August 8, 2012
Circle Creek RV Park, Seaside, Oregon
As always, click on any picture to enlarge it...
I should have known better than to think that last week’s minor miracle of getting all the service appointments lined up was a good thing. Or at least I shouldn’t have said anything out loud, or maybe even thought “Wow; this all worked out great”!
Things got off to a nice start on Monday. We’d made reservations at what looked like a nice RV Park in Astoria, Oregon, right near the mouth of the Columbia River. We took our time getting ready, giving the tanks a good flush before leaving Camp Monaco in Coburg and heading north on I-5. Other than a miscue on the part of the GPS guidance having us get off the wrong exit near Portland (just a short detour; no real issues), we were soon heading west on US-26, looking forward to getting out to the Coast after several days of warm weather. We climbed the grades on the Coastal Range (not sure why they call them”mountains” at under 1,000 feet) and coasted down to the junction with US-101, heading north toward Astoria.
We hadn’t gone more than a mile or so when the coach alarm beep-beep-beep started sounding. The dash indicator flashed “engine hot” and sure enough, the monitoring system said we were up around 220°F on the coolant, slightly higher on the engine oil and slightly lower on the transmission. I immediately pulled over and mentally started running down a checklist of what might cause that. We didn’t get a low coolant alarm, so it shouldn’t be that. The fan is driven by a hydraulic motor, so there’s no belt to slip or break. Upon stopping, the temperature dropped a few degrees but was still way above normal. Hmmm...
So, I turned everything off and headed outside to check. I expected to see coolant leaking out all over the place, but everything was bone dry in the engine compartment. Everything looked to be in order, so I went forward and restarted the engine. Checking the engine compartment again, I remember thinking, “At least the fan is turning since I can’t see the individual blades”. I shut everything off to check again and that’s when it dawned on me: I couldn’t see the fan blades because they weren’t there!
It was another one of those “I can’t understand what’s happened here” moments. What on earth would cause the fan to disappear? Well, we weren’t going to figure that out along the side of the road, so I needed to decide quickly if we could limp along or if I needed to call the road service. I started up again and pulled out slowly, and we were able to get moving but not far before the temperatures started to rise again.
I spotted an RV Park and we pulled in, even though we didn’t have a reservation (there, anyway). They were almost full but had a spot for two nights, with a third night possible if we could move to another site. Book it! At least we were off the side of the 101...
Now, to get to work. First, I called the park we’d reserved to let them know we wouldn’t make it. Now, I expected to get a speech about how they’d have to charge me something because of a late cancellation. To my surprise, the owner/manager offered to call her local mechanic to see if he was available to help us out. Huh? OK, I suppose. She called me back a few minutes later to let us know that Vince, the mechanic, was on the road near us and would stop by shortly. Wow. I figured this would be OK either way: if he couldn’t help us, he might be able to point us to a repair facility that could.
While I was waiting, I crawled under to examine the fan, or what was left, more closely. To my further surprise, I found some of the broken fins laying in the bottom of the radiator stack enclosure. Pulling the debris out, I realized that there was a manufacturers name and identifying codes on one of the pieces. Well, that’s good news. Google brought their web site right up and the codes started to make sense as model numbers. “Contact Us” gave me the number to call and I was on the phone with their very knowledgeable regional rep quickly. With the codes, the color of the blade, and the dimensions of the piece, he was able to determine what we needed and develop a quote to be emailed to me.
When it arrived a few minutes later, I was prepared for sticker shock. Instead, the blades are $27-and-change each. Now, we need 12 of them for a whole fan but, still, that’s way less than I expected. So, back on the phone with the sales department, confirm the address for shipping, mortgage the Visa card for overnight shipping, and we’ll be good to go. Just as I was wrapping up the call, Vince arrived. I explained the situation and what I’d done so far, and he agreed to adjust his schedule to help us.
The first phase was removal of the existing/remaining fan hub and bracket, and Vince arrived the following afternoon to tackle that. With me kibitzing, he was able to get the removal done in about an hour. Fortunately, existing coolant and hydraulic lines, while somewhat in the way, didn’t need to be removed in the process.
Once the fan bracket was out, it was clear what happened. Shaped like a 3’x3’ steel “X” with a mounting plate for the fan motor in the center, the bracket itself was full of cracks and breaks. Some were old (rust) and some were fresh. Clearly, this bracket had been failing for some time and the last cracks, probably while we were climbing the “Coastal Range” hills, were the final straw, so to speak. The force of the spinning fan pulled the blades into a support cross-member and once one blade failed, the rest were sheared off like bowling pins being set down.
So, at least we knew what was needed and had a plan. Vince would take the failed bracket back to his shop, straighten the bends, weld the breaks, and add significant reinforcement. I would track down the shipment of the replacement blades. Since he has contacts at the local UPS facility, he could intercept the delivery if they were on time.
Well, once again, things were working out. Vince successfully intercepted the shipment at UPS and arrived early on Wednesday to start the re-installation. While he got the newly strengthened bracket in place and reattached the fan motor, Geri and I installed the new blades in the fan hub, a process that needed at least four hands. Fortunately, I had taken pictures before disassembly, so we were reasonably sure we were putting the new blades in correctly. With me providing moral support and holding hoses back out of the way, Vince was just able to slide the fan back into the shroud and get the bolts back in place to hold it to the motor. With the RV Park Manager hovering to see if we’d be able to move to the alternate site on schedule, we wrapped it up right before Noon. Verifying that the fan was spinning in the right direction, we breathed a collective sigh of relief. Vince cleaned up and got paid, we unhooked and moved to the other site, and all was right with the world again.
I’ve probably painted too rosy a picture, even though things did work out reasonably well. We’ll have to monitor the radiator carefully to see if there’s any leakage, since the fan blades did crease the fins upon impact. I looks OK for now but will bear watching. And, I’ll probably need to order a new fan hub (the part that the blades mount into) when we get back to AZ since there’s a slight wobble in the spinning fan. In hindsight, I should have ordered a new hub with the blades rather than relying on an “It looks like the hub is OK” assessment. But, as usual, it could have been a lot worse and we were lucky to have this failure here (as opposed to central British Columbia, for example) and to have parts and help available so quickly.
Whew!
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