By Brian Jill
Any time you embark on an expedition you can expect to have issues, and taking a vegetable powered diesel truck into the harsh desert terrain was sure to create problems. I mean, pick a worse environment to stick a combustion engine and moving parts into than an endless horizon of sand and potholes. Okay, maybe freezing sand and potholes, so I guess it could have been worse.
Fortunately, we made it all the way to the Middle Of Nowhere, Mexico before we began having issues with the truck. Actually, it was not long after crossing the border, so in a pinch we could always put the wheels on our Gheenoe’s and push pole our way back to humility.
When we originally built the vegetable fuel system we utilized some used parts, because new parts would cut into our fly tying material and cervesas budget, and that strategy completely bit us on the ass and caused us to utilize the fly tying materials allocation of the budget to purchase more cervesas to compensate for the stress of the breakdowns caused by the used parts which caused most of our troubles on the trip. In other words, we spent our essential truck parts money on beer.
The most consistent non-working part was our fuel pump, a pretty much essential component of the vegetable fuel system that was continually freezing up and not doing its job. If the fuel pump coughed, laughed or gagged it would cause our truck to stall on the vegetable side of the combustion machinery.
Since I had the most engine mechanic experience I was voted the expedition’s technician, jack of all trades and master of the blame if the truck didn’t run. Although I had never rebuilt a fuel pump, much less a diesel to vegetable conversion fuel pump, I had to dissemble and rebuilt that damn pump over two dozen times throughout Baja, which really tested my resolve to avoid smashing a diesel to vegetable fuel pump on the road and doing a Mexican hat dance around it.
The Pump would run fine until it was put under a load, then it went to crap! And before you say, “Since the fuel pump is an instrumental component of the fuel system, why didn’t you just drink two beers a day for a week and buy a new one,” because we did that.
We found another pump, again used, because Small Mexican Towns are living proof that used parts go somewhere to die. Our beer ration fuel pump would only allow us to do 45 mph on the flats running on vegetable oil, which at the time was better than the alternative of sitting on the side of a highway waiting for the old pump to be rebuilt, someone to die of heat stroke or a band of banditos to realize the fly tackle is worth about the same as a fine watch.
We soon realized that our fishing expedition was quickly turning into a road tour of all of Baja’s auto mechanic shops, which in itself was enough to make us pop, because no matter how many times we utilized the Spanish Translation Dictionary we couldn’t communicate to local mechanicos that vegetable oil powered our truck. It was easier to explain why all the wild dogs tried to hump Chris’ leg than to convey that tortilla juice made the engine purr.
Eventually we went through every fuel pump in Mexico and started experimenting with water pumps or anything else that had the potential to work because if we had to switch over to using diesel, and thus PAYING for our fuel, we weren’t going to make it to the Yucatan. I obviously had to get this pump situation figured out.
Did you know there are NAPA Auto Parts stores in Mexico? I didn’t either, but I do now. After calling anyone with moving parts in the phone books from aeropuertos to zapatos frenos to try to find another vegetable fuel pump conversion, we finally found a stock diesel inline pump for a ford at a Napa in La Paz. We knew this was not the answer, and it would likely only would work for a little while, but again, it was better than waiting to be victimized and even if that was an unavoidable option we wanted it to take place in an area where we could fish.
Another major concern of ours was a grinding/rattling sound coming from under the truck when we accelerated. Thad thought it might be a dog that threw Chris in a closet at one of the mechanic shops that was hanging out for seconds, but after we looked under the rig we realized that our drive shaft was getting thrown into the fuel tank skid guard only millimeters away from the fuel tank. That situation was obviously not so bueno!
We first thought that the U-joints were bad, but eventually determined that we broke the transmission mount and that the entire driveline was getting torqued upward. Mexican’s are very resourceful people and at a small repair shop in Cabo they were able to find our exact part within 30 minutes and had it installed in no time flat, which prevented Chris from having to tolerate the local dog population.
While the diesel to vegetable fuel pump created the majority of hangover inducing stress on the trip, we also dealt with fuel leaks, air leaks and vegetable oil spills. Not to mention the broken rear leaf springs from hauling so much weight in vegetable oil. That issue was resolved at a Mexican mechanic shop where they re-bent the old springs one by one and replaced the broken springs with recycled beer cans and duct tape (not really).
We had a couple of instances when the vegetable/diesel fuel valve was sticking causing the vegetable oil to fill the diesel tank and overflow out of the fill spout, but one solid shot with the hammer and a very oral threat to stomp the valve into paste if it did it again took care of that issue.
It’s funny how a breakdown in the fuel system will trivialize any other mechanical issues like flat tires. After spending enough time on the side of the road to consider opening a mobile tacoria, changing a flat was like eating cornbread. We did have one instance where we cracked the actual wheel, which was fixed for $12 and two beers in some Mexican auto shop that had a welding machine.
Once we accepted that breakdowns were an expected parable on the trip, it was a lot easier to concentrate on where we were going and what we would do when we got there, knowing we would arrive sooner or later even if it took every crappy used rebuilt vegetable fuel pump in Central America.