Last night was the first time since we arrived at this site that we left the air conditioning on. Obviously we woke up to a nice cool trailer. As on most Mondays (the day before we leave for the next site) we had very little planned for the day.
There were a couple of mundane, but essential jobs that needed doing, e.g. flush out the sewerage tank, but other than that we just sat around either inside or out depending on how hot we felt reading or solving puzzles.
After lunch we headed into Cañon City to get some pictures from Skyline Drive, I remembered the camera this time.
Views to the west, showing the road we had just been on.
View to the east showing Cañon City
Views straight ahead, who needs guard rails (Hazel, you would have loved driving this road!!)
From there we headed to the far end of the city where Lyn wanted to do a bit of shopping, then we headed back to get some gas and to head into a do it yourself car wash. I didn’t want to wash the truck, but I did want to clean out the radiator, transmission cooler and fuel cooler fins.
As I have said before paranoia is setting in with this truck after I had the fuel pressure issue on the way here. After a lot of reading, I am fairly certain there is nothing seriously wrong, many other people with this model of truck have had the same problem. The issue can be made to “go away” by resetting the check engine light.
The problem appears to be caused by high fuel temperatures. I never realised how important the diesel fuel was, apart from powering the vehicle, that is. It seems far more diesel is sent to the engine than is required to produce power. Some is used to cool the fuel system close to the engine, some is sent around parts of the engine as lubricant, some is sent to the injectors to power the truck and some is not needed. The fuel used for cooling and lubrication as well as the excess fuel from the injectors is returned to the fuel tank to begin its journey again. Of course, during this process the fuel heats up, when it heats up too much, any air in the fuel bubbles out. This air finds its way to the filter where it accumulates and prevents sufficient fuel from getting to the engine. The engine then complains that there is not enough fuel to go galloping up the next hill with 12,000 lbs of trailer in tow, this in turn cause bells, whistles and lights to go off in the truck, which in turn upsets the driver.
Anyway, answer is, don’t panic, reset the check engine light and if need be slow down until the hill goes in the general direction of down!
Tomorrow we are off to a new State for us, Kansas. This stop will likely be more of a sit back and relax (and use the pool) rather than a busy sightseeing Stop.