On the Move Again ... sort of ... for a while ... in Albuquerque, NM

Saturday June 23

I have good news and bad news: Our EvenBrake arrived as promised, but this replacement unit appears to be defective as well. We will have to continue for now with no brakes in the Element-in-tow. I left a message with the manufacturer, but they likely won't get the message until Monday. If I am lucky, they will let me pick up another unit at an RV supply in Albuquerque, and check it out before leaving. If I am even luckier, they will refund the cost of the unit, and I can install a better braking system. If I had it to do over, I would probably get the system made by M&G. This system uses the coach's air brakes to pressurize the car's hydraulic system.

This afternoon we took a bike ride. We put in at the Aspen vista picnic area (EL 10,000') and biked up a service road to the summit of Tesuque Peak (EL 12,000'). The distance was about 5.6 miles each way. Tesuque Peak is at the top of one of the two summits for the Aspen/Santa Fe ski basin. It was fairly challenging, but we both made it! There were excellent 360' views of the mountains and Santa Fe.

Later that afternoon while kicking back at the campsite, we saw a bear! He came down the road from the upper loop, crossed by the edge of our campsite and ran up the mountain at full speed. He was a black bear, but was brown/cinnamon in color. Every site in the campground was filled this Saturday night, but we were apparently the only ones who saw him. The campground host said that was only the seventh bear sighting in the campground this summer.


Sunday June 24

We finally packed up and left Black Canyon Campground this afternoon. It was hard to leave, but it was time to move on. We have been using our generator heavily, about 2-3 hours per day, because we have had no electrical hookups since leaving Texas. In the past few days, I have observed heavy white smoke on start-up, and it seems to be making a faint rattling sound, which may or may not be normal. Since we will be highly dependant on our generator for much of our trip, I have scheduled service at the Cummins/Onan Coach Care facility in Albuquerque. This facility is the only Onan manufacturer's service facility in a radius of about 500 miles. Thankfully it is on our way, although that may be hard to prove, since we don't really know where we are going next. We spent Sunday night in their parking lot in order to get into their shop when they open at 7:00 Monday morning.


Monday June 25

We make this post from the customer lounge at the Cummins/Onan Coach Care facility in Albuquerque. The coach is currently in the service bay. We have repaired the generator fuel leak. It was due to a cross-threaded fuel filter. The smoking and engine knock is more serious. This problem is caused by a bad fuel injector. This is not normally a very serious problem, however, access to the generator in our coach is problematic. On most diesel coaches the whole generator slides out the front cap on rails, providing good access to the generator. Ours does not have this rail access. The technician says he thinks the whole front cap must be removed to access the generator. I have a call in to Country Coach to get their advice.

The saga continues. Wish us luck.

Myron