Althea (name confirmed) is at the garage today getting a few new tires and an oil change, leaving me with an amount of spare time I’m not sure how to fill. Most of the past few months have been devoted to the conversion. Reading, researching, countless trips to and from the hardware store, stressing, jubilation, stress again, to the dump, back to the hardware store… Thanks to my friends at Reroot Farm for not only giving me a place to park for the winter, but also for loaning tools, knowledge and expertise. As the conversion nears completion, with the exception of some small, fiddly details and building a bed frame, I turn my stress over to mechanical aspects.
My family is rife with mechanics, but they are all in Northern Ontario and between COVID restrictions, bad weather and lack of time, I’ve been unable to make it up. My poor uncle Tyler periodically gets his inbox flooded with questions from me about maintaining a diesel engine, what I should be doing to keep a (very old…) bus roadworthy, battery questions, fuel filter questions… When I was pulling Althea out of her spot at Reroot, I had to hook up the batteries that I had unhooked for the winter to maintain them. After a student in a grade 10 science class badly electrocuted themselves during a unit on batteries, I’ve been scared of electricity. I also once unplugged a freezer that was plugged into a power bar that had been soaked in a recent rainstorm and saw stars for a few days, but I digress…. After much anxious struggling and frequent check ins with Google, I got the batteries reconnected and the bus fired up no problem, but for a few fraught hours I was sure I needed new batteries, and with bus maintenance, nothing comes cheap. Alas, I had just missed one of SEVERAL ring terminals in a seemingly endless maze of parallel wiring.
Today, taking her out of my mom’s driveway to go into Cooks Garage for her last service pre-voyage, an unholy plume of white smoke erupted on start up, so now I find myself anxiety scrolling diesel mechanic forums about what white smoke could mean. Fuel filter clogged? Needs new injectors? Coolant leak? Unholy god of gods, a cracked head gasket? Bad fan clutch? Or just as simple as an elderly engine and a cold night causing condensation in the tail pipe? Any old farmer will tell you that all but the newest and most modern diesel engines will have some white smoke on start up. I’m just scared of ignoring an issue that could be simple and small now, but end up being a huge issue down the line. The investment I’ve made into this bus is not insignificant- she’s my house!
(Props, as well, to the wonderful team at Cooks Garage for taking care of my weird bus camper., being kind, patient and above all honest.)
Many years ago after our very first season of tree planting in Hearst, Ontario, myself and another planter bought a 1996 Toyota Corolla for $300 to drive back to southern Ontario with. One of the cooks took us into town to see it, and despite the rust hole in the driver’s side floor board covered with cardboard and the otherwise dubious qualities of the car, we purchased it. “It stops, it starts- what more do you want out of a car?” I asked.
The Corolla did make it back to southern Ontario, albeit guzzling both gas and oil, and then promptly died and was scrapped. But in the after-season survival glow, the defiant bush mantra of “I don’t give a fuck” rang loudly in my head. Zen, zen, zen. Absolutely unflappable, dirty, elated, we toured south, stopping at beaches, waterfalls and sunflower fields and generally enjoying the journey. I find myself looking for that confidence and indefatigability, once possessed as storm water sprayed through the floorboard holes and soaked my bare feet, or as my van stalled out in the middle of Victoria intersections with a bad timing belt (HILARIOUS, I know).
One morning out at Kennedy Lake, time for me to depart back to the Okanagan for apple picking, I spent well over half an hour trying to start the van up. Ol’Wanda. Manhandling the manual choke and cajolingly turning the key in the ignition, pleading, the fan belt squealed and the engine sputtered and she steadfastly refused to start. All of the tricks I had learned over the months prior failed me, and eventually a crowd gathered to watch me, shamefaced, trying to leave. Finally, when I was ready to pack it in, call a scrapyard and just start hitchhiking, she acquiesced, only for the fan belt to completely fall out of the underside during a stop at Little Qualicum falls.
Wanda survived all of her misadventures, as did her occupants, and eventually made it all the way across the country and back to Ontario. Althea has been much better maintained, and I am more capable than ever of diving under the hood and having a look at what’s going on, so I’m not sure what I’m so worried about. As long as I have coolant, a pair of panty hose and a whole lot of Gorilla Tape, everything should be just fine…