Overheating in Death Valley

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After the lake bed we headed down the highway to Baker, California. There we knew of a place we had boondocked back in our VW bus days, right out in the Mojave Desert. When we made the turn off the highway we found orange cones across the road—this is literally the only road into the desert—that said Road Closed To Through Traffic.

We turned around and drove a mile back to town, but then I changed my mind. Rules, you know. As we pulled up in front of the cones, I saw a bunch of off-road trucks bearing down behind me, so I moved over to let them go first. Five of them blasted into the sand around the cones, and back up onto the road. I began to follow, but just as my tires hit the sand we saw a cop roar out of the bushes with lights flashing a couple hundred yards down the road. All the off-road guys got pulled over as I slowly backed up and made my three-point turn to get out of there—whistling innocently as I did.

So, forty miles up the road on the way to Death Valley we ran into this place instead. Some mountains, some desert, some dunes. It was a BLM camping spot with one other car in the lot. He drove over and asked if we wanted to have our bus in a commercial he was scouting locations for. Not being the commercial types, and not wanting to wait around a couple of days for it, we declined, and were all alone for the rest of the night. Only a few trucks passed down the road in the dark.

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On to Death Valley. To be honest, we didn’t really do our research with this one. It’s only April—it couldn’t be that hot could it? Yes, yes, it could. Over a hundred degrees already.

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There’s lots of hikes and cool things to see around Death Valley, but in this heat we weren’t really willing to do much of it. We did of course hit Badwater Basin to check Lowest Point in the U.S. off the list. Trying to explain to kids that you are actually standing 282 feet under the level of the ocean is a difficult concept to get across.

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We didn’t linger long in the valley. The campground we stayed at did have pretty much the most awesome spring fed pool around, but even living in the water wasn’t enough to keep us there. So, we were off again.

Oh my, I had forgotten how insane 190 is out of the valley. From -282 feet, up to 4,956, in one continuous climb with hundred degree temps and a road that had to be three hundred. Our bus was pissed off.

We made it to 3,000′ before overheating. We haven’t overheated this thing since the very early days when the engine hadn’t been dialed in. It had been a total non-issue since then. But this road did us in. Once the engine cooled down we would continue for maybe five minutes of first gear uphill crawling before stopping again. And again, and again, and again. We hit Towne Pass Summit and were overjoyed.

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That joy was short-lived as we immediately saw our road drop all the way back to the bottom before hitting another wall of mountains. Our reprieve was brief. All our hard work was for naught.

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Not far along the new climb we reached critical temps again—and this time, with nothing but blind curves ahead of us, we had to pull off on a steep shoulder. One of the long-standing issues with this bus has been the non-functioning parking brake. I’ve tried to fix it, and I even hired a mechanic to fix it in Mexico, but  we haven’t been able to do it. It needs a full rebuild which we just haven’t had the parts, or the inclination, to get done.

The problem is that when we park on a hill that is too steep, and put the bus in Park, it rolls back against the transmission and becomes impossible to shift into gear without snapping the shift cable (which we did once already).

This is actually only the second time we’ve had it jam up completely.The idea of snapping the shift cable way out here was pretty horrifying, so we didn’t pull on it too hard. For a couple of minutes I wasn’t sure what we were going to do. Maybe flag down a pickup and ask him to push us forward an inch to take the pressure off the transmission so I could shift into gear. That seemed like the obvious choice, until this solution dawned on me. Took about one minute to whip this stuff out and jack the bus forward enough to get it in gear again—free to drive another five minutes.

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At this scenic overlook two busloads of French tourists (almost nobody in Death Valley seems to be from America) looked on in amazement at the blue bus bubbling yellow coolant onto the parking lot. Our kids crack us up. They went through this entire drive without realizing anything was going on. They probably just assumed we were pulling over because there was a really big cliff that looked like a fun place to throw rocks off of. I stood there talking to one of the men who kept saying things like, “Amazing. Wonderful. I love this. Sixty-six.” All the while very politely not mentioning the steam.

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Finally, with the Sierras in alongside of us, we hit some flat pavement again. It had taken us six hours to cover one-hundred miles.

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More BLM boondocking in Lone Pine. The Alabama Hills—a perfect place for superheroes to work-out after a long day in the bus.

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Full moon lighting. Even after the challenging days, our life seems like a dream.

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35 Comments on “Overheating in Death Valley”

  1. Glad you got over the hills okay, very smart thinking to use the jack, I once had to use one to lift a huge rock blocking our track till it was balanced so we could push it over the hill. Need to think out of the square when in remote places.

  2. Love this post!! Some of my very favorite country. Glad you got to explore a little in DV. Now you’re coming into my wheel house. I’ll send you an email. ENJOY!!

  3. Wow great pictures! Yanky ingenuity, love the jack fix. Your my hero, you actually use that thing sitting on your shoulders. But, tell me how much sun screen do you need to keep your kids so pale? We used to buy it for my girls by the gallon.

  4. This life you two and now four lead must be in a movie form some day. Thanks for the continuous sharing. Be safe.

    Tony.

  5. OMG! Stunning… beautiful… awesome… the words available to describe your photos and the places you photograph are inadequate. I love them all but the moonlight and the silhouettes of the children are the ones that resonate with me most. Thank you for the vicarious travels to such awe inspiring places!

  6. Yep, great night pics..Lone is cool. I use to live in Bishop..hiked all over up and down 395..don’t miss the lava tubes out of Big Pine. Devils post pile in Mammoth lakes, Crowley lake..the hot springs just outside of mammoth by the airport. Lots of great camping and hiking..horse lakes a nice spot shouldn’t be too crowded mid week..schools not out yet!!!

  7. You might pick up a couple of “scotches”, to have places behind the wheels, then ease back against, before putting the RV in park, just in case of another situation on a steep incline.

  8. If you continue North on 395 be sure to stop in for ribs at Copper Top BBQ in Big Pine. By the way I left my nice Keen sandals there in Alabama Hills last week maybe the kids will find them. I’ll give them a reward when get to PDX.

  9. Thanks for sharing – your photos of this area are so beautiful. Having never been to the desert, these are a treat.

  10. I love this telling. You have the photography which we’ve all agreed is spectacular, but you also relate the trials and tribulations that came along with. A true full time travel story. Thank you for sharing your adventure! You’ve firmly cemented Death Valley on our travel list, though maybe a little earlier in the year 😉

  11. This was a great chapter in your story. Hey, I wanted to share an overheat prevention technique I used in my 65′ Travco. You may already use it since you mention climbing in first gear but the key was always to keep the RPM quite high and the gear low. Keeping the engine up near redline in first or second gear moved so much more air through the radiator that temps were always manageable. Leave it in drive and it would up shift to a higher gear/lower RPM/higher engine load/low airflow over the radiator and temps would rise. Perhaps everyone knows this but I had to learn it.

    All the best to you in your travels.

  12. I used to remove the radiator from my Dodge based Winnebago each ten years, to get it cleaned or recored. Also would replace the water pump, radiator and heater hoses (and any other hoses carrying coolant), the belts for the fan and power steering. I replaced the mechanical fuel pump at the same time just so I could forget about it for a decade; and would restock my onboard spares with the Fram fuel filters you could see into. Mine had a viscous drive radiator fan clutch, which I replaced when it was over 20 years old. Those viscous drives get feeble with age: Insidious. I dont know if the 318 commercial versions had those fan clutches though.
    All motorhome chassis from Dodge came with thicker radiators, water pumps with more ribs on the impeller, and radiator fans with more blades. Once the vehicle was old enough to be less-easy to get the correct parts for, desperate owners would put in a radiator and/or a water pump from a pickup truck or station wagon – and experience overheating climbing grades in 100+ temps. I always used Stant Superstat thermostats.
    I found it also paid off to keep the spark timing set exactly where it should be, and to have the centrifugal advance inside the distributor working right; (the drop of oil under the rotor).
    Good Luck…

  13. Have you thought of replacing the parking brake with an after market drive line parking brake? They are popular in the more extreme off road vehicles. The disk brake kits are available from suppliers like High Angle Driveline.

  14. Ho and I almost forgot Panamint Springs..you passed the road to it..a 5 miles gravel road off 190..to it but at the end..wild burros’, ghost town, salt mines and flats, tram remnants, hot springs that have been upgraded to hot tubs and a bunch of “permanent” residents..a little crazy but generally Ok..

    for those who might be goign that way..

  15. Yes, that’s a tough drive from Death Valley up to 395, but if you want a real challenge, try the Badwater Ultramarathon. It’s a foot race from the bottom of Death Valley to the trailhead at Whitney Portal, 135 miles away and 8360 feet ASL . . . In mid-July! And the race used to be even harder, ending at the summit of 14,505 foot Mt. Whitney until they started requiring permits to take the trail up to the top. Rules, you know. 🙂

    TJ

  16. Maybe some wheel chocks? I’m jealous of your road tripping adventures… and yet a little bit glad to not be on the side of the road with an overheating ’66 (although mine was a VW bus, it never did like the desert.)

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