Gracie is fixed!!!

Hurrah! Hurrah! The good news first: Gracie is fixed!!!

Back to Friday morning... The first thing that needed to be resolved was that the drive shaft had been removed by the tow truck operator. 

North Valley was to reinstall it, but Jeremy called and said that half of the bolts were missing. We had gotten the bolts from the tow truck operator, but there were only 4 there and it needed 8... Carl called the tow truck operator and he texted back that he had left all the bolts...  Jeremy said he had checked several places to try to find replacement ones but so far without luck. He had the 4 plus 2 used ones at his shop that he could put on to just move Gracie in the yard, but bolts would need to be found.

We had to check out of the hotel by 11am, so we loaded Miss Kitty and our stuff into the Jeep. Jeremy had told us that there was no reason for us to hang out at the shop, so we stopped for lunch at a place that the night clerk at the hotel recommended:

Lumberjacks Restaurant

... complete with "interesting" door handle!

We had a good lunch, and went back to the car... with having Miss Kitty in the car, and the temperature being a little warm, we couldn't really park the car and leave, so we decided we might as well wait at the shop. We had told them that we were willing to run for parts wherever they needed, and thought that they might be a little more likely to take us up on our offer if we were right there available.

When we got to the shop, we could see that Gracie had been moved and was now backed up to the back of the shop so they must have cobbled together the drive shaft enough to move her.

As Carl looked more closely...

... he could see that Jeremy was actively working inside the engine compartment. See the bottom of his boots? That's about all of Jeremy that could be seen! He really "gets into" his work!

Jeremy found that the mechanical fuel pump was the failing component. (Based on our descriptions, Jimmy had diagnosed that over the phone from Virginia!!!) Jeremy used his computer tools to measure that it was only delivering about 50% of what it should, and then it would drop to 0% (which is why Gracie would stall). He had called around and found one in Sacramento, asked if we were interested in making a road trip (we were all for that!), so we headed off to Sacramento.

The new fuel pump in the box from Sacramento Truck Center as we headed back toward Yuba City.

One of North Valley Diesel's trucks was parked next to us... Carl took this picture of its back window sticker for Jimmy...

North Valley Diesel

Back to the drive shaft for a moment... when Jeremy had told us earlier that he could not find replacement bolts, we had prayed for a solution. When he told us the fuel pump was the issue and sent us to Sacramento, he also told us that a company he had called to try to locate the bolts originally said they had a set, then when they checked the shelf there weren't any there, and then an hour or so later their truck showed up and delivered the bolts... guess God got them there! So, while we were on our way to Sacramento, Jeremy was able to put the correct new bolts onto the drive shaft.

We got back to North Valley Diesel at about 3pm, Jeremy installed the new fuel pump, and asked us to take Gracie out for a road test just before 5pm. We made a loop, pushing her up to speed, and all worked well...

Gracie, now in *front* of the shop!

Jeremy showing Carl where the new fuel pump was installed...

The old fuel pump...

... another view of the old fuel pump.

Carl took a picture of the engine since Jeremy had cleaned it up!

They told us that we could boondock in front of the shop for the night, so we got parked. There was one more thing to fix after the towing: the tow truck operator had had to remove the exhaust pipe for the generator. We had been carrying it in the Jeep, but we were going to need to run the generator to get the inside of Gracie cooled down for the night...

Getting the exhaust pipe into place...

Carl under Gracie re-attaching the exhaust pipe for the generator.

We spent the night in the front of the shop at North Valley Diesel. We're planning to head a little south and east today as we start on our way to Wells, Nevada, to meet up with our Escapees Christian Fellowship group for a rally that starts next week.

We are so thankful that Gracie is fixed. We were blessed by so many who cared and prayed for us and for Gracie and for the folks who were working on the problem with us. We were grateful that the computer diagnostics proved out the diagnosis that Jimmy had already done from afar (that gave us confidence!). And we are thankful that we should be able to join our Christian Fellowship rally as planned.