Moromis - Blog
I pulled over into the Dunnigan Southbound Rest Stop, halfway between Redding and San Francisco, CA. That was when I noticed that smoke was pouring from the hood of my van right in front of me. I hadn’t noticed anything wrong while driving really, but something was definitely up. I popped my hood and propped it open, but wasn’t able to get a good view with the hot smoke… or was it steam… coming up from the depths of the engine. I hopped back inside and took a look at my dials. The needle for the engine temperature was pointed all the way to the right. The van was overheating – and the question was, for how long? I hadn’t noticed at all. I hadn’t seen anything in my mirrors, and no one had signalled to me, as far as I can recall. Once the smoke finally started to clear, I checked my coolant reservoir. It was bone dry. I waited to check the radiator till the engine had cooled and it wasn’t dangerous to open the radiator cap. It looked just as deserty inside the radiator.
I looked under the van and coolant was leaking down onto the ground. I crawled under and could see coolant spattered all over the hoses, engine, and underside of the van around the engine compartment. I definitely had a coolant leak. The only thing I could find from underneath though, was a strange situation with a severed (!) hose and another smaller hose that seemed to be plugged with what looked like a… golf tee?
Spoiler, it turned out that those hoses were not the culprit. I guess that’s an investigation for another time. Someone must really have not wanted some part of the system to work and cut it off entirely from the rest of the engine… quite the mystery.
I looked the engine over, top to bottom, and couldn’t really come up with an answer. I knew I needed a shop – I didn’t even have any coolant. I had to kick myself, because I did have some coolant, but I had left it at my parents’ house in Washington State. Well, I figured, at least getting a tow wouldn’t cost me anything as the van has a good insurance policy. So I called up the insurance and lodged a request for a tow.
And then I waited.
For the next three hours. Turns out, when I finally got a response from the insurance company, they had called 50 tow companies in the area and none had availability. I had lodged some calls myself, and was waiting on a response from one in the town I was hoping to get a tow to, Woodland, CA.
In the meantime, I read a book, ate some dinner, and snapped some photos of a terribly good-looking lizard.
Finally, I got a call back from the tow company that I had rung up several hours earlier. The man on the phone, Michael, told me he hoped he might have availability now. He made sure someone could come out with a tow truck capable of hauling my van, and then gave me an estimate for the tow – which I would pay for out-of-pocket, and then submit to insurance later. He asked me to pull up the text he had sent to my number and fill out the details of my situation. When I went to my texts though, I only saw one, and it was from my insurance. They had finally located a tow company and they were on the way! After an over three hour wait, I suddenly had two tow trucks ready to come pick up my van. I got back on the phone with Michael, and apologized and told him that my insurance had finally come through.
Two hours later, the tow truck arrived. It was well and dark by then, but we got the van loaded up. It was really quite the sight to see my big old van on top of a similarly large tow truck’s flatbed, all said towering a good 13+ feet in the air.
After a long afternoon, we drove the van down to Woodland and unloaded the van in front of the shop. Originally, I had wanted it towed to one shop, Alves. However, the tow truck operator, Eddie, told me that it wouldn’t get looked at the next day, a Saturday, if I took it there. He suggested a different shop, F & R, telling me that he took all of his own vehicles there, and even had his son’s truck in at the moment. I figured he probably had a connection with the shop, but if he was telling the truth I figured there was no harm in taking it there, and the worst that could happen would be a great story. Eddie unloaded my van in front of the shop and had me re-park it into an empty spot, after which he left and I went to bed, hoping that the next morning the repair would be an easy one and I could keep driving at some point on Saturday.
To be continued!