Frost Heaves

Well…we are almost there….definitely very little cell service through our wireless card, and therefore little internet. So no pictures, but I will try to describe the best I can and upload pictures when we finally cross the border. 

We are still on the Alcan but only about 300 miles from the Alaska border! Currently we are fixing the exhaust that fell off when we hit a frost heave…It was holding on by one bolt (there are three), the other two rattled off…which is frustrating since we put thread locker on them as well as 2 lock washers on each. We didn't have any spare bolts with us so ended up trying mechanics wire to secure it…no go…we got about 15 miles and that fell off. We ended up taking two padlocks which we had with us and used the padlocks as make shift bolts…there was definitely a leak…but at least  the catalytic converter wouldn't fall off. Now we have finally come across a store in Whitehorse, where we are now, and have the correct bolts, high strength threadlocker, which is generally thought of as basically a cold weld, and a lock washer on each...plus we double nutted the bolts…I'd like to see it rattle that off!

Now as for the gas flow issue…like I said in last post we have narrowed the problem down to the gas tank getting clogged…therefore we have bypassed it…what I mean by that is we have placed the jerry cans, previously on the back of the vehicle, in the back seat of the van and have a hose running from them (one at a time) to the fuel pump located on the underneath of the van. (an idea thanks to Bob at Carquest in Waterville) Luckily there used to be a heater under the rear seat that ran off of the vans coolant system but we took that heater out, however the hole where the coolant hoses came up through the underside is still there. So that is how we snaked the fuel hose down to the pump. This is rather inconvenient, but it does the trick. We do only have 10 gallons now (two 5 gallon tanks) and we have to make sure we fill up frequently, which is difficult here on the Alcan…luckily there is a fair amount of traffic, so if need be we can hitch a ride with our gas tanks.. When we get to Anchorage we will take the tank down and flush it out.

We have had a long couple of days of driving, and the going is slow thanks to the frost heaves that everyone warned us about…they sneak right up on you! After so much barren landscape and nothingness we have decided to spend today and tonight in Whitehorse just relaxing and gearing ourself up for our final push for Alaska! At this point, we are not going to have as much time as we had originally thought, we planned on being back around September 13th, but we still have plenty of time to smell the flowers, see the bears, climb some mountains, ect.

The milepost (book borrowed from Frank), tells us we are about 300 miles from the Alaskan border, and our map tells us we are about another 300 miles from Anchorage…We are hoping to make all that distance tomorrow….

Wish us luck at the U.S. Border! :)

-Adam