The boys are near Des Moines, Ia. And cruising along at full speed down I-80
for home.
Ever since the Sinclair disaster in Vegas, where they attempted to get
repairs, they have been lacking power and sometimes running rough.
In the process of mis-diagnosing the fuel injection problem, which payson
later fixed by tightening the temperature sensor, the mechanic at the
Sinclair station in Vegas disconnected a number of cables and hoses, and
failed to reconnect them! Most of them were obvious and corrected, but
although the car now ran with the tightened temp sensor, they experienced
misfireing, bucking and severe loss of power. They did another tune-up and
blew out the fuel filter and got it to run smoother, but still with no
power. They continued on, limping over the rockies back down I-70 in
Colorado, and then up I-76 across the front range to I-80 and through
Nebraska into the night. Finally they made a stop in Omaha, at a VW
mechanic, to see if he could determine the cause. Payson leaned into the
engine compartment and showed the mechanic the temperature sensor that had
caused problems earlier.
The mechanic casually reached down and plugged in the #3 sparkplug wire.
Payson asked "did you just attach that plug wire?" The mechanic nodded (not
fluent in english).
They had been running on 3 cylinders ever since las Vegas! They subsequently
found 2 other loose hose connections that were attributable to the Sinclair
incident.
Well, all better now. A recent text message quote was: "if we cruise, we
could be home tomorrow night!"
But they still have a long way to go!