Zebulon Montgomery Pike Trail to Red River, Mexico Journey 1807

Day 2: September 29th, 2003 Pittsburgh (Mine)

I am fighting the jetlag. It’s around 5am when I am not able to sleep anymore. Therefore I start to sort out and repack my stuff as quiet as I can. Around 6am I start to hear some noise from outside and I walk to the bathroom. After breakfast I check my company emails first. After all the project is still in a critical phase. And answering all emails ties me to the PC for almost two hours.

Around ten we depart for the mine. When we arrive I pay the remaining difference. Then we follow the pilot car through the mine to my car. When I look at the floor, I see, that it is pretty dark. I am afraid that I lost again a lot of transmission oil. Maybe there is really the seal of my oil pan leaking.

We hook up my battery and I give it a try to just start my truck. Even that I have to let the starter run for a little while, the truck starts without any jump start after one year of storage! Even the mine worker cannot believe this. We drive out of the mine and I check my transmission oil level with the stick.

But it doesn’t look to bad and I assume that I have only lost a little bit of oil. Next I pump up my tires to at least 32psi. Then we start to drive back home. But after a short drive I already encounter that my transmission starts to slip.

I give Helen a signal and tell her, that I have to fill up my oil. We stop at a grocery parking lot and I start to fill in more transmission oil. Into the bargain I tip the almost full can of transmission oil and make a big mess. I try to catch most of it with kitchen towel papers. But after my departure I see, that there is still a big oil spot.

Back home I fill in some more, all in all around 3 quarts. This was also the amount, that was filled in last year. I am getting more confident in having a leaking oil pan seal. Next I drive over to Wal–Mart to get some new wiper blades, air filter and a new PCV valve.

Back home I change the parts. While doing this I hear, that there is a sizzling sound when the engine runs. It sounds like one of the vacuum lines are not sealed. After searching around for a while I find a black plastic part (probably a valve), which is broken. Maybe the plastic started to brittle due to age and finally broke.

Maybe this is also the reason why I had some rough idling last year on my trail. Anyways, my Chevy dealer shall change this part tomorrow. Now everything is prepared for my garage appointment tomorrow. The rest of the day I spend with repacking my stuff and I go to bed again around 10pm.