We left Marquette MI about 8:00 PM last night happy and ignorant, with full bellies and a full load of groceries. We had intended to drive about 3 hours and spend the night at the Wal-Mart in Ironwood MI, just at the Wisconsin line, and pull into Duluth this morning.
But alas, some things are not meant to be. About 40 miles west of Marquette we are cruising at 55 mph, and suddenly there is a loud knocking sound from the engine and a significant loss of power. Within 30 seconds I pulled off the road and shut down the engine. No warning lights on the dashboard came on, and the engine did not shut down. There is no apparent loss of oil, and I can see no fluid leaking from the engine. I did briefly have Dorcas restart the engine so I could look into the engine compartment. The sound is definitely internal to the engine. Not good. I called Cummins, our engine manufacturer, but it was after-hours for them. Then I called Coach-Net, our emergency road service. Lisa was very helpful, and with the help of our GPS, she pinpointed our location exactly. She asked if we were in a safe location, and I told her we were. If we had not been, she would have sent a tow immediately to move us to a safe location. I spoke to Gregory, Coach-Net's technician, and he said it sounded like an internal engine failure, and I shoudn't drive the coach, or greater damage could occur. We are parked in the parking lot at Stump's Tavern. I went in to ask if it was OK to spend the night here. Stump said fine, so we ordered a beer. We had plenty of beer in the coach, but I thought it was the right thing to do. All the bar flies told us how they heard us blow up, and everybody had gotten up to look out the window. Then they began to diagnose our problem and give advise. Actually they were very nice.
This morning I had additional conversataions with both Cummins and Coach-Net. It looks like we are going to De Pere WI, near Green Bay, about 180 miles south of our current location. That is the closest qualified Cummins service center. There is a Cummins service center in Duluth, which is where we really want to be, but they don't have the lift necessary to raise the coach if it turns out we need to drop the engine. At De Pere they will be open until 11:00 PM CDT (12:00 EDT), so we should have an idea what's wrong sometime this evening.
So here we sit in downtown Three Lakes in the parking lot at Stump's Tavern waiting for our tow. We drove back 5 miles to Michigamme and gassed up the Honda at the Michigamme Market. There we saw the tee shirt shown in the photo, which says it all: "MICHIGAMME MICHIGAN, WHERE THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE IS SOMEWHERE ". I guess it turns out we are broken down 5 miles west of the middle of nowhere.
But alas, some things are not meant to be. About 40 miles west of Marquette we are cruising at 55 mph, and suddenly there is a loud knocking sound from the engine and a significant loss of power. Within 30 seconds I pulled off the road and shut down the engine. No warning lights on the dashboard came on, and the engine did not shut down. There is no apparent loss of oil, and I can see no fluid leaking from the engine. I did briefly have Dorcas restart the engine so I could look into the engine compartment. The sound is definitely internal to the engine. Not good. I called Cummins, our engine manufacturer, but it was after-hours for them. Then I called Coach-Net, our emergency road service. Lisa was very helpful, and with the help of our GPS, she pinpointed our location exactly. She asked if we were in a safe location, and I told her we were. If we had not been, she would have sent a tow immediately to move us to a safe location. I spoke to Gregory, Coach-Net's technician, and he said it sounded like an internal engine failure, and I shoudn't drive the coach, or greater damage could occur. We are parked in the parking lot at Stump's Tavern. I went in to ask if it was OK to spend the night here. Stump said fine, so we ordered a beer. We had plenty of beer in the coach, but I thought it was the right thing to do. All the bar flies told us how they heard us blow up, and everybody had gotten up to look out the window. Then they began to diagnose our problem and give advise. Actually they were very nice.
This morning I had additional conversataions with both Cummins and Coach-Net. It looks like we are going to De Pere WI, near Green Bay, about 180 miles south of our current location. That is the closest qualified Cummins service center. There is a Cummins service center in Duluth, which is where we really want to be, but they don't have the lift necessary to raise the coach if it turns out we need to drop the engine. At De Pere they will be open until 11:00 PM CDT (12:00 EDT), so we should have an idea what's wrong sometime this evening.
So here we sit in downtown Three Lakes in the parking lot at Stump's Tavern waiting for our tow. We drove back 5 miles to Michigamme and gassed up the Honda at the Michigamme Market. There we saw the tee shirt shown in the photo, which says it all: "MICHIGAMME MICHIGAN, WHERE THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE IS SOMEWHERE ". I guess it turns out we are broken down 5 miles west of the middle of nowhere.
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