It’s been a while since the last blog. What can we say… overlanding life just gets in the way! We’ve been spending the last few weeks back overlanding western USA, hanging around the Reno/Tahoe area. We saw more California coast, had a palaver with a crankshaft seal, visited M*A*S*H*, and waited for a windscreen (yes, another!!!). Oh… and we had a look around Air Force One!
Crankshaft seal palaver
Let’s start back in Reno. Whilst visiting our friends KP and Dani, Marcus noticed a bit of an oil leak around the crankshaft front seal… uh oh… another fix coming up. Before we explain, it’s worth a sidenote (just so you know). Changing the crankshaft seal is normally a straightforward job on many vehicles. But for some unknown reason, Iveco chose to design the Daily requiring the whole front-end of the truck to be dismantled: removing the engine’s radiator and intercooler, plus the air-con radiator! So it’s more than a bit of a hassle.
Anyway… comfortably ensconced in KP’s luxurious workshop, out of the 39C/100F outside heat, Marcus took the whole front-end apart and fitted the new seal that had arrived by DHL from our supplier in UK. Job done and we drove away. But soon he noticed oil was still leaking from the seal. Bugger. Marcus assumed he maybe hadn’t got the new seal quite correctly seated, or it was damaged in some way. Luckily, he had ordered two seals (just in case). So the whole front end came apart again to fit the second seal. Driving away this time the oil wasn’t leaking out… it was gushing out!! It was far worse than the first leak ☹. Double bugger.
Marcus was pretty sure he hadn’t made any mistakes on the second installation, so he was a bit peeved. He did a bit of sleuthing into those pesky non-sealing seals: they were a new ‘improved’ Iveco part number. There was nothing in the Iveco documentation to indicate anything significantly different about them, but it did seem possible these were the cause. An inter-web hunt found a supplier in Czech Republic who still had stock of the ‘old’ version, so we ordered these then dismantled the front-end for the third time to fit a new ‘old’ seal. This time, no leaking (or gushing) oil. Hurrah!
In the meantime, Marcus did a bit more research. Turns out, Iveco’s documentation for the new part number had neglected to mention a couple of very significant details: first, the new version of the seal has a 1mm larger outer diameter than the old seal (yes, a whole millimetre – in the world of precision engineering, that’s huge). Secondly, if the ‘new’ part number is to be used as a replacement for one of the ‘old’ seals, then a different timing cover would be required to prevent the seal from leaking. Well thanks Iveco… it would have been jolly nice if you’d cared to mention that in the documentation.
Smoke
Wildfires and smoke have sadly featured heavily over our last two summers here in North America. Last year we drove around British Colombia dodging (literally) hundreds of wild-fires that were popping-up randomly as lightning struck tinder-dry ground in the forests. This year, as we hung around Reno, dense smoke drifted-in from a huge fire over the mountains in California. At first it looked like a bit of foggy haze with a slight whiff of charring. Then it got thicker. Local advice was to stay indoors and keep windows closed. That’s all well and good for your regular home-dweller-types. But when you live in a small box on a truck, you need some air circulation.
Depending on the winds, the smoke was drifting daily in different directions. We kept a regular watch on the on-line forecast and managed to skip around, staying overnight in the least affected areas. Luckily the oil leak problems were not so bad that we couldn’t drive around the local beauty spots. In case we got caught out with an unexpected smoke drift in the night, we jerry-rigged a smoke filter onto our roof vent which kept out any odd smoke particles that showed-up uninvited.
Windscreen
Now back to the other reason we were hanging around Reno: a windscreen. Now… our longer term followers may recall a fiasco in Mexico back in 2018 waiting over three months for a windscreen delivery from Europe. Sadly, that one took a hit this summer in Alaska. Initially a small crack, it soon migrated horizontally across the driver’s line of view. We figured the USA would be a far easier place to import a replacement than Mexico, and our supplier in Germany offered to get one to us with DHL by mid-September.
A long and boring debacle followed and you’d thank us for an abbreviated summary of events: the windscreen arrived in San Francisco but (apparently) couldn’t be immediately released to us because it had been sent by a service dedicated to business-to-business shipping. Surprise, surprise… we are not a business. Investigations therefore needed to be made into us engaging an import agent, signing a power of attorney blahdy, blahdy, blah…
We hung around the area for a few weeks awaiting the promised delivery, which was actually no great hardship as it’s a great area with plenty to do.
Waiting time
So, our adventures pending the delivery. We spent some time at the nearby fabulous Lake Tahoe doing short hikes and kayaking (and we finally met our lovely, long-time FB friend Kirsi Uotila and her super-cute dog, Jack). We took a trip down to the beautiful California coast: Palo Alto to see our great friends Mark, Anna and Freya, to San Francisco to catch-up with our very cool travel friends, Andrew, Tiffany and Pele-the-Wonderdog; and to Point Reyes to do a bit of whale watching. (sadly the oil leak wasn’t fixed in time to catch-up with our UK friends Mark and Lindsay… sorry guys ☹). We also explored California State Capital (Sacramento), Nevada’s State Capital (Carson City), and local history-character town Virginia City.
Scroll Gallery: ‘Wasting time’ around Lake Tahoe and Yosemite NP
Also, not far down the road (well… not far by American road-trip standards) is the iconic Yosemite National Park. We had been there a couple of years ago in mid-winter. At that time of year a large chunk of the park is closed with snow. This time we could go back at a perfect time for hiking: the summer heat and crowds have gone, the snow hasn’t arrived. This time we could drive the spectacular Tioga Pass and hike the areas we missed last time.
Scroll Gallery: Capitols, cute towns and history
Meanwhile, back in Reno, still no progress with the windscreen delivery and the clock was ticking on our US visas. We couldn’t wait in that area any longer, we had to start heading south towards Mexico. We arranged for it to be delivered to a friend’s house in southern California.
Presidential Views and MASH
On the way south we had few things still to tick-off our southern California bucket-list. We had been to the beautiful Alabama Hills area of the Eastern Sierras before, but we hadn’t done the drive up to the ‘base-camp’ for the Mount Whitney hike (the highest peak in the ‘Lower 48’). We hear the views are amazing from up there. Hands-up… we’re very much not in the fitness-league capable of doing the extreme hike to the peak. But we enjoyed the drive up and a walk around the base-camp area.
Alabama Hills – NOT in Alabama 😉
Next, we did a diversion over to the coast north of LA to the Malibu Creek State Park. The attraction here was to visit the filming site of the 1970s TV classic: M*A*S*H*. For our generation, this was an iconic programme of its time. We still love it today, so we couldn’t pass through the area without a selfie at the spot where Hawkeye Pierce saved so many lives 😉.
M*A*S*H*
Near to the M*A*S*H* site is the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Museum. Now… bear with us here… this is waaay more interesting and entertaining than it sounds. Put any political bias aside… accept that you’ll have to agree or disagree with what the guy did/said in office, this is a matter of interest and education about American and world history.
For the uninitiated, since Herbert Hoover in the 1930s, each President after leaving office has a Presidential Library Museum. These are usually located in the state with which the President is most closely associated. The size, scope, quality and entertainment value of these museums varies, but the general aim is to inform about the era of the presidency and the issues that faced them.
Scroll Gallery: The Ronnie & Nancy Show
For balance on the political spectrum, we have visited museums for both Democrat (Clinton, Arkansas) and Republican (George Dubbya, Texas) presidents. Ronnie’s offering is the largest and particularly worth a visit. There is not only the standard ‘this is what he did’ stuff (which by the way, is presented in a particularly fun and interactive way) but it’s a great education on the Cold War era, the Ronnie-Gorby-Maggie relationship and the issues facing the world at that time. The star attractions are his actual Air Force One aircraft, his Marine One helicopter (both of which you can go on board) and his Secret Service vehicles. Also, outside is an F-117A Nighthawk (Stealth Fighter) – great for military aircraft geeks.
We would highly recommend a visit not only to the Ronnie Show near LA, but also to any others that you may be passing on a USA roadtrip (but if you want the up-to-date stuff… you’ll have to wait for Barak’s and Donald’s as they’re not done yet).
Overlanding Friends
Time’s pressing on… our visa expiry looms… we popped over to Yucca Valley to catch-up with some German overlanding friends that we met back in Alaska this summer: Thomas and Tanja (who have settled there for a while and kindly received a load of Amazon deliveries for us 😊) and Peter and Michaela who like us are on their way to Mexico. It’s always good to meet-up with like-minded souls, swap experiences/ideas and ponder the overlanding lifestyle.
Scroll Gallery: Salton Sea – Slab City & Bombay Beach
South-bound again, we celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary (OMG, where does the time go???) and we re-visited the Salton Sea. For anyone who hasn’t been there recently, there is some new quirky stuff on the sands at Bombay Beach that wasn’t there last time we visited. But the big excitement for our last few days in USA was to meet (two thirds of) Tigger’s Travels. John, Suzanne and VW Synchro ‘Tigger’ are Brit overlanders who we have been following and admiring on social media for years! Sadly, Suzanne isn’t on this leg of their trip but we are chuffed to have finally met John and Tigger. We’ll be sure to catch up with them and Suzanne somewhere else in the world.
Remember that windscreen?
We departed USA – probably for the last time now – into Mexico at Yuma (where Arizona, meets California, meets Mexico). But wait… what about that little windscreen thing? Well it turns out, DHL simply aren’t able to get it released from customs for delivery to a non-commercial entity. “But what about…? Why don’t they….? Couldn’t you just…” you cry. Oh, we hear you! We went through all those questions too. Various potential solutions were suggested, discussed, tried and dismissed. But fear not… the matter is not over. Our supplier in Germany (Iveco Haller) is still trying to work things out. We are confident they are determined, one way or another, to deliver what they promised. It’s just a matter of time, which will now (unfortunately) end with the déjà vu of a delivery to us in Mexico rather than USA. That’s life on the road folks!
Watch this space for our next news, with beaches, tacos and tequila in Mexico 😎🌮🍸