Well it was pissing rain on Wednesday and Thursday so I decided to hang out in Tacoma and I would hit St.Helens on Sunday. I had a great weekend with some friends in Tacoma. Helped them with their house warming party, drank some moonshine (with hillbilly teeth too) and did some scuba diving at Rodondo Beach. All in all a good weekend.
Sunday rolls around and Jim and I decide to head out to St.Helens. From their house its about 140 miles along the Spirit Lake Hwy. It's a sunny day, there is ice and drinks in the cooler, topped up the gas tank and we set out on a beautiful drive through the mountains.
After about 2 hours of driving we cam across this bridge that had some water running out of the mountains under it. You could tell from the upper slope that there had been a really sever washout in the not so distant past. The upper slope was choked with rubble and large trees and you can see where water had undermined the slopes. There was a pull off so we did. Switched off the bus and got out to stretch out legs a bit. I think we were about 10 or so miles from the volcano or at least the interpretive centre. Up to this point however we hadn't even slapped eyes on the infamous volcano that errupted back in 1980. Eager to push on, we climbed in bot of us ready to resume our trip. I turned the key.... nothing. Understand when I say nothing I mean nothing. No lights. No click. Nothing. CRAAAAAAAAAAP!
Ok, I may have used a slightly stronger word than "Crap" but you get the idea. I didn't panic though. Luckily we were parked on a hill so we got the bus turned around and pointed in the right direction. Thought at least if we could push start it we might get it back part way to Tacoma... as soon as we had a bit of speed I popped the clutch and it started... hmmm. Strange.
We got it back to Tacoma and into the drive way and started looking into it. Basically at this point all we were able to figure out was that because it was a relatively new starter there had to be an issue either between the battery and the starter ot the ignition switch and the starter. Simple right?
I got some help from Stuartzickefoose basically a local who I made contact with on thesamba.com prior to my trip. We were going to meet up Sunday night but with my wheels out of commission that wasn't going to happen. He did talk us through a couple things before we found the actual issue. We pulled the ignition wires and tried to essentially hotwire the bus to check the ignition switch... no luck there, not even a click of the starter. Next we tried jumping the started with a screwdriver... yes it's possible. In this case however no such luck.
As I was under the back wheel I noticed THIS...
You'll notice in the middle of the picture in the lower third there is a wire just hanging there. I found it was live the hard way. Apperently the ring terminal fromt he battery cable to the starter had sheared off some how. Luckily there was an auto parts store less than 2 miles away and 45 minutes and a couple beers later the bus was started and running again. WHEW!
More to come.....
