Far west to Midwest.....for a boat.

[SHAFT]

Hey EXPO,
So 3 years ago my grandpa died. In all the weirdness which comes with spreading around the remains of 76 years of life, the question arose: Who's taking Papa's boat? Well everyone in the family kinda mulled it over and after a bit of drama, the boat ends up in long term storage, accumulating about $450 of bill in the process. Eventually my younger brother decides he wants it, which works for everyone. Problem:Boat is at the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri and brother in in Bellingham WA.
Solution:

The plan was to head up to washington, collect brother and bro-in-law, and head east. and so it began......
Brother driving and Emmy Award Winning (f'real) in-law entertaining

i've got to spend more time in western Montana



Finally made it (33 hours later)

 

[SHAFT]

the trip back

So once we made it to the lake, the intent was to spend three-ish days relaxing and then head back to the PNW. Ellie (the van) performed flawlessly, only casualty was the fuel gauge which decided to tell me that i got 326 miles out of 1/2 tank of fuel outside of Butte MT. Chilled, swam, skied, shot a sketchy water snake with a 20ga (hey, it's the ozarks) and then turned attention to a few checks before the return trip. Rear end took about a quarter bottle of 75-140 before i left OR, so i checked it again in MO and whoa...:Wow1:it took half a bottle and still wanted more. So i ran to nearest dealer for the friction modifier crap and four more bottles of gear oil as, at this point, i expected to do some rest-stop top-offs on the way back.
a bit unsure, but not upfront with my comrades about the rear end situation, we set off.

soaking up a bit of free wi-fi in the wee hours of the WY morning

the insect genocide continued basically until Idaho



Checked the rear a couple more times before SD and it seemed to be doing fine, puked fluid on me both times i opened the plug.
Our biggest near-miss of the trip happened outside Big Timber MT: we lost the nut and split washer off the tow ball which resulted in the trailer fish-tailing back and forth behind the van, riding on dinky, 16 year old safety chains. Pretty sure my grandpa had something to do with the trailer staying put and with us being so close to a town. Back-up stinger installed on the road and permanent fix accomplished at the Big Timber car quest, and we were back underway.

My proudest moment of the trip came when my girl pulled three dudes, their gear and a boat over the continental divide at 60 MPH. more to follow on that....



At this point, my pictures stop as i was delirious tired

 

[SHAFT]

why should you care....

The entire reason i've decided to post this is simple: don't pass up getting a van with a "sick liter" because 6.0 PSD's get so much crap for unreliability.
I get that they've got a ton of niggling little problems and quirks (which engine doesn't) and that the bad rap was the result of early engine failures due to neglected maintenance and poor dealer diagnosis/ laziness.
I also understand that my van only weighs about 8k lbs (yes, thats right) and the boat i pulled back from MO is only slightly heavier than a kayak.
That said, i took a former Penske rental van, which i converted to 4wd in my driveway and threw 4500-ish miles and at least 25,000 feet of elevation change at it over the course of 7 days. the trip there, 32 hours of constant running, and back was 39.5 of the same plus pulling a boat. While pulling, i never saw over 950f egt, 210 coolant and 208 oil temp (and that was the continental divide). and 15 mpg average while running the 40 weight oil aint bad...
love the van

 

[FarmerFrederico]

A fine story, dude. Glad you had fun and it all turned out well.

 

[Jsweezy]

That was enjoyable to read, thanks for posting. As always your van looks bad ***.

 

[tgreening]

The 6.0 never lacked in the performance dept. The only real bad part is the absolutely ridiculous amount of expense incurred when something goes south, which holds true for any of Fords diesels post 7.3.

That's some awesome scenery on your trip. Beats the snot out of most things back here in the Midwest.

 

[djbonsu]

Great story and awesome trip!! Do sterling rear ends normally lose oil?

 

[SHAFT]

No idea on that. checked since i've been back and everything is fine. so blaming the gremlins on that one.