As I’m sure some of you have heard I recently lost my mind and decided to move to Ottawa. Naturally I couldn’t leave my truck behind so elected to drive my sprung over, diesel converted, turbo’d 1975 FJ40 from Victoria to Ottawa. I decided to use the ferry this time as my previous water adventures didn’t turn out well. Hopefully you’ll be entertained by what follows… I know I was!
Day .5 and 1:
After packing up the trailer and getting ready to roll out I met up with my buddy Graham who would be traveling with me to Ottawa (He had gone crazy and wanted to purchase my nana’s 1989 Cummins turbo diesel to put into his 1976 ford). Cam had also come by the house for one last beer and to drop off my trailer hitch (needed something with a 15” drop which is a little hard to come by commercially). Lucky for me Cam was also heading to the mainland for his whipsaw adventure so we decided to catch the same ferry across.
Driving out of the driveway I heard a horrible screeching sound so I stopped at the first stop sign fired up the 4 way’s and climbed out to figure out what the problem was. Turns out the trailer that I had just purchased was a little loaded and the tires where rubbing on the fenders. We jacked up the trailer with the high lift and jumped on it until they were nicely bent out of the way. One last stop at lordco for zip ties and a new light and we would be on our way. Driving onto the highway from lordco I accelerated grinning like a little kid as the turbo kicked in and we went up through third shifting into fourth the engine fell flat on its face and the truck began to decelerate… we pulled off the highway and started to diagnose problems. The turbo return was clearly not big enough and the turbo required a rebuild so we worried that perhaps the oil blowing by and into the intake was causing some sort of issue. We decided it was high time we got on the mainland and limped the truck onto the ferry with plans to fix it on the ferry. We pulled out of the toll booth right as the announcement to return to your vehicles was sounding. On the ferry we found a flat spot on the fuel line where I’d had a pair of vice grips for too long while I had the fuel tank out. Sliced this out and problem was solved!
After a few parking lot beers somewhere in Langley Graham and I parted ways with Cam and headed for Vernon to stay at my friend’s house. A quick stop at the scale revealed the cruiser and trailer combination weighed a little over 5600 lbs. A large number of slow climbs up the cocahala later eyes glued to the pyro and we were in Vernon!
The next day we found out that oil was pooling someplace and creating huge smoke clouds when the engine first fired up in the morning… luckily they cleared fairly quick and we were able to continue for Calgary after a quick Walmart trip we were on our way to Calgary! One major accident in Sicamous where the guy in front of us decided to take a left turn into Timmies without looking and got T-boned and his ranger rolled onto its side. We kindly donated a folding camp chair gave our statements and where back on our way! A short stop at the top of rogers pass to take some pictures and we were back on our way.
On our way into Calgary we noticed the boost had stopped showing although the turbo was still spooling fine so we pulled over to check it out. Turns out the little rubber boost adaptor had halfway died so we cut it shorter put it back on and hose clamped it. Found our way to Grahams uncles place for the night with a list of things to fix and wandered out to find my friends for a drink.
Day .5 and 1:
After packing up the trailer and getting ready to roll out I met up with my buddy Graham who would be traveling with me to Ottawa (He had gone crazy and wanted to purchase my nana’s 1989 Cummins turbo diesel to put into his 1976 ford). Cam had also come by the house for one last beer and to drop off my trailer hitch (needed something with a 15” drop which is a little hard to come by commercially). Lucky for me Cam was also heading to the mainland for his whipsaw adventure so we decided to catch the same ferry across.
Driving out of the driveway I heard a horrible screeching sound so I stopped at the first stop sign fired up the 4 way’s and climbed out to figure out what the problem was. Turns out the trailer that I had just purchased was a little loaded and the tires where rubbing on the fenders. We jacked up the trailer with the high lift and jumped on it until they were nicely bent out of the way. One last stop at lordco for zip ties and a new light and we would be on our way. Driving onto the highway from lordco I accelerated grinning like a little kid as the turbo kicked in and we went up through third shifting into fourth the engine fell flat on its face and the truck began to decelerate… we pulled off the highway and started to diagnose problems. The turbo return was clearly not big enough and the turbo required a rebuild so we worried that perhaps the oil blowing by and into the intake was causing some sort of issue. We decided it was high time we got on the mainland and limped the truck onto the ferry with plans to fix it on the ferry. We pulled out of the toll booth right as the announcement to return to your vehicles was sounding. On the ferry we found a flat spot on the fuel line where I’d had a pair of vice grips for too long while I had the fuel tank out. Sliced this out and problem was solved!
After a few parking lot beers somewhere in Langley Graham and I parted ways with Cam and headed for Vernon to stay at my friend’s house. A quick stop at the scale revealed the cruiser and trailer combination weighed a little over 5600 lbs. A large number of slow climbs up the cocahala later eyes glued to the pyro and we were in Vernon!
The next day we found out that oil was pooling someplace and creating huge smoke clouds when the engine first fired up in the morning… luckily they cleared fairly quick and we were able to continue for Calgary after a quick Walmart trip we were on our way to Calgary! One major accident in Sicamous where the guy in front of us decided to take a left turn into Timmies without looking and got T-boned and his ranger rolled onto its side. We kindly donated a folding camp chair gave our statements and where back on our way! A short stop at the top of rogers pass to take some pictures and we were back on our way.
On our way into Calgary we noticed the boost had stopped showing although the turbo was still spooling fine so we pulled over to check it out. Turns out the little rubber boost adaptor had halfway died so we cut it shorter put it back on and hose clamped it. Found our way to Grahams uncles place for the night with a list of things to fix and wandered out to find my friends for a drink.
