
Navigation…now we don’t have an excuse for getting lost, yea right, we’ll still get lost.Odometer, speedometer, and who knows what else, maybe it even bakes cookies…ok wishful thinking.
D had rebuilt the front axles prior to leaving on the trip, but had not installed a steering stabilizer. We added one just to help in the off road sections coming up as we head south to Baja. For a quick taste of our future route, check out the “Baja Divide” trail. We can’t wait!
Brand new steering stabilizer, the nice clean thingee under there😁
Many have asked us “If you had to pick one thing that bugged you over the past 4 months on the road, what would that be?”
Darrin’s, no hesitation, hands down, response goes something like “The Rover has been totally awsome as a travel vehicle, but it was built for a different era. An era before superhighways and 80 mile per hour speed limits across the plains”
The little Rover, even with the 2.5 liter, is vastly underpowered for the load and terrain when coupled with today’s speed limits. The road from Anchorage to Denali with too many impatient RVs and tour buses to count was the breaking point!
The Rover needs a heart transplant! A New motor.
We have chosen the Mercedes Benz OM617 3L Turbo Diesel due to the availability of a conversion kit for the Rover.
The OM617 is considered to be one of the most reliable engines ever produced with engines often reaching over 1,000,000 km without being rebuilt and is one of the key reasons for Mercedes’ popularity in North America in the 1980s. The engine is entirely mechanical in its systems; there are no electronics, wires, chips, at all. Essentially, you could jump start the engine with no battery and it could sit there running, under water, until it ran out of fuel. The price for this reliability is a bit lower MPG, as the mechanical systems are not as fine tunable as the electronic systems found in todays cars.
Old Motor:
Chevy 2.5L
90 hp 133 ft-lbs
New Motor:
Mercedes 3.0L OM617 Turbo Diesel
150 hp 220 ft-lbs
As some of the pics show, there is a bit of dust on the Dempster! (When it’s not in the form of mud!) Over the 550 miles northbound the dust became a standing joke. One of us would call out “truck ahead!”. The other would look out over the vast arctic plain and see a plume moving across some distant mountainside 5 to 10 miles away and respond “I guess that’s the road!”. A half an hour later the gravel truck would appear and we would crank closed the dash vents and windows as we passed through the plume.
A distant plume of dust on the horizon.And then there was our own dust that some how circulated back inside.
Each night while prepping to camp we would sweep the dust out of every corner and crevice of the Rover. Resistance was futile!
We tried to resist…it was futile!
In Inuvik we purchased some foam weather stripping to try to stop some of the dust entering the Rover. The First Nation guy behind the counter said “Vermont?!, that’s a long way to come for weather stripping!” Too funny, but he had a point!
Special Inuvik weather stripping.Installation complete!
We will let you know if the added weather stripping helps.
We (aka Darrin) did a ton of research prior to our departure on what tires to put on the rover. We chose Toyo M-55’s 11 ply traction & snow tires. They are produced for use on logging and construction vehicles. They are a bit loud and give a bit of a rough ride, but they have been spectacular so far. Especially on the last 1500 miles of mud, rocks, dirt, and sand that make up the Campbell Hwy, the Dempster Highway and the Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk Highway.
A car we were leapfrogging up the road was running BFG All Terrains which was the other choice we were thinking about. They were stranded for a day when a stone about the size of a large pencil eraser was pushed straight through the lugs of the tire.
To think of our tires and everything we have put them through over the last 3 months and especially the last 1500 miles one would think they would be trashed, but in reality they actually look like we just drove to the mall!
I can find no cuts or damage of any kind; amazing!
So we took off full of pent up energy after being waylaid in Newcastle. We were ready to get back into the woods after our time in the hotel.
We headed up in the Wyoming Black Hills to find a dispersed place to camp. While Heading up the fire road we checked the weather…hmmm….severe thunderstorms and a slight chance of a tornado! No ridgetop with a view for us. We needed a secure place to set up before the storms hit in a few hours.
Looking, looking, looking, hmm there’s a spot just down that little slot canyon. It looks like a 4 wheeler may have left a trail just our size. Dropped the rover into 4 wheel low range and down we went into the little canyon. No problems dropping down to the site, but it wasn’t as flat as it looked from above. Surprise, surprise!
So, it’s hot down in this little canyon and when we went to jockey the Rover around the vapor lock reared it’s head for the first time since installing the famous Peach Can Vapor Lock Reduction Device (PCCVLRD) and the rover quit (PCCVLRD 2.0 is in the research and design phase, production to start shortly).
At least we were in a place safe from the approaching storm, but we wanted a secure place to set up and camp, not just ride out the storm.
Out comes the winch and 45 minutes later we had winched ourselves back out of the little canyon into a semi secure spot in a glade of ponderosa pines.
While using the winch to shift around bit I tried the starter and the Rover sprang to life
We jumped in and made a beeline down to the security of the little national park outside Sundance, WY.
Where we met some wonderful people.
We were given a pile of dry wood for out little woodstove.
Given a ride into town for groceries.
Given a nice lunch at the community center.
Lesson learned!
Free dispersed camping is great, but not when you are in a rush and racing a storm.
We would have missed out on a nice spot and great people!
A special starter was included to fit with the adaptor.
A custom oil pan is required to clear the rover front differential and to fit in the engine bay.
