I wake with a start. In my delirium, I imagine the van rolling off the cliff, bears ripping the van open, and other apocalyptic nightmares.
"What is it!? Are there bears!?" I ask.
"Shhhhhhhhh!" Joey leans over and puts his hand over my mouth. "Look at that" he whispers. He points towards the windshield and a bull elk is staring straight at us in the van. The elk is at eye level and not even a few feet away from the front of the van.
I am frozen. Eventually the elk turns his huge antlered head and looks towards the other side of the road. Another bull Elk looks back at him. The two bulls continue grazing on the side of the road/mountain. The slowly ramble downhill.
I collapse back onto the bed. It is not even 6 in the morning.
Joey is primed and ready for action. He jumps out of bed, and eats some breakfast (leftover stew from the night before... surprisingly delicious first thing in the morning). He gets dressed and is ready to go. My head feels like it is stuffed with cotton. I am cold, and not ready to move anywhere quickly.
Joey runs around the van and moves the chocks out of the way of the tires, and starts inspecting the route recommended by the GPS. Slowly I make my way to the front seat.
"Look, we can just continue up this road for three miles and make it back to Highway 1." Joey tries to convince me that getting an early start today is great idea. Then we'd have plenty of time to visit Revelstoke and Glacier National Parks today before heading to Banff to meet up with his family.
We fire up the van and continue uphill along the road.
Check out the topo view of this map I made of our trip:
We are practically on top of Mt. English - we didn't know that at the time. We could see the mountain top and it seemed pretty close - it was actually rather fantastic. The clear morning air made everything seem a lot better.
We rumble up the road, and criss-cross the utility lines again. We stop to shower and feel refreshed. Okay - awake and ready for action!
We rumble across a flat section of terrain, the brush begins to get thicker and thicker. We were used to some dense vegetation crowding the road before - but this was like we were driving over a single-track bike path!
Eventually we clear the brush, and start going over some boulder-y terrain. The rocks are a mix - between football size and smaller gravel. We reach an uphill section and the wheels start spinning.
No problem.
Joey jumps out and locks up the front wheels and we kick the van into FOUR WHEEL DRIVE.
Woo-hoo! Things are looking good.
We start heading downhill a bit and the gravely road has some drainage berms crossing the road. The first few gullys were dry. Then after cresting a couple of berms we splashed down in some water trickling across the road. The next one was a legitimate stream. Joey didn't even slow down! We crashed through the water and the van wobbled over all the rocks and dips and water splashed into the van. I was laughing. It was great - off-roading in Canada!
We roll along for a while, and cross some smaller water patches. Then we roll up to a river. Oh boy. We pause at the edge. It doesn't look too deep. But it looks rather established, there is grass growing around the edges, and it is going at a pretty good pace. Joey backs up a little bit, and we ride the wave across the river!
After we cross, I realize I'm still tensely gripping the door handle.
We continue for a few 100 feet, and then the road flattens out. Joey tries to shift out of 4wd, but the transmission is sticking. We can get it to neutral, but are having trouble getting back into regular drive. Joey turns off the car and man-handles the transmission back into gear.
We start the car - and nothing happens.
Joey tries again. Nothing.
We look at each other.
There was no sound coming from the car when Joey turned the key. Not the regular whining of the starter motor, no clicks from the relay - nothing. We jump out of the car. By the way, we can barely open the doors - the bushes are pushing up against the windows.
Joey opens up the hood. Nothing looks blown up. We had just replaced the battery cables - was it possible those were wired incorrectly? We talked it over, and ruled it out. It seemed like the starter just wasn't getting any current when we turned the key.
Maybe the starter solenoid was busted. Joey gets me to turn the key again. We notice the solenoid isn't clicking. What if something like the oil pressure switch had failed? Something that would override the relay and shut the car off? We ruled out the oil pressure switch because that isn't required to start the car - the car has no oil pressure to start out with anyway.
We bust out the voltmeter and check to see if there is any voltage across the starting solenoid when we turn the key. I turn the key - no volts. Ah-ha!
The tension lifts - slightly.
Okay, so we just need to connect the battery to the starter motor ... for a second or two.
This is kind of an interesting situation. The starter motor draws a lot of current - this is why when you jump your car, you want to be extra careful. The current required by the starter motor is enough to kill you. It is really important to handle this sort of electrical equipment with care.
We get out the jumper cables. The plan was to jump start the van. Instead of jumping the battery, we needed to bypass the starter solenoid. Joey clips the negative cable from the battery to a ground point. He clips the positive cable to the battery.
Okay - what we're going to do, is I'm going to turn the key and Joey is going to touch the starter cable to the other side of the starter relay. Yep. Super sketchy.
"Okay, are you ready? 1 - 2 - 3 - Start"
I see and hear sparks. The starter motor cranks, and the engine comes to life. I let go of the key, and Joey jumps back with the starter cable.
"YES!!" "Okay, let's go!"
We are relieved - and adrenaline is pumping like we just sprinted a race. Only a few miles and we'll be back to civilization.
We go a few miles, and realize it was a few miles until our next turn on our GPS route. We realize this could have been pretty bad - it would be a long hike down the mountain to try and get the van towed. No cell phone reception on the mountain either. And what tow company would get the van from the top of a mountain? The SPOT would have saved us - but it still wasn't ideal.
We drive for about a half an hour and eventually make it back to highway one. As we were coming down the mountain - I was using the GPS to find the nearest auto parts store. It was a bit of a gamble, we weren't sure any were going to be open on a Sunday.
It looked like the town of Revelstoke was our closest option - it wasn't that large, but as a tourist destination, it was bound to have something. At the worst we'd have to wait there a day. It was 8 miles away.
We roll into town, and see the town overshadowed by the mountain we were just on - a really incredible scene. We pass an autoshop - and it's closed. We keep going down main street - and spot an auto parts store!
It's open - we struck gold!
We pull into the parking lot and turn off the van. We look at each other. Alright, we're not leaving until we fix the van.
Thank you, Lordco!
We buy a new starter relay from the store, and it is a simple job to replace it. Before mounting it in the van, I ask if we shouldn't go ahead and check to make sure this fixes the problem? Sure.
So Joey hops into the van and starts the car. Nothing happens. WHAT!?!
Okay, this is bad. We take a break. Joey goes for a walk, and I sit in the van. I keep mulling the problem over. The starter motor is okay. The battery is okay. The new starter relay must be okay. Our wire harnesses if they weren't okay, we checked over when we put in the new starter relay so that must be good. I wonder if the starter relay is getting its switching signal when we turn the switch?
Joey wanders back. I mention we should check the signal from the starter. We get out the voltmeter and test. Nope, no signal. Okay - we're onto something - but not really sure what. We know that something between the key and the starter relay is not working. As we look into the engine compartment the rats nest of wires looms in our faces. Well, all we have to do is trace the path from the key to the relay. Joey starts from the relay side and I start from the key side.
I also check out the the repair manuals. Based on all of our symptoms, it suggests that there may be something wrong with the starter switch or the neutral switch. I tell Joey. (I think to myself - what's a neutral switch?)
I find the starter wire - it's red with a yellow stripe - behind the dash. As it turns out someone installed an anti-theft disconnect inline with the starter cable. I check the continuity - looks good. I keep tracing the line - and it looks like everything between I can see behind the dash looks okay. Joey is checking the continuity in a few places in the engine compartment.
Eventually we trade places a little bit - Joey takes apart the steering column and we check out the ignition switch mechanism. We check the continuity on the connector. We try manually switching the ignition switch to start - and don't see conductivity to the relay. It looks like the ignition switch is good though - so we rule that out.
We both put our heads together back in the engine compartment. The cable forks off in two places between the key and the relay. One of them goes to the fuel pump relay and the other goes somewhere back into the engine. We can't quite see where it goes. We check continuity between the key and the T-connector. Looks good up to that point. Let's figure out where this other cable goes. Seems like it might be important.
We take off the engine cover in the cabin of the van. The way the van is organized, the engine is half in front of us, and half beneath our feet when driving around. At this point - we've pretty much taken the van apart. The engine cover is off - the steering column is disassembled, some dashboard panels are removed... this means business.
I start digging in from the top - inside the cabin - and Joey starts looking from the hood. He shakes the wires around so I can figure out what cable bundle has the wire we're looking for. I find one heading down - so Joey checks it out under the van. Looks like there's a mechanical switch down there that it is going toward. What is it?
Joey guesses it's something that keeps you from starting the car when it's not in park. Cool. Let's see if that makes sense. Using some ingenuity - we connect the voltmeter to the ignition switch set to start and move the transmission out of park to neutral. We are checking to see if there is continuity. The needle doesn't move. Then I shift to reverse. The needle jumps! We have continuity!
You can see the voltmeter on the hood - and the dashboard and steering column taken apart...
What this means is that we can start the van when it is in reverse.
We end up adjusting the mechanical switch so that we see continuity in park. Now the van should be good to go.
We put the steering column back together and test out our theory. The roar of the engine never sounded so good.
We take a while to put the rest of the van back together, since we had seriously torn it apart. As we are putting it back together a nice gentleman stops by to complement us on the van. It is unusual to see one with 4 wheel drive he says - you could go anywhere in such a car. He asks us if we're staying in Revelstoke and recommends an off road path. He tells us if you go a few miles back up the road, you can take the Three Valleys logging road practically up to the top of Mt. English. You'd get to the snow line for sure he says. Our eyes sort of get big. He asks us what we were working on with the van. We tell him we'd been off-roading in that neighborhood and it looked like the mechanical switch that kept the car from starting out of park had shaken out of position.
"The neutral switch, Eh? That'll getcha every time."
It was a good thing we had gotten an early start that morning. We walked to get a late lunch before heading to Banff that evening.
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