12,000 Miles over less than 2 months

[JustGo_GL]

So, I posted a bit a while back about how four of us were making a documentary with an '84 GL, a cross country road trip on the cheap (camping pretty much the whole way, we hauled not only our film gear, but tents, food, etc), and we just made it back to NYC (after starting in NYC, driving to Seattle, and then turning around) after about a month and a half, and the car was incredible. Also had, well, tons of issues as I'll explain - and I've never been the most mechanically inclined until getting this car and learning about it, so my expertise and experience was certainly limited on the road. Having read this forum and the help from people with some of our previous issues  was incredibly helpful for me and for the trip, so first of all I just wanted to say thanks! 

 

At the start of the adventure the car had roughly 106,000 miles on it. 

We've returned to the city with over 118,500. 

Prior to this, the car hadn't done ten thousand miles of driving in the last ten years combined. 

 

 

I made it out to Seattle with the Wagon, wound up having to replace a blown tire (also somehow the venting hose from the transmission got shuffled about and excess fluid was dripping on to the catalytic converter and burning up, causing smoke under the hood. When I pulled into a rest stop in Ohio I thought it was going to be a lot worse than it was, just moved the hose to a different place and no more trouble) before realizing just how old all of my tires actually were and swapping them all out before the trip back to NYC. This was the main drama, just did regular fluid checks and changes in preparation for the adventure. Even managed to get 28 mpg on the trip out, which was fantastic. 

 

After the solo trip west, four of us got in the car and drove it all over the country avoiding major roads and taking the Wagon to as many extreme type locations as we could while filming it all for a documentary - we did some tough roads like Burr Trail and White Rim Road in Utah, then took it up to 12,000 feet in Colorado before fording streams on our way southeast. 

 

And yeah, there's a laundry list of things that went wrong along the way, some of which we fixed, some of which we just had to live with: 

 

- Car intermittently still refuses to start, lights and everything turn on just no click under the hood (has been an issue for a few months now, I've swapped starter solenoids, ignition switch, battery cables, etc, still no good - I'm looking at the Neutral Safety Switch as the likely culprit now).

- Alternator died on us in Colorado, luckily found the right one at a nearby mechanics, I wanted to take a crack at replacing it, but in the interest of time we had it put back on by the pros (I'm still learning about the car and how to work on it, so this was probably a good choice).

 

- Wiper Motor died in the midst of a massive rainstorm in Texas. We were doing the whole trip on a tiny budget, so rather than replace the motor while taking the trip, we rigged up some pea-cord and made it so the guy in the passenger seat could pull the wipers back and forth from the inside. Terrible for the gears, probably, but I expect to have to replace the whole setup anyway. 

 

- Transmission (3AT) crapped out on us in Arkansas, we lost reverse gear and then third before I messed about, changed the transmission fluid and we were able to warm it up and coax the trans back into third - now we always have 2nd and 3rd in Drive, and mostly have 1st although when cold it'll occasionally skip it (we can shift manually through the gears just fine). We're still lacking reverse, though, and at this point in the trip we still had over a thousand miles to go. 4wd still works, though. Oh, and the car idles forward in neutral, which is fun too. 

 

- After the transmission problems the car's starting problem got dramatically worse, which again leads me to suspect the NSS. We can always jump the starter with pliers to get it going, wound up mounting the spare tire on the roof along with a bunch of our gear to make it easier to access the starter quickly.

 

- The Brakes are very nearly gone, I'm pretty convinced, they're screeching something fierce in the front and the drums in the back like to sing any time we slow down. Now that we're back I'll take a crack at rectifying this problem myself. 

 

- Near the end of the trip the engine felt like it was beginning to run a bit rough, I suspect some issues with the carb, but I could be wrong. We lost a bit in terms of MPG, and the overall sound of the engine is a bit lower in pitch than it was before. Again, now that we're back I'll have the time to try and tune it up and do all the general necessary maintenance. 

 

- A seatbelt in the back stopped working. That should be an easyish fix. 

 

 

So yeah, there's a lot that needs to be done to get the car back in great shape, but it DID get us the whole way, and man did we all love driving it. Seriously, even laden down with nearly a thousand pounds of gear and people, it performed tremendously on all of these crazy amazing roads, even taking terribly steep switchbacks on dirt down and up with no trouble whatsoever. Originally we thought about selling it after the trip, but now I can't even imagine getting rid of it. I'm pretty officially a convert, and the GL really was the star of the trip. 

Just wanted to post about it and say again, thanks for the help from those of you who offered advice, and this forum's just an amazing place and a fantastic resource. 

Here are some photos:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jmoss5723]

This is very cool. When do we get to see the documentary? What is the is it about? Just driving an old soob across the country, or is there something else?

 

If the NSS turns out to not be the source of your starting issue, try the fix listed in the following thread. My first post in the thread I linked is misleading. It was acting like it didn't have enough juice to start, but I was misdiagnosing the problem. It was basically just like what you're describing. The fix detailed in the thread worked perfectly.

http://www.ultimates...t/#entry1244109

[l75eya]

Sounds like an awesome journey, and looking forward to seeing the footage! Reminds me of my two trips across the country in my GL to burning man, NJ to NV and back

 

The first trip was done with the car completely over-loaded and it was real rough on the car, but took it in stride. With over 1,000 pounds overall in the car in stuff and people, every little bump sounded like a small explosion and every pot-hole sounded like an atom bomb. Broke my windshield eventually and severely bent one of my rims. Surprisingly that's all that happened. That first trip was about 6,500 miles round-trip

 

This was also on a car that barely ever saw any use. I bought it in 2012 and it had 46,000 miles on it. 46,000 miles on an 87 GL

 

I bought the car, replaced and axle, loaded it up and drove it across the country and back.
It waited till we all got back home safe and sound before the water pump fell apart (the very next day)

 

That was roughly 6,500 miles in 2 weeks

 

the 2nd trip was close to 11,000 miles in 2 weeks.

Only problem on the 2nd trip was my radiator wasn't cooling efficiently so I hot-wired the fan to always be on.

Awesome cars. I daily drive that car to this day and it now sits at 89,000 miles.

[landovonderberg]

JustGo_GL,

cool adventure! What has been your favourite state to drive through so far?

 

Your wagon looks nearly identical to another GL (an 82 I believe) that two of my friends drove from Kelowna, BC down to Mexico. They went separate ways near Jalisco and the one buddy continuted down to Nicaragua...might have been Honduras, where he sold it after vandals smashed a window.

[TheWanderer]

Ha!  I think I saw you guys rolling through here (Kearney NE) about 3 weeks back lol.  That or there is a gold EA81 GL wagon here in town somewhere (havent seen it since...)

 

Congrats on a successful trip

 

. 

[JustGo_GL]

Here's a teaser trailer for the film!

 

[MR_Loyale]

Nice. I too took a trip across the country this summer in my 1993 Loyale I have owned for 20 years. I bought it new in 1994. I basically circumnavigated the country. My odometer was approximately 160,750 miles when I left. It was
173,098 when I got back. So the approximate mileage of the trip was 12,348 miles in less than 40 days. The trip included the most Northern City in the US (Carribou maine) and the southern most point (Key West FL).

 

Here is a map of my trip:

 

 

I left from Bremerton Washington on Aug 14th and arrived back on Sep 16th. I did a live thread of the trip, you can see here:

 

http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/topic/144924-help-me-plan-my-trip-across-america-in-my-loyale/page-3

[l75eya]

I'm "N" up there! Ha! Well, the first "N". Not sure if there are more than one.

[Scooner]

Can't wait to see the film, and i'm glad the GL did so good. Can't beat an EA81!

[MR_Loyale]

I'm "N" up there! Ha! Well, the first "N". Not sure if there are more than one.

 

You certainly are! Google maps doesn't let you put in more than a certain amount of destinations so I had to do two trip maps and splice them together.

 

When you left that night I heard your tires squeal and thought you were showing off or something. I learned different the next morning when I had to get on it just to merge into the traffic, made my tires squeal too!

Edited November 9, 2014 by MR_Loyale

[MR_Loyale]

There are so many wonderful places to visit in the country I think if I ever won the lottery I would just become a road warrior in my Loyale with travels of wanderlust. How many times do we have "somewhere to be" and pass by interesting destinations we would have loved to see? I want to detour and see all of them.

[l75eya]

You certainly are! Google maps doesn't let you put in more than a certain amount of destinations so I had to do two trip maps and splice them together.

 

When you left that night I heard your tires squeal and thought you were showing off or something. I learned different the next morning when I had to get on it just to merge into the traffic, made my tires squeal too!

On the contrary, I was trying to show off the incredible power with a one tire fire, but my plan backfired when the trans popped out of 1st gear mid fire.

 

Now, I saw your car, and it actually has tread on the tires, so spinning yours is definitely even more impressive.

[JustGo_GL]

Nice. I too took a trip across the country this summer in my 1993 Loyale I have owned for 20 years. I bought it new in 1994. I basically circumnavigated the country. My odometer was approximately 160,750 miles when I left. It was

173,098 when I got back. So the approximate mileage of the trip was 12,348 miles in less than 40 days. The trip included the most Northern City in the US (Carribou maine) and the southern most point (Key West FL).

 

Here is a map of my trip:

 

 

I left from Bremerton Washington on Aug 14th and arrived back on Sep 16th. I did a live thread of the trip, you can see here:

 

http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/topic/144924-help-me-plan-my-trip-across-america-in-my-loyale/page-3

 

 

Now THAT'S a trip! I'm jealous! We'll have to do that next.

[JustGo_GL]

Sounds like an awesome journey, and looking forward to seeing the footage! Reminds me of my two trips across the country in my GL to burning man, NJ to NV and back

 

The first trip was done with the car completely over-loaded and it was real rough on the car, but took it in stride. With over 1,000 pounds overall in the car in stuff and people, every little bump sounded like a small explosion and every pot-hole sounded like an atom bomb. Broke my windshield eventually and severely bent one of my rims. Surprisingly that's all that happened. That first trip was about 6,500 miles round-trip

 

This was also on a car that barely ever saw any use. I bought it in 2012 and it had 46,000 miles on it. 46,000 miles on an 87 GL

 

I bought the car, replaced and axle, loaded it up and drove it across the country and back.

It waited till we all got back home safe and sound before the water pump fell apart (the very next day)

 

That was roughly 6,500 miles in 2 weeks

 

the 2nd trip was close to 11,000 miles in 2 weeks.

 

Only problem on the 2nd trip was my radiator wasn't cooling efficiently so I hot-wired the fan to always be on.

 

Awesome cars. I daily drive that car to this day and it now sits at 89,000 miles.

 

 

That's intense! 6,000 in three weeks already felt like a lot - can't imagine 11,000 in TWO. They really are great cars.

[JustGo_GL]

This is very cool. When do we get to see the documentary? What is the is it about? Just driving an old soob across the country, or is there something else?

 

If the NSS turns out to not be the source of your starting issue, try the fix listed in the following thread. My first post in the thread I linked is misleading. It was acting like it didn't have enough juice to start, but I was misdiagnosing the problem. It was basically just like what you're describing. The fix detailed in the thread worked perfectly.

 

http://www.ultimates...t/#entry1244109

 

We're looking at a fall release date, but we've just started Post-Production so it's still TBD.

 

The clif-notes version is an effort to prove that adventure is still accessible and affordable for anyone here in 2014 (2015 now!), not just those with a heavy wallet and a metric ton of disposable income. We did the whole trip for the same amount that the average American spends on food alone, per week, including gas back when it was $4/gallon. It was tough, but we came in under budget by I think $4. Haha

 

It definitely became about a lot more than the money aspect though, as you'd all expect. Car trouble, injuries, illnesses, lack of water - we had our share of difficulties, but pulling up at Bryce Canyon at 7am after a 24 hour drive... words can't describe it.

 

We'll try and keep you guys in the loop! 

[Scooner]

Can't wait to see it! Also, more of the GL, what has it been up to since becoming a big movie star? Drugs, women, the usual?

[JustGo_GL]

Can't wait to see it! Also, more of the GL, what has it been up to since becoming a big movie star? Drugs, women, the usual?

 Hahaha it just got out of rehab. It's got a shiny new transmission and one of THREE stock neutral safety switches left in the whole damn country, per our mechanic's search. 

[Scooner]

Haha sounds sexy.