well, my time came to leave my hometown and move north . Im only a month late, what a pain in the butt, I tell ya. Moving sucks. We left Redding yesterday, in the low 100's, I knew it was a bad idea with this kind of load, but it was time to go. Truck was hating it until we got to the coast, I was doing the 3rd gear crawl up grades and still my egt's wanted to go over 1300, with a turned down fuel screw. Couple times I lost my rpms on real tight turns and was doing the 2nd gear 24 mph wind out, it sucked to say the least. When we finally got past hwy299 and the temp dropped about 40 degrees I gained a bunch of power and my egt's where easily manageable. I need some sort of overdrive unit and an intercooler. I haven't scaled this load yet, Its between 18 and 20k Im sure. Last night we pulled into Big Lagoon state beach to camp, and I pulled the ultimate noob mechanic blunder. Im headed to the emergency help section when Im done here.

 

Good luck! Nice rig when you get it set up like you want it.

 

looks like you're well set up for a cool trip, .... keep us posted where you can get net access and we'll envy your adventure, including your "noob blunder"; that will be part of your memories (been-dere-done-dat)

 

Please leave ALL your socialist ways at the boarder, it makes the bears sick. I don't know what your expecting, but expect your assumptions about Alaska to be wrong. Alaska ain't Hollywood's rendition. Expect the worst and be prepared for even worse than that.

 

dont worry man, Im definatly not a socialist. Ive allready lived up there 2 winters, 1 in seward in an abandond cabin with NO insulation and the other in fairbanks in a school bus that was half insulated with 1 inch fiber board. I m completely aware of 55 below.

 

Sounds good US MMA.... Cougar if you've ever spent any time at all in the 'politics' section of DTR you'd already know that USMMA is not a socialist

California is a vast state. Outside of the urban areas California isn't much unlike middle America. It isn't the majority that display 'socialist ways', however that minority seems to be getting the best of our great state.


USMMA - I found the same thing on my trip up north to WA, that climb up and out of Lake Shasta to Weed is a killer! I was towing a 27' TT with the 727 and 3.07s non i/c of course... I had to get down to 35 mph...

Have a great time in AK, too bad we didn't get a chance to meet up, Rebal and his son have hosted diesel meets in the Yuba city area. Are you going to have internet up in AK.

 

Get on up here while the weather is good!

 

Are you going to be coming though fort nelson bc.

 

Better hurry, summers almost over

 

well, I made it. Barely. Ive been in Fairbanks 3 weeks now, I would of posted sooner but my wireless connection on the laptop is moving real slow. What an amazing trip. B.C is a beautiful place. We spent about a week in there and another 5 days in Yukon. The truck did allright, the suspension was more than solid, but the snow w/m liked to randomly shut off, the entire trip, at really bad times. Like on long 8 % grades. So aside from thinking I was going to burn up my truck, things were great. There are some insane grades in B.C, in 3rd gear I would hit 1350, all the time. The pac is a life saver, flawless. The worst mileage I got was 8.5 on the oregon coast with a headwind, the best was almost 11. Scaled it outside of seattle, 20,600. Heavy. I made a serious error in thinking the w/m alone would be sufficient. When it would shut off I couldn't even put the truck in 5th, 1300 and rising quick on the flats. I kept having to hotwire the pump, get a prime then hook it back up. When we got to Whitehorse, I heard a clunk. Said screw it and kept going, got to the Ak/yukon border, took a few pics, took off, and heard a louder clunk. About 30 miles outside of Tok, everything went to hell. Clunk, bang, not so good. Limped into Tok making not so nice noises. Rear out put on the tcase,. I took off the rear driveline, put her in 4hi and drove the 200 miles to fairbanks(subaru off the trailer). But we made it. That week I pulled the tcase off, took it down, had all new bearing put in, reinstalled it, went to take off, heard a steady grinding. I think I also killed the 70. Its at the shop now. Oh well, Im already working and found a real nice pad. heres a few pics, I put more in my gallery.

 

Man I would love to do that but my wife hates the cold

 

Sorry you had the problems, but glad you made it. Enjoy life......it's too short not to.

 

I lived in Alaska for 25 years, and my Dodge has made several trips over the ALCAN... It "is" a beautiful trip, that's for sure...

Good luck with your new adventure.

Robert