Thor Forums

[FrankMor]

Sorry long thread.

We were on our first long trip in the MH, Oklahoma to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. We were staying at Jacob Lake Campground (good place to stay).
We left Oklahoma Tuesday Sep. 4th, got there on the sixth. Second night there the heater quit working, clicked once fan runs 30 sec. and turned off, no burner coming on, no clicking, nothing. Not too cold so we are OK.
We went to Bryce Canyon, really nice but huge crowds. We went to Cedar Breaks on the way back to Jacob Lake, no crowds and just as nice. On the way to Cedar Breaks, a relay on the climate contol in the Jeep started to chatter intermitenly, annoying, but no real problem.
Sunday back at the Canyon, had a good day.
Sunday night, back at the RV, I was chilling real bad. After a bad night and not any better, we went to the ER. ER for there is at Kanab, Utah, it has 9 beds. The people there were great.
Three days of IV antibiotics and they discharged me on 2 antibiotics.
Problem is we needed to be on the road home by 10 am that day! We got started out at noon. We decided to not make any stops on the way to Flagstaff to make up time. We had reservations in Albuquerque. Those of you that have come in Flagstaff from the north know that long upgrade coming in that way. Just short of the top, at 40 mph, the engine temp spiked to max, I had been watching it, the check engine light came on and I pulled over. The coolant reservoir was boiling over. I called Ford Road Side assistance. After explaining what was going on, the lady I was talking to told me that the F53 was not designed to be driven for 5 hours without stops to let it cool down. She said the they always stop every 2 to 3 hours to let theirs cool off. She asked if I wanted to have her send help, or try letting it cool off and see what happened. We decided to let it cool off. We ate and killed time for 30 to 45 min. When we tried again, 3 miles at 30 mph is all we got, temp spiked, check engine light and this time, DIC showed “Reduced Engine Power”.
Ford sent out a tow truck to take us to Winslow Ford, the nearest that would work on it. Jett Emergency Response Team Towing. They were very good. They also found a broken tailpipe hanger and a broken rear sway bar bracket. We got to Winslow just after they closed and had to leave it on their service road.
The next morning, we talked with them and they can get to it Wednesday. DW had to be at work 5:30 am Saturday, so we left it there and came home.

Frank