Yesterday we left the fine city of Auckland, New Zealand to head south. Our final destination is Queenstown for a season of snowboarding, but we will have lots of stops along the way.
The photo above is just before we left. The van is packed with everything, and isn’t liking all the extra weight. Sheryl is waving from the back seat.
Over the past couple of weeks, the van has gotten all kinds of attention. New wipers, leads, plugs, and an air filter. I also found out that something was wrong with a bearing in the stearing, and I had to take the van to a mechanic to have him put in a new part. Finding the part was not easy, and we were thinking we may not be able to leave for a few days. Luckly the part came in after only one day of waiting, and we were able to get out of town only one day late.
I think I am starting to relate to how my father must have felt when we had our van and it begain to require lots of servicing. Owning an old van is an adventure every day! And this van is only a few years newer than the van we had when I was 6.
Well, I guess I will use this post as the official van log post, tracking all repairs and servicing. I’m sure there will be more .
So for quite a while now, occasionally the van will have difficulties under stress. Something will get in the carburetor and then when going up a mountain (which is a common enough scenario) the van will start to lose power and lurch back and forth. Our general solution has been to pull over and flood the carb with carb cleaner. This generally gets the junk out of there, and then we are able to go again.
I took it to a mechanic in Auckland to look at the problem once, and he said he couldn’t find any problem, that the carbs just needed a cleaning. After going to this place twice, I have decided to not go back. 117 point check of the van that somehow didn’t notice nasty plugs and dirty air filter which I then changed myself.
Well, we were having the same problem on our way to Tauranga, so I asked a few mechanics, and one suggested I may need a new fuel filter. The others I talked to seemed to agree that that could be the problem.
I couldn’t locate the filter in the engine, so I found a local guy to do the work here in Mount Maunganui. He was helpful, and seemed shocked at how old (surely not the original from 1990?) and nasty our fuel filter was. He seemed equally shocked that the guy in Auckland hadn’t replaced it in our tune up (again, I’m not going back there). The work wasn’t expensive, and hopefully it will help the performance of the van.
Love the van log idea. And hearing your Josh humor. “. . . again, I’m not going back *there.” (Sorry, don’t know how to do italics here.) “. . . surely not the original from 1990?” Losing power going up mountains does not sound positive. (Interesting, though! Making for colorful memories! No small thing.) Found Tauranga on the map again. And Mount Maunganui. That is wild about the Auckland guy not replacing the fuel filter in your tune up. Strange. I guess I’m spoiled at Victory Honda! Glad it wasn’t expensive in M. M. Love the photo of you by the van. Yes, you’re definitely thinner than Sept. ‘06. You look good. (But then you always do. XOXOX) That’s Sheryl in the seat behind the driver? I thought it was Beth! I’ve seen a picture of Sheryl before, and I don’t remember her looking so much like Beth. Tell both of them hi for me!
Yeah that is Sheryl behind me. I guess she looks like Beth but with brown hair.
The van has been doing great since replacing the fuel filter. This makes me both happy and angry at the same time. Angry because they should have fixed it months ago when I had them look at it. Oh well.
hoo boy… having problems with an old van. Sounds like you took it to Mel’s!!! The funny thing with our van is Windmillers’ had one just like it and a lot of weird things that broke on ours, broke on theirs, too. So at least someone knew what my frustrations were. Sounds like the tune-up was sort of a smoke job. Bummer!
Haha luckily there is no Mel’s here. There is Firestone, but I didn’t take it there. Perhaps someday we should get an old van together and travel around Canada or the states .
Haha, go the van. I can’t believe I forgot to get a fuel filter too! From memory it was tucked under the drivers seat. Anyway have a good trip down south
Yeah that is exactly where it was. Thanks for the help Steve. I hope the van is still your desktop background.
Van got a flattie today (flat tire). We were driving on some wash board dirt roads and I didn’t even feel that we had blown the tire. We found out because we could smell it. Got it changed and paid my first visit to New Zealand Firestone. Got things sorted out and back on the road without much hassle. Had to buy a new tired though.
My spare tire has been getting smaller since coming to NZ…
Oh, you mean the one on the van? Yeah we used it to get to Wairoa (or something like that). Then we got the new tire. Is flattie an acceptable kiwi nomenclature?
11 Comments »
Comment by josh — May 10, 2007 @ 3:18 pm
Yesterday we left the fine city of Auckland, New Zealand to head south. Our final destination is Queenstown for a season of snowboarding, but we will have lots of stops along the way.
The photo above is just before we left. The van is packed with everything, and isn’t liking all the extra weight. Sheryl is waving from the back seat.
Over the past couple of weeks, the van has gotten all kinds of attention. New wipers, leads, plugs, and an air filter. I also found out that something was wrong with a bearing in the stearing, and I had to take the van to a mechanic to have him put in a new part. Finding the part was not easy, and we were thinking we may not be able to leave for a few days. Luckly the part came in after only one day of waiting, and we were able to get out of town only one day late.
I think I am starting to relate to how my father must have felt when we had our van and it begain to require lots of servicing. Owning an old van is an adventure every day! And this van is only a few years newer than the van we had when I was 6.
Comment by josh — May 11, 2007 @ 10:48 am
Well, I guess I will use this post as the official van log post, tracking all repairs and servicing. I’m sure there will be more
.
So for quite a while now, occasionally the van will have difficulties under stress. Something will get in the carburetor and then when going up a mountain (which is a common enough scenario) the van will start to lose power and lurch back and forth. Our general solution has been to pull over and flood the carb with carb cleaner. This generally gets the junk out of there, and then we are able to go again.
I took it to a mechanic in Auckland to look at the problem once, and he said he couldn’t find any problem, that the carbs just needed a cleaning. After going to this place twice, I have decided to not go back. 117 point check of the van that somehow didn’t notice nasty plugs and dirty air filter which I then changed myself.
Well, we were having the same problem on our way to Tauranga, so I asked a few mechanics, and one suggested I may need a new fuel filter. The others I talked to seemed to agree that that could be the problem.
I couldn’t locate the filter in the engine, so I found a local guy to do the work here in Mount Maunganui. He was helpful, and seemed shocked at how old (surely not the original from 1990?) and nasty our fuel filter was. He seemed equally shocked that the guy in Auckland hadn’t replaced it in our tune up (again, I’m not going back there). The work wasn’t expensive, and hopefully it will help the performance of the van.
Comment by Peg Moore — May 12, 2007 @ 4:46 am
Love the van log idea.
And hearing your Josh humor. 
“. . . again, I’m not going back *there.” (Sorry, don’t know how to do italics here.) “. . . surely not the original from 1990?” Losing power going up mountains does not sound positive. (Interesting, though! Making for colorful memories! No small thing.) Found Tauranga on the map again. And Mount Maunganui. That is wild about the Auckland guy not replacing the fuel filter in your tune up. Strange. I guess I’m spoiled at Victory Honda! Glad it wasn’t expensive in M. M. Love the photo of you by the van. Yes, you’re definitely thinner than Sept. ‘06. You look good. (But then you always do. XOXOX) That’s Sheryl in the seat behind the driver? I thought it was Beth! I’ve seen a picture of Sheryl before, and I don’t remember her looking so much like Beth. Tell both of them hi for me!
Comment by josh — May 12, 2007 @ 11:40 pm
Yeah that is Sheryl behind me. I guess she looks like Beth but with brown hair.
The van has been doing great since replacing the fuel filter. This makes me both happy and angry at the same time. Angry because they should have fixed it months ago when I had them look at it. Oh well.
Comment by dad — May 13, 2007 @ 7:52 am
hoo boy… having problems with an old van. Sounds like you took it to Mel’s!!! The funny thing with our van is Windmillers’ had one just like it and a lot of weird things that broke on ours, broke on theirs, too. So at least someone knew what my frustrations were. Sounds like the tune-up was sort of a smoke job. Bummer!
Comment by josh — May 13, 2007 @ 9:59 am
Haha luckily there is no Mel’s here. There is Firestone, but I didn’t take it there. Perhaps someday we should get an old van together and travel around Canada or the states
.
Comment by Stephen — May 14, 2007 @ 10:41 am
Haha, go the van. I can’t believe I forgot to get a fuel filter too! From memory it was tucked under the drivers seat. Anyway have a good trip down south
Comment by josh — May 15, 2007 @ 5:43 pm
Yeah that is exactly where it was. Thanks for the help Steve. I hope the van is still your desktop background.
Van got a flattie today (flat tire). We were driving on some wash board dirt roads and I didn’t even feel that we had blown the tire. We found out because we could smell it. Got it changed and paid my first visit to New Zealand Firestone. Got things sorted out and back on the road without much hassle. Had to buy a new tired though.
Comment by Steve — May 15, 2007 @ 8:47 pm
Doh! What about your spare tire???
Comment by josh — May 16, 2007 @ 12:05 am
My spare tire has been getting smaller since coming to NZ…
Oh, you mean the one on the van? Yeah we used it to get to Wairoa (or something like that). Then we got the new tire. Is flattie an acceptable kiwi nomenclature?
Comment by Steve — May 20, 2007 @ 10:04 pm
Hahaha, yes it is. You’re getting more Kiwi by the minute, a worrying trend
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