Grand Junction to Salt Lake City-truck problem

We left Rabbit Valley pretty early and stopped in Green River, UT for gas and breakfast.  It is surprising how the terrain changes so drastically from Colorado to Utah.  The scenery is magnificent!

I wish I could say we had an uneventful trip to Salt Lake City, but it wouldn’t be true.  Everything was going fine. We stopped in Orem and had a productive hour’s meeting with America Land and Leisure honchos.  The Mossman’s proceeded on to North Salt Lake City to the home of our friends, Scott and Diana, where we will be staying the night in an LDS church parking lot. (We met Scott and Diana at Betty’s RV Park last spring where we spent Mardi Gras.)  Jim and I then stopped at a Camping World in Draper, UT to see if they had a high-pressure propane regulator for a split tank configuration (it had a crack in it and that’s where we were leaking propane and the alarm kept going off). When we were ready to leave the truck wouldn’t start…turned over but doesn’t “catch” and start.

This has happened twice before…two years ago in Parker, AZ and then again last October in Campbellsville. Both times we had dealership mechanics look for the problem and no one was able to see why it wouldn’t start….everything checked out fine. So yesterday we kept trying to start the truck for over an hour and finally called for tow. As we waited Jim kept trying to start it and finally it did start up….we cancelled the tow.

We enjoyed the company of Scott and Diana sitting outside under a big tree to stay cool.  Then we all went out to a Five Guys for dinner.  We plan on seeing them again when we get to southern California and maybe the three couples will travel the winter together.  Scott and Diana are great fun, great cooks and we all get along very well.

We slept well in the church parking lot and took off this morning without any problems.  We got gas and proceeded down I-15 and stopped at a Flying J/Denny’s and ate breakfast.  Then it happened again…………..the truck wouldn’t start!!!  This is the first time it wouldn’t start on two consecutive days.  Jim removed and then replaced the cables to the battery….tried a few more times and just after he told me to call for a tow….it started.  We’re not shutting it off again until we arrive at the Passport America campground in Glenn Ferry, Idaho this afternoon!!!!!

Jim is ready to trade-in the truck, that’s for sure.  This is three times this has happened and he is very skittish about the truck now…has no faith in it anymore.  It’s been a good, ole truck to us, but when you fulltime RV, you have to have a reliable vehicle.

Any master mechanics out there that may have an idea of what’s going on with our truck, please feel free to pass on any advice.

Remember, you are loved!