Back around....2012 maybe? I blew the motor in my 94 toyota wheeler. Pulled it apart and it looked like it had been fed sand at some point, so I needed a new motor. I posted on FB looking for one, and a buddy answered.
"I've got one you can have for free!"
"Dope!"
"Comes with the whole truck too!"
"This seems like a set up, what's the catch?"
"You gotta go get it."
"From....?"
"The parking lot....at the Kitimat Modernization Project."
"Ahhh...there it is."
"It's got the best running 22re I've ever driven in it, it's a new crate motor with only about 10,000km on it. Guy was using it for gov't work and they bought him a motor when it blew up. It's missing an exhaust stud, and is really rusty. It's also free! I've got a buddy up there who will give you a ride into the camp to pick it up!"
"Done deal."
Kitimat is a little south and east of Ketchikan. I live on the southern tip of Vancouver island, across from Port Angeles.
So I did the reasonable thing, and bought a plane ticket to the Northwest Regional airport, which is about 75km from where the truck was, on a highway known for (usually female, and native) hitchhikers disappearing. It was actually 2 flights, with a 14hr layover in Vancouver. Cheap, though.
So I got a ride to the airport, got to Vancouver, went and met up with some friends who were living over there going to university, and did a touch of partying. Got back to the Vancouver airport, where the benches are designed to prevent sleeping. I kinda slept. It was cold. I didn’t have my pack with my blanket and clothes in it. I was not good when I woke up, but I poured a large timmies down my neck, ate a muffin, and got on the prop plane up north with the rest of the criminals, degenerates, and typical rejects you find on fly in/fly out jobs. I fit right in, sniffling, chewing my lips, sweating, and regretting the past 12 hours or so.
We landed at the Terrace airport, and I was denied boarding the crew bus. I tried. Whatever. Hit the road, thumb out. First ride was a dump truck, next corner after he picked me up there was a grizzly with a cub on the side of the road, so pretty happy in the cab of a truck.
He turned off the highway and I started walking again. Thumb out. Next ride is a safety man for the camp. He's drunk as fuck, sipping beer from a McDonald's cup, swerving, doing 140km, listening to pop music. Scariest ride I ever got, but we saw another bear, and I liked my chances in the truck better than with a fuzzy wuzzy.
I got into town, alive, and found the condo in town that my buddy had been living at when he was up there, but no one was home. By this time I was no longer hungover or strung out, just tired as hell, so I found a good pine tree, lay my blanket down, and passed out with my pack as a pillow. Woke up a few hours later, hungry, bug bitten, with a mountie asking if I was OK. Talked my way out of it, and went to Mr Mike's steakhouse for a beer and a beef dip. Vast improvement.
At this point the guy (who I've never met) who is supposed to get me to the truck is off shift so I go back to the condo, bang on the door, and he answers the door in a pair of skivvies. I hadn't been warned that he's some kinda wrestler, not a friendly lookin fella with cauliflower ears and man panties on, but I explained myself, he remembered that he'd agreed to help me out, and he got pants, and drove to the (very secure) camp.
He was a job steward, or they'd never have let me in without ID. We jumpstarted the truck and he took off. I get in the truck, which has a BRUTAL exhaust leak, and roll out. Well, they ask for ID at the exit gate too, and the security changed shift while I was getting it figured out in the lot....eventually they let me out.
So I fuelled up, topped off the oil, and set out. Aside from the terrible exhaust leak, it was also the most gutless 22re I'd ever driven. But I had 250km of beautiful country ahead of me, and if it died, it wasn't mine, I'd just start walking again. All I had was my backpack, a best of the tragically hip CD, a full tank, and a crusty old Toyota. Life wasn't so bad. Did I mention it was the summer solstice? Gorgeous weather, gorgeous country, and a reservation on a boat in Prince Rupert at 5am the next day.
I rolled into Rupert around 930, and it was a party. Still full daylight, bars are going, things are good. Found a quiet parking lot, put on clean clothes, and found some dinner and some beverages.
After dinner I headed back and figured I'd better try to fix that exhaust leak. Opened up the hood, and found the missing exhaust stud. It was....right behind the dangling spark plug wire. In my hustle to get going I'd fully missed that only 3 of the 4 wires were attached to plugs. Turned out, it actually WAS the strongest 22re I'd ever driven. The really bad exhaust leak I'd heard while maybe not full 100% with it, was the dangling plug wire arcing to whatever it could.
Anyway, got down to the ferry terminal at around 1130, and it was starting to get a little dark. Passed out in the truck and got woken up to board the boat at 4am. I'd be warned to bring my own beer, so I was able to get drunk and sober up twice on the 16hr ride, great food, beautiful scenery, etc.
Ferry docks in Port Hardy at the northern tip of the island in the middle of the night, and I go looking for a hotel. I laugh at the $300/night tourist price, and pay $140. Shower, bed. Up at 7am, breakfast, and hit the road. Strange grumbling noise has started. Truck is noticeably down on power. I have 500km to go, and the rear end is letting go.
Pinion seal is gone by the time I stop for fuel 150km or so later. I buy a jug of gear oil, dump it in, and keep going. By this time it's a struggle to his 100km/hr. Stop to see dad at work 140km from home. Buy a couple bricks of .22 ammo, some shotgun shells, amd a game camera. Rear end is now smoking through the pinion seal, and I keep adding the cheapest available gear oil when I pass parts stores. By the time I get to Mill Bay, I have the choice of driving over the Malahat, the mountain that separates Greater Victoria from the rest of the island, or taking another ferry across the bay. Ferry it is. 5th gear is now obsolete, and 80km/hr is hard work. I've put around 10 liters of gear oil through the rear end.
When I start the truck to drive onto the boat, the rear end makes a clunk and a squeak as it gets rolling. It's around 200 meters down to the boat, and it's smoking again so badly I'm asked to shut the truck off. I explain that it's off, that's the rear end smoking. Next, enquiries are made about the risk of fire or explosion. No one feels better when the skinny guy with fucked up teeth, shaved head, wearing a dirty wife beater and cut off carhartts, who's been nervous sweating and bathing in gear oil all day assures them that "it hasn't caught fire yet!"
They ask me not to add gear oil on the ferry. I explain that if I don't, it may weld itself together and have to be dragged off. They tell me we can solve that problem on the other side.
Fine.
It's not seized on the other side. I drive off the boat. It makes bad noises. I figure "fuck it, I'm minutes from home, run it."
It makes a bang half a click from home, but keeps rolling....slowly, laboriously even.
In the driveway and park, notice it's smoking at the pinion and the diff cover. Whatever the bang was, it left through the rear diff cover. There was zero oil left in the rear axle.
That's the story of the crusty bus. That motor went into the wheeler and ran great. I kept some other parts, and chopped up and scrapped most of it.
It was a great time, I'd do it again in a heartbeat, minus the Vancouver party.
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