AMA Roadside Assistance/Chevy Van Hell Trip

Welp, put a bullet in er Jim, she's done.

Last week (Sunday or Monday I think) I posted up about my 87 Chevy G20 race van having a coolant leak. Limped it to a Walmart after stopping every eight miles to add coolant to avoid it getting hot. Local random Yankee comes out of his house and hands me $20 for any costs/problems I may run into. Cool dude to offer up like that to a total stranger. Eventually make it to Walmart and diagnose the problem. Long story short another WERA board member showed up and helped to replace a busted coolant line. Got er all buttoned up and headed from Mid Ohio to Pittsburgh for more racing shenanigans. (Shout out again to @assjuice for the help, dude corners low) Pulled into PIR without a hiccup and kicked off the weekend.

Fast forward to today.
Before leaving Pittsburgh today I checked oil levels, topped off coolant levels (it always seemed to sip coolant, but couldn't figure out why) and hit the road. Made it the majority of the way home when I notice the temps are starting to rise at a gradual rate. Thinking there may be a slow leak or something I pull into a closed gas station to check oil and coolant levels.

Coolant was low, and oil was maybe .25 of a quart low so I filled both, then made sure to burp the system. Saw a young lady there with an overheated minivan with four kids waiting for a taxi/tow truck as well. Paid forward the $20 the friendly Yankee gave me as a sort of good karma.

Got about ten miles down the road and POOF big ass cloud of dark smoke and van has total loss of power. Oil level appears to be fine (albeit smoky/steamy from the dipstick area) and coolant is 100% empty. Go to fill radiator, thinking maybe it overheated due to an air bubble or something and it goes empty just as quickly as it goes in. Pulled the cabin engine bay cover to check for another busted hose/clamp/anything suspicious with no luck. Poured another gallon of water into the radiator and see where it's leaking from... The exhaust manifold towards the rear of the van. Fawk. Either a head gasket is blown, a head is cracked, or something much more expensive let go. Willing to bet the engine is now a paper weight.

This happened around 1:30am (ish). Spent about an hour total diagnosing/cussing before thinking to call AMA road side assistance since they cover vehicles and trailers for up to 35 miles in any direction. Gave those friendly boys a call at 2:23am and after seven minutes of giving pertinent vehicle details the operator says he will work on getting a company out here to drag my rig to the requested location.

Fast forward to 3:14am and I get a call back from the AMA operator (my cell phone spam blocking app picked it up as a spam account the first time they called - if you have anything similar on your phone its something to note) to say that so far he can not source a company who is in range/willing to take the tow/etc and he will keep working on it. I'm assuming the tow truck guys work on a bidding type system, and my specific situation is either not a big money maker, or too much of a pain in the ass to deal with at almost four in the morning.

So, here I sit until I can get a tow a bit closer to home. Current goal is the Walmart in Commerce since it's six miles out of the covered towing range, and within an hour of my house. Then I can have my girlfriend take one of my other family vehicles to pick up the trailer/valuable race stuff while I work on finding a friend to hire to tow the van to our family's mechanic.

So that's how my night has been going since leaving Pittsburgh. Now I'm sitting here musing about karma, bad luck, and the abrupt end to my National season while attempting to stay awake for when dispatch calls again.

I wanna blame Mongo since he said (after I had bike mechanical problems and asked for a credit for my races) "Weekend isn't a total wash, at least ya got the van running!" to which I replied "I haven't made it home yet!". Apparently there was some foreshadowing there...

On the other hand, if WERA/Mongo didn't "force" me to buy an AMA membership for Nationals I'd be covered for jack shit in the way of road side assistance. So thanks, I think?

 

4:10am Update: AMA calls back to say they are still unable to source a towing company at this time and to please stand by.

 

So where are you?

 

13 miles away from the South Carolina/Georgia border off of I 85 (Carolina side)

Had plenty of offers to come pick me up but I'm leaving my bike and trailer for any reason

 

You got "help" from a guy named assjuice in an 87 van in a Walmart parking lot? Sounds sketchy as hell to me

 

Totally understand not leaving the trailer.
Let the beeb wake up and we'll figure this out. I'd bring you my van, but I have it in pieces again.

 

Got a buddy who can tow van frpm Walmart to mechanic, but I'm stuck waiting on the "free" tow to Walmart. I'm patient... not a lot else I can do in the mean time

 

Ah, crisis averted then.

As for your other question. GM's are cheap to fix. So it's a case of the devil you know vs the one you don't. If everything else is good about your G20. Why not fix it and keep rolling?
The Ford is nice but the early ones were non-turbo, the later ones were non-intercooled turbo. most all are loud and hot. Plus they have the added bonus of being high mileage and likely beat to crap.

 

5:22am Update: AMA was still unable to hail a tow service. They requested some government highway rescue service to come out to me, then those guys are able to force a tow company to get me. AMA will then cover cost of the tow fee.

 

It'll depend on how FUBAR everything is. I'm assuming engine will be cheaper to replace rather than pull apart to see what's all broken. Just not sure how much I can justify spending

 

That's a hard pill to swallow when you double the value of the van in the repairs. But, it's back to you have it and all the other bugs are resolved / small enough not to matter. I wouldn't base the decesion solely on the change in MPG from gas to diesel.

 

You're absolutely right. Even a newer used van could have problems. Just mentally taxing having this thing leave me high and dry two times on a week and a half trip.

 

I'm not too far away, about 50 miles, I can come help after 10AM and could tow your trailer to my house if needed. I'll PM my # just in case.

 

From what I've read this was the van's first big road trip. With something old like that it's always a worry until you fix all the forgotten maintainance.
Mines an 89, I think about every trip...Used 9 gal of oil to go to JGP and back last spring. Fixed all that, go to Herrins and blow the belt off on the way home. But it accomplishes what I need without a payment attached.

 

This big girl has made it to Michigan and back a couple of times. It's had normal problems like belts, hoses, tensioners and stuff go out but never something this bad.

The kicker is it got around 7mpg on the return leg before it let loose

 

I'd think the 7mpg is an anomoly tied to the health of the engine. Read some of Kris Larieve's(sp) adventures with his old GM that's been up and down the east coast several times. I like my Ford gasser and wouldn't trade it because it's so simple and cheap to work on.

 

Hopefully you're right. I had planned to get around 11mpg for this trip, but even on the way to Ohio the best I hit was 8.7mpg.

This was the first time I've ever officially recorded it, and included the trailer

 

Dragging the trailer might have pulled it down a bit. Speed seems to impact MPG more than weight tho. Above 70-75 my MPG goes under 10, 65-70 I can squeak 12-13 out of it.

 

Man double digits would be a dream! Hell, or something that ran. At this point I'm not picky haha

 

8:05 am - A wrecker service *I* called has picked me up, heading to a Walmart in commerce where I can work on getting me and my stuff home