4000 Miles in 5 Days…
…with a 2.5 day break.
So, I went through the items suggested by folks on this site and loaded the truck. Here’s what we carried:
air in the spare tire
anti-freeze mix
assortment of pliers
assortment of screwdrivers
bailing wire
crescent wrenches
duct tape
electrical tape
fuel additives pre-blended
GPS
oil
old cotton towels
small air compressor
spare Oil Filter
spare belt
spare PMD
tire pressure gauge
tire plug kit
tools
travel size bottle of GoJo
utility knife
water
wiper blades
wrenches
zip ties
Prior to departing, I printed out a Mapquest route but my printer wouldn’t print the full maps and without them the textual description was a little thin. I managed to get lost within the first couple hours. I followed 15 into Texas – a state we hadn’t even planned to enter – but got back on track quickly. At Boise City, OK we were at about 4300 feet when the check engine light came on. I turned the boost fooler down to 2 with the Baro maxed at 10 (both 10K pots) and never saw the light again for the rest of the trip.
We made it to Cheyenne the first night with the intent to run across Wyoming. During our travel time, the forecast for the next day had worsened and they were expecting a pass closing blizzard. We got up at 4 am the next day and made speed and were able to run underneath the storm before it had developed. I’ll be honest and say that, though I put a fair amount of prep-work into the truck, it made me nervous running it in such a desolate place. The second night we spent in the Tri-Cities area. We wandered into Ellensburg to get fuel and made a half-hearted attempt to find Heath. Man, that town has built up since I went to school there. The last leg into Federal Way went easy and we loaded the truck and rested.
On the return, I was concerned about going up passes with a heavy load as I’d never done this since installing the boost fooler, “F” chip and TM but it wasn’t much of a challenge. Leaving Ellensburg toward Yakima, we climbed over Manashatash Ridge and I presume Heath tests his chips on that climb. Although I could briefly hit 12 psi of boost, the EGT never got above 900 and the water temp rose maybe 10 degrees. I did open a window and crank the heater and wouldn’t really like to run that ridge with my load in the summer. We spent the night in Twin Falls and were able to park the truck backed up to the room and slept with the window curtains open which was nice as the topper doesn’t have a lock on it.
The next day provided the only challenge for the truck. We decided that, rather than retrace our steps through Wyoming, we’d run south out of Ogden to Provo and then take 6 to cut across to 70. There was surprisingly little traffic and those that were on it wanted to make speed so it was a pretty and entertaining leg. I’d wondered how anyone in a horse drawn wagon could have negotiated the passes we’d run. In fact, it was really pretty easy going until we hit the ridge heading east out of Vail. On most of the passes, I could run in OD and keep the boost around 9 psi and the EGT below 900. On the last pitch toward the tunnel, I had to shift down to 3rd to maintain the EGT and at one point briefly saw 1050 trying to maintain 65 mph. At that point, I gave up on maintaining speed and just feathered the APP to maintain 900 EGT and accepted whatever I got.
We spent the night east of Denver in Limon and then headed out on the last day with only 8 hours of driving ahead of us with little elevation changes. I’d expected an easy day but it’s not how it worked out. With a load in the truck the miserable roads on the Oklahoma panhandle forced Lori to put down her Sudoku because she couldn’t read her own handwriting. The roughness of the road would occasionally upset the frame and the backend would begin to pogo and threaten to pass the front end. In Guymon, OK we called the OK highway patrol to check on the roads and told the guy that answered the phone, “We’re traveling from Guymon to Enid on 412 and wanted to check on the road conditions.” His answer was 412 was clear – which was true…mostly. There’s a section of highway between Bryant’s Corner to May that apparently isn’t considered 412 (270 I think) and that was blocked so we dropped down into Texas on THE EXACT ROADS WE COVERED WHEN WE GOT LOST ON THE WAY UP TO SEATTLE. They looked a little different mostly because they were covered in snow drifts some of them above the truck. Sometimes, there was only one lane. I got behind a Dodge hauling a camper trailer that struck a nice balance between safely crossing ridges to keep an eye out for opposite direction traffic and hauling butt. It was nerve wracking but fun.
We made it in to Enid and though a desk I was hauling had shifted and snapped a dowel on a leg (should be an easy fix) the trip was a massive success having covered 4100 miles with no incident.
Attached are photos from the first pass in Oregon and of the CT 90 at home.
