MagicMtnDan
FRF Addict
My friends Blair & Ken went down to Meh-hee-ko to the Baja 1000 and, as usual, it was an adventure...
Blair is a Jeep Cherokee owner (it's street legal set up for offroading) but he and Ken went in Blair's old F350 pickup with pop-up camper on the back. Here's their story as told by Blair (complete with a Dugger mention):
Drove truck/camper down last Tue. Left Placerville 345AM. Truck ran good till Fresno. Stopped for gas, wouldn't start. Truck has 4 batteries in it and all were showing nearly 13v. But wouldn't crank. Hmm...remembered on the Mojave Rd Doug was getting under his F350 to whack the starter pretty much the whole trip. So I got under mine, hit starter with hammer, started up. Looked around for auto parts store nearby to get another starter, but this particular Fresno exit didn't have much other than the gas station. In the little driving around I did I saw true shanty towns basically right in downtown Fresno. I think Fresno is really down on its heels. I decided to hit the fwy and get out of there.
Didn't shut the truck off again until I arrived at Ken's shop in Burbank about 1130am. Ken drove me over to Autozone for starter. Took about 1/2 hr to install. Loaded Ken's giant pile of gear in camper. Had a bite of lunch. Headed south about 2pm. As usual, LA traffic sucked. Arrived my brother Brant's house in San Diego 5pm. Parked Ken's jeep and headed to the border. As usual, San Diego traffic sucked. Stop and go most of the distance to the border.
Got pulled out of the main line for inspection by the Mexican marines at the border. (The first of many inspections--I guess most drug runners use old Alaskan campers as transport). Then on towards Rosarito.
On the steep part of the road west of TJ the truck started missing, hesitating. Just a tiny bit, but anything remotely out of the ordinary gets my attention. Stopped at a gas station on the toll road and checked it over. There was an air line disconnected from the airbox (I accidentally knock it off sometimes when checking the oil). Is that it? I doubt it, looks pretty much like a smog thing to me. A second possibility is my new gas caps, which seem to REALLY overpressurize the tanks...maybe? Dunno. Reconnected the airline and cracked the gas caps to let them equalize and then continued south with trepidation. But it seemed ok all the way to our overnight campsite on the beach at San Antonio del Mar, which we arrived at about 10pm. Behind schedule--I typically budget 3-3.5hrs from the border for this location--but not too bad as we had exceptionally slow going south of Ensenada (the road construction has Hwy1 really torn up).
Pleasant evening on the beach, fullish moon. Not even too windy. Had some sandwiches. Turned in about midnight. To my surprise, woke up to a sunny morning (this area is almost always overcast in the morning). Continued south, got gas in San Quintin. Immediately, truck is hesitating. WTF??? It ran great from TJ south last night. It only seems to do it on full tanks? Is that airline disconnected again? Possible, since I check the oil nearly every fill up. But...nope. So that isn't it. Fuel caps? Vent the caps and it seems better. Carry on and after the first couple of gallons burn off, no more issues. Runs good. Dunno...but I'm beginning not to like this.
El Rosario is, imo, the start of the "real baja". Also the place where, southbound, there is no more gas for the better part of 150 miles. So, even though we filled up not too many miles back at San Quintin, we top everything. And the truck starts hesitating. Again. Arggh!!!! After a few miles of it glitching and missing as we climb the hills east of El Rosario it seems to settle down. I'm irritated and a little anxious, but Ken just shrugs. So again we carry on.
Stop for lunch in a canyon south of Catavina. At this point we look at the map and our destination, El Datil, is still a long way south. So we consider other options. (We are pretty much on our own program since my friend Wasser flaked and didn't go to La Paz the week before and therefore is not meeting us on his return drive north as originally planned...consequently we don't have to be anywhere at any particular time).
We decide we'll go as far south as San Rafael fish camp, approx 50 miles south of Bahia de los Angeles via the coastal dirt road, and watch the 1000 there. Going only this far south will give us extra time to, on the way home, amble back north via the dirt road along the Cortez through Coco's and Gonzaga. Thus avoiding going through all the little pacific-side towns, the construction zones, Ensenada, etc, on Sunday afternoon.
Arriving at BofLA we pull in to the first gas station to top up. (Yes, BofLA now has TWO Pemex). The proprietress tells me they only have premium. Hmm. You mean the locals won't buy the premium, so you're trying to get gringos to buy it? Well, we don't need much gas, anyway, so we get premium. After the fill, the truck hesitates again. I've had enough, get out a screwdriver and pop the springloaded vent out of one of the caps. (Ken wisely advises that, since I might be wrong about this being the issue, I pop only ONE of the caps...if I'm right we can always switch caps each time we switch tanks and if I'm wrong we still have a pressurized cap). In the end, that "modification" seems to do it. Making the cap basically completely open seems to solve the issue and the truck doesn't miss again for the rest of the trip. I am, however, interested in anybody's thoughts on this issue. Could the caps (brand new and the ones Kragen says are right) have the wrong pressure? They certainly seem to create far more vacuum than the old caps I replaced. Could it be my fuel pump is getting tired and can't deliver sufficent volume when there is high vaccum in the tanks? Why would it happen only with completely full tanks?
Side note: I explain to Ken the big plastic drum and the bucket outside the BofLA Pemex restroom are there for a reason...you take a bucket of water out of the drum in with you and use that to flush. It takes a second, but he quickly gets the concept. Ha!
When we hit the dirt road south of BofLA we discover that 85psi in the E-range BFGs doesn't run so smooth. The truck is heavy, and I'm nervous about airing down. We have a cruising speed on the rough dirt road of about 10mph. 15mph tops. At that rate, its going to take us 5+ hrs to get to San Rafael. And the sun is going down. Again we modify the plan...we'll stay right here in BofLA for the race. After driving 5 miles or so south of town to get back into the open desert we find a place to camp on an abandoned dirt airstrip. Its a warm night, clear, full moon, no wind. Ken whips up some scrumptious ribs and corn on the cob. With a nice red to wash it down.
So...the next day...what day is this again? Seem to be losing track. Always do in Baja, ha! But I think today is Thursday, race day, so we decide to move camp down the road a piece to a better vantage point. We find a good spot at the top of a gentle hill with a distant view of the Cortez. We pick the bay-side of the road because the breeze is onshore and we'll appreciate that later, when the racers come through, since it'll blow the dust away from our camp. The spot is small, but Ken chops some of the closer-in cactus branches so we don't get scratched up.
The sun is bright and the day heats up. We rig up a tarp, have a hearty breakfast / brunch, and basically while away the three or so hours until 1pm (approx) when we see the first bikes. The first two Honda factory riders are, as is typical, way out in front. Later we see more of the amateur motorcylists go by...we are at race mile 390, less than 1/2 way to La Paz, but already many of them seem tired.
The first trophy trucks arrive just minutes before sundown, perhaps 445pm. We are drinking wine and are caught unawares since, presumably due to the imminent darkness, the trucks are not preceded by the usual helicopters.
For dinner we have chicken and corn on the cob. Watch race action until late, perhaps midnight. I did not see Bob Green's team go by. By my calculation it would have been about 330-4AM and I wasn't up. Two notes: after dark the wind changed to offshore so every car smothers our camp in dust, doh! And, two, my idea of connecting an external antenna to my handheld HAM for better Weatherman reception proves marginally successful at best. And that's even with the antenna placed way up on top of the camper.
The race cars going by are loud. And have bright lights. And they pass by all night. I'd have said I didn't sleep much but, it seems, a short time later its morning. So I must have slept some.
The next day is Friday. Although slower cars won't reach the finish in La Paz until well into Friday night, at our location at racemile 390 the race is essentially over. We pack up camp and head back north through BofLA, up the hill to Hwy 1 and then Hwy 1 north to the turn off onto the dirt road at La Chapala. The dirt road is heavily washboarded. Figuring that one way or another I eventually have to figure out what to do re: airing down the truck's tires, I decide to take off 15psi as an experiment. Go down to approx 65. The resulting ride seems smoother, but it still ain't like my jeep with 12psi in its 35s.
We stop at Coco's and have a beer (Coke for me). Coco is recovering from the big party the night before, so he's not about (this info according to his friend, Professora Pablo Ibarra, who is manning the cantina). We chat with Pablo, finish our drinks and continue on down to the Cortez and Bahia de San Luis Gonzaga. The road is rough.
At Gonzaga get some gas. There is a big dirt ramp in the middle of "town" that the locals must have built to get the 1000 racers to jump. The race long passed by at this point, a couple of ten yr old kids are using the ramp for launching their quads. It occurs to me someone should get the kids some helmets.
We drive out to the beach near Alfonsinas for some late-lunch sandwiches. There is a gutted early '70s F700 dump truck on the beach. Its a Ford, but no parts of any use to me, though Ken does look carefully.
A few dabbles with the deep sand at the end of the road prove that my truck is not capable of beach driving. So we're limited to staying on the hard pan but that's ok, its no more than 50 yds to the water. After sandwiches we drive north across the mudflats looking for a place to camp. The wind is pretty fresh, so we're looking for something a little protected. No luck. Eventually we decide to head north and drive a few miles along the coast, taking some side roads here and there near Punta Willard. Still nothing suits, so we get back on the "main" road and head yet further north.
Getting late in the afternoon when we see the homemade sign for Campo Bufeo. Looks like a nice spot and its actually in my Baja guidebook so we go check it out. Nice beach, airstrip, a few ****** houses and a little its-open-if-you-walk-in-to-eat restaurant. But the beach is exposed to the wind so we decide to go back inshore a little and camp behind the dunes. Find a decent spot that, while still windy, is much better. Having eaten lunch late we have snacks for dinner.
The next day (is this Saturday?) we decide to head north to the limit of the new pavement and camp there so that Sunday, the last day, we can just get up and roll on the pavement home.
The road is being paved from north to south. But...slowly. Total progress since I was down here in Nov '09 and Feb '10 is about 5 additional miles. The present situation is that the pavement ends at El Huerfanito, which is 25 miles north of Gonzaga. At Campo Bufeo, we've already transitted eight miles of that 25, so on Saturday we only had about 15 miles more to go. At our ten mph cruise, perhaps an hour or two to get to the pavement. We took a few side roads down to various beaches en route, but we still arrived near Huerfanito early Sat afternoon.
Problem was, the wind was howling. The open beach was out of the question for camping. We checked a few different spots, and found one little cove where it was less windy, but not by much. We had a nice fire thanks to an enormous windbreak someone else had built and we cooked up tri tip and corn. But the wind never really died down, so we ate in the camper. Ken even decided to sleep in the camper that night.
Sunday we left camp 830AM. Couple hours north to San Felipe, gassed up. North of San Felipe it got very windy. Turned west onto Hwy 2-D towards Tecate and the wind was really strong with stronger gusts. Climbing La Rumarosa grade was a 3rd gear / 40mph exercise. Once up on top it was windy AND rainy. Crossed at Tecate, 30 minutes total. Was sent to secondary where (allegedly) they x-rayed the truck.
Slow going on 94 West towards San Diego, arrived at Brant's house in Pt Loma 430pm. Transferred all Ken's gear back into his XJ and he departed about 5pm to visit a friend in San Marcos. I presume he made it back to LA today.
After Ken left I sat around Brant's deciding what to do. I could catch a flight to Sacto later that evening but it looked like it would be a flight after 10pm before I could get on as a standby. And that would mean Cristy would have to come down to get me late. At something like 11pm arrival, that would mean we wouldn't be back home until after midnight, best case. Alternatively I could crash at Brant's and fly Mon morning and go straight to work, and that's what I was leaning towards. In both cases I'd drive the truck home next Sunday (I'm going back to San Diego on Wed for Thanksgiving). But given that it was only 5pm, and I really just wanted to get the truck home, I decided to just drive it.
Left SD about 6pm and initially it was uneventful. Amazingly, not even a slow-down going through LA. At the bottom of the grapevine I got gas. Getting back on the hwy I shifted from 4th to 5th and...boom...the clutch pedal goes right to the floor. Just like it did before, when I had those troubles with it pre-trip. At this moment I don't know, but I just KNOW it fell against the exhaust and melted (plastic hydraulic line). What to do? Pull over and check it out? Why? Its dark and I probably can't fix it and once stopped I'd have limited or no ability to shift through the gears to get going again. So...just drive it, right? Get as far as I can without having to shift. Flooring it on the flats and cruising up around 80mph I was able to crest Tejon Pass in 5th. From there its all flat or downhill all the way to Folsom, 20 miles from my house. So just roll along in fifth and don't stop. Except...at some point I'll have to stop for gas. Be nice, though, if I only have to do that once. So I wring out maximum MPG from the present tanks then 1 fill up then all the way home.
The one gas stop was interesting. I know you can shift without the clutch but I still don't have a feeling as to how that works. I was able, after fueling, to start the truck in gear, get up to 10mph or so, force the shift lever into third (with some grinding it went) then onto 5th (lugging like hell) roll down the on-ramp gathering speed and back up to 65mph in fifth for the rest of the way home. So it worked but it felt abusive on the gearbox and I was also pretty anxious since recent experience has proven that hammering the gearshift lever CAN make it break off at the floor. Then I'd really have been hosed.
Arrived Placerville 235AM. Long drive. But, still, an excellent trip. At least SOME of you guys should try to make the next Baja run.
Blair is a Jeep Cherokee owner (it's street legal set up for offroading) but he and Ken went in Blair's old F350 pickup with pop-up camper on the back. Here's their story as told by Blair (complete with a Dugger mention):
Drove truck/camper down last Tue. Left Placerville 345AM. Truck ran good till Fresno. Stopped for gas, wouldn't start. Truck has 4 batteries in it and all were showing nearly 13v. But wouldn't crank. Hmm...remembered on the Mojave Rd Doug was getting under his F350 to whack the starter pretty much the whole trip. So I got under mine, hit starter with hammer, started up. Looked around for auto parts store nearby to get another starter, but this particular Fresno exit didn't have much other than the gas station. In the little driving around I did I saw true shanty towns basically right in downtown Fresno. I think Fresno is really down on its heels. I decided to hit the fwy and get out of there.
Didn't shut the truck off again until I arrived at Ken's shop in Burbank about 1130am. Ken drove me over to Autozone for starter. Took about 1/2 hr to install. Loaded Ken's giant pile of gear in camper. Had a bite of lunch. Headed south about 2pm. As usual, LA traffic sucked. Arrived my brother Brant's house in San Diego 5pm. Parked Ken's jeep and headed to the border. As usual, San Diego traffic sucked. Stop and go most of the distance to the border.
Got pulled out of the main line for inspection by the Mexican marines at the border. (The first of many inspections--I guess most drug runners use old Alaskan campers as transport). Then on towards Rosarito.
On the steep part of the road west of TJ the truck started missing, hesitating. Just a tiny bit, but anything remotely out of the ordinary gets my attention. Stopped at a gas station on the toll road and checked it over. There was an air line disconnected from the airbox (I accidentally knock it off sometimes when checking the oil). Is that it? I doubt it, looks pretty much like a smog thing to me. A second possibility is my new gas caps, which seem to REALLY overpressurize the tanks...maybe? Dunno. Reconnected the airline and cracked the gas caps to let them equalize and then continued south with trepidation. But it seemed ok all the way to our overnight campsite on the beach at San Antonio del Mar, which we arrived at about 10pm. Behind schedule--I typically budget 3-3.5hrs from the border for this location--but not too bad as we had exceptionally slow going south of Ensenada (the road construction has Hwy1 really torn up).
Pleasant evening on the beach, fullish moon. Not even too windy. Had some sandwiches. Turned in about midnight. To my surprise, woke up to a sunny morning (this area is almost always overcast in the morning). Continued south, got gas in San Quintin. Immediately, truck is hesitating. WTF??? It ran great from TJ south last night. It only seems to do it on full tanks? Is that airline disconnected again? Possible, since I check the oil nearly every fill up. But...nope. So that isn't it. Fuel caps? Vent the caps and it seems better. Carry on and after the first couple of gallons burn off, no more issues. Runs good. Dunno...but I'm beginning not to like this.
El Rosario is, imo, the start of the "real baja". Also the place where, southbound, there is no more gas for the better part of 150 miles. So, even though we filled up not too many miles back at San Quintin, we top everything. And the truck starts hesitating. Again. Arggh!!!! After a few miles of it glitching and missing as we climb the hills east of El Rosario it seems to settle down. I'm irritated and a little anxious, but Ken just shrugs. So again we carry on.
Stop for lunch in a canyon south of Catavina. At this point we look at the map and our destination, El Datil, is still a long way south. So we consider other options. (We are pretty much on our own program since my friend Wasser flaked and didn't go to La Paz the week before and therefore is not meeting us on his return drive north as originally planned...consequently we don't have to be anywhere at any particular time).
We decide we'll go as far south as San Rafael fish camp, approx 50 miles south of Bahia de los Angeles via the coastal dirt road, and watch the 1000 there. Going only this far south will give us extra time to, on the way home, amble back north via the dirt road along the Cortez through Coco's and Gonzaga. Thus avoiding going through all the little pacific-side towns, the construction zones, Ensenada, etc, on Sunday afternoon.
Arriving at BofLA we pull in to the first gas station to top up. (Yes, BofLA now has TWO Pemex). The proprietress tells me they only have premium. Hmm. You mean the locals won't buy the premium, so you're trying to get gringos to buy it? Well, we don't need much gas, anyway, so we get premium. After the fill, the truck hesitates again. I've had enough, get out a screwdriver and pop the springloaded vent out of one of the caps. (Ken wisely advises that, since I might be wrong about this being the issue, I pop only ONE of the caps...if I'm right we can always switch caps each time we switch tanks and if I'm wrong we still have a pressurized cap). In the end, that "modification" seems to do it. Making the cap basically completely open seems to solve the issue and the truck doesn't miss again for the rest of the trip. I am, however, interested in anybody's thoughts on this issue. Could the caps (brand new and the ones Kragen says are right) have the wrong pressure? They certainly seem to create far more vacuum than the old caps I replaced. Could it be my fuel pump is getting tired and can't deliver sufficent volume when there is high vaccum in the tanks? Why would it happen only with completely full tanks?
Side note: I explain to Ken the big plastic drum and the bucket outside the BofLA Pemex restroom are there for a reason...you take a bucket of water out of the drum in with you and use that to flush. It takes a second, but he quickly gets the concept. Ha!
When we hit the dirt road south of BofLA we discover that 85psi in the E-range BFGs doesn't run so smooth. The truck is heavy, and I'm nervous about airing down. We have a cruising speed on the rough dirt road of about 10mph. 15mph tops. At that rate, its going to take us 5+ hrs to get to San Rafael. And the sun is going down. Again we modify the plan...we'll stay right here in BofLA for the race. After driving 5 miles or so south of town to get back into the open desert we find a place to camp on an abandoned dirt airstrip. Its a warm night, clear, full moon, no wind. Ken whips up some scrumptious ribs and corn on the cob. With a nice red to wash it down.
So...the next day...what day is this again? Seem to be losing track. Always do in Baja, ha! But I think today is Thursday, race day, so we decide to move camp down the road a piece to a better vantage point. We find a good spot at the top of a gentle hill with a distant view of the Cortez. We pick the bay-side of the road because the breeze is onshore and we'll appreciate that later, when the racers come through, since it'll blow the dust away from our camp. The spot is small, but Ken chops some of the closer-in cactus branches so we don't get scratched up.
The sun is bright and the day heats up. We rig up a tarp, have a hearty breakfast / brunch, and basically while away the three or so hours until 1pm (approx) when we see the first bikes. The first two Honda factory riders are, as is typical, way out in front. Later we see more of the amateur motorcylists go by...we are at race mile 390, less than 1/2 way to La Paz, but already many of them seem tired.
The first trophy trucks arrive just minutes before sundown, perhaps 445pm. We are drinking wine and are caught unawares since, presumably due to the imminent darkness, the trucks are not preceded by the usual helicopters.
For dinner we have chicken and corn on the cob. Watch race action until late, perhaps midnight. I did not see Bob Green's team go by. By my calculation it would have been about 330-4AM and I wasn't up. Two notes: after dark the wind changed to offshore so every car smothers our camp in dust, doh! And, two, my idea of connecting an external antenna to my handheld HAM for better Weatherman reception proves marginally successful at best. And that's even with the antenna placed way up on top of the camper.
The race cars going by are loud. And have bright lights. And they pass by all night. I'd have said I didn't sleep much but, it seems, a short time later its morning. So I must have slept some.
The next day is Friday. Although slower cars won't reach the finish in La Paz until well into Friday night, at our location at racemile 390 the race is essentially over. We pack up camp and head back north through BofLA, up the hill to Hwy 1 and then Hwy 1 north to the turn off onto the dirt road at La Chapala. The dirt road is heavily washboarded. Figuring that one way or another I eventually have to figure out what to do re: airing down the truck's tires, I decide to take off 15psi as an experiment. Go down to approx 65. The resulting ride seems smoother, but it still ain't like my jeep with 12psi in its 35s.
We stop at Coco's and have a beer (Coke for me). Coco is recovering from the big party the night before, so he's not about (this info according to his friend, Professora Pablo Ibarra, who is manning the cantina). We chat with Pablo, finish our drinks and continue on down to the Cortez and Bahia de San Luis Gonzaga. The road is rough.
At Gonzaga get some gas. There is a big dirt ramp in the middle of "town" that the locals must have built to get the 1000 racers to jump. The race long passed by at this point, a couple of ten yr old kids are using the ramp for launching their quads. It occurs to me someone should get the kids some helmets.
We drive out to the beach near Alfonsinas for some late-lunch sandwiches. There is a gutted early '70s F700 dump truck on the beach. Its a Ford, but no parts of any use to me, though Ken does look carefully.
A few dabbles with the deep sand at the end of the road prove that my truck is not capable of beach driving. So we're limited to staying on the hard pan but that's ok, its no more than 50 yds to the water. After sandwiches we drive north across the mudflats looking for a place to camp. The wind is pretty fresh, so we're looking for something a little protected. No luck. Eventually we decide to head north and drive a few miles along the coast, taking some side roads here and there near Punta Willard. Still nothing suits, so we get back on the "main" road and head yet further north.
Getting late in the afternoon when we see the homemade sign for Campo Bufeo. Looks like a nice spot and its actually in my Baja guidebook so we go check it out. Nice beach, airstrip, a few ****** houses and a little its-open-if-you-walk-in-to-eat restaurant. But the beach is exposed to the wind so we decide to go back inshore a little and camp behind the dunes. Find a decent spot that, while still windy, is much better. Having eaten lunch late we have snacks for dinner.
The next day (is this Saturday?) we decide to head north to the limit of the new pavement and camp there so that Sunday, the last day, we can just get up and roll on the pavement home.
The road is being paved from north to south. But...slowly. Total progress since I was down here in Nov '09 and Feb '10 is about 5 additional miles. The present situation is that the pavement ends at El Huerfanito, which is 25 miles north of Gonzaga. At Campo Bufeo, we've already transitted eight miles of that 25, so on Saturday we only had about 15 miles more to go. At our ten mph cruise, perhaps an hour or two to get to the pavement. We took a few side roads down to various beaches en route, but we still arrived near Huerfanito early Sat afternoon.
Problem was, the wind was howling. The open beach was out of the question for camping. We checked a few different spots, and found one little cove where it was less windy, but not by much. We had a nice fire thanks to an enormous windbreak someone else had built and we cooked up tri tip and corn. But the wind never really died down, so we ate in the camper. Ken even decided to sleep in the camper that night.
Sunday we left camp 830AM. Couple hours north to San Felipe, gassed up. North of San Felipe it got very windy. Turned west onto Hwy 2-D towards Tecate and the wind was really strong with stronger gusts. Climbing La Rumarosa grade was a 3rd gear / 40mph exercise. Once up on top it was windy AND rainy. Crossed at Tecate, 30 minutes total. Was sent to secondary where (allegedly) they x-rayed the truck.
Slow going on 94 West towards San Diego, arrived at Brant's house in Pt Loma 430pm. Transferred all Ken's gear back into his XJ and he departed about 5pm to visit a friend in San Marcos. I presume he made it back to LA today.
After Ken left I sat around Brant's deciding what to do. I could catch a flight to Sacto later that evening but it looked like it would be a flight after 10pm before I could get on as a standby. And that would mean Cristy would have to come down to get me late. At something like 11pm arrival, that would mean we wouldn't be back home until after midnight, best case. Alternatively I could crash at Brant's and fly Mon morning and go straight to work, and that's what I was leaning towards. In both cases I'd drive the truck home next Sunday (I'm going back to San Diego on Wed for Thanksgiving). But given that it was only 5pm, and I really just wanted to get the truck home, I decided to just drive it.
Left SD about 6pm and initially it was uneventful. Amazingly, not even a slow-down going through LA. At the bottom of the grapevine I got gas. Getting back on the hwy I shifted from 4th to 5th and...boom...the clutch pedal goes right to the floor. Just like it did before, when I had those troubles with it pre-trip. At this moment I don't know, but I just KNOW it fell against the exhaust and melted (plastic hydraulic line). What to do? Pull over and check it out? Why? Its dark and I probably can't fix it and once stopped I'd have limited or no ability to shift through the gears to get going again. So...just drive it, right? Get as far as I can without having to shift. Flooring it on the flats and cruising up around 80mph I was able to crest Tejon Pass in 5th. From there its all flat or downhill all the way to Folsom, 20 miles from my house. So just roll along in fifth and don't stop. Except...at some point I'll have to stop for gas. Be nice, though, if I only have to do that once. So I wring out maximum MPG from the present tanks then 1 fill up then all the way home.
The one gas stop was interesting. I know you can shift without the clutch but I still don't have a feeling as to how that works. I was able, after fueling, to start the truck in gear, get up to 10mph or so, force the shift lever into third (with some grinding it went) then onto 5th (lugging like hell) roll down the on-ramp gathering speed and back up to 65mph in fifth for the rest of the way home. So it worked but it felt abusive on the gearbox and I was also pretty anxious since recent experience has proven that hammering the gearshift lever CAN make it break off at the floor. Then I'd really have been hosed.
Arrived Placerville 235AM. Long drive. But, still, an excellent trip. At least SOME of you guys should try to make the next Baja run.