I’m trying not to be superstitious out here on the road. I understand that things breaking down is just part of life. It’s the law of entropy. In time, everything will break down and wear out. It’s a war of attrition we fight all the time, and it puts the children of doctors through college, buys new Yeti coolers and boats for contractors, and means I-70 in the Glenwood Canyon will always be under construction.
A fellow nomad, an online friend I got to meet in person at Skooliepalooza told me about how she went to stop her bus and the pedal went right to the floor. My first thought was “Why are you telling me this!?” And I wanted to spit on the floor, knock on wood, disperse holy water, and any number of things to ward off evil and misfortune. Then I chastised myself for being superstitious.
Two days later, while getting water at Vivid Water and Ice in Lake Havasu, I was parked on a hill and had to back up. My brake pedal went all the way to the floor. I had been jinxed!
I mean that in a lighthearted way. I don’t believe in jinxes, but sometimes you can’t help but have an emotional aversion to misfortune because of this. You have to pull it together and think your way through. I limped my bus back to camp, did some research and thought I had the problem figured out. A warn out hydrobooster would explain all of this. The part was expensive, but the repair was something I could manage myself, even in the middle of the desert.
I decided to fix it. I ordered the part and…nothing. The order wouldn’t go through. I decided to try again in the morning when I had a better internet signal. But in my experience, sometimes when these things happen, there are other reasons. I’ve gotten very superstitious about that. So, me being me, I found myself in the dark at about 11pm with a flashlight inspecting the inside of my engine compartment for something that looked out of place.
Something my gut was telling me…something. I couldn’t let my diagnosis stand on its own. I had noticed hydraulic fluid on top of my fuse box. But the hydrobooster wouldn’t have been dripping there. I laid out paper towels and pumped the brake. More fluid. So I set up my cell phone and recorded the area where the fluid was as I pumped the brakes again. This time I saw it on video. A stream of brake fluid squirting onto the paper towel. Not coming from the hydrobooster. It was coming from a brake line. A braided steel section of brake line that had been rubbing against a sensor on the power steering hose for the last 200 thousand miles. It had finally rubbed all the way through and the air in the line was the reason my brakes had failed.
The part might be cheap, but the labor was going to be expensive. I almost wished it had been the hydrobooster. The next morning I started looking for the brake line, thinking I could replace it myself. According to the GM dealer, that part is discontinued. And the brake shop I called said they would have to fabricate one. They could do it, but it was going to be expensive and likely take a couple days. They gave me a time I could limp in to have someone look at my bus.
I decided I might still be able to have it done cheaply, at Brake Masters and they could just splice the line and avoid all of that. After all, it was only an 8” section of line! I limped it in to town, with just enough braking power to roll to a stop with each red light. I hit three red lights on the way to the brake shop.
They looked it over and said they couldn’t just splice the line. They quoted me a very high amount, but you need brakes to drive. Besides, it had gotten to the point where the bus wouldn’t even go into gear because there wasn’t enough pressure to engage the transmission. They put the bus up on the rack on Saturday afternoon and worked on it until the shop closed. They ran the new brake line to where it needed to go, but came up short when they needed one little brass fitting.
They rolled the bus back out into the parking lot where I could stay in it for the next two nights until the shop opened on Monday and the final part arrived. So, Penny and I slept in the bus. We walked down to London Bridge a few times. I ate out at restaurants because I was so emotionally fried from the whole thing I didn’t care about eating decent food. Just filling a hole.
Monday morning, I heard the guys open up the shop and I talked with Derrick, the guy who had been working on my bus on Saturday. He had already picked up the last part and as soon as Penny and I went to get coffee, he put the bus back up on the rack, using the emergency brake to control the bus. A few hours later, we returned.
Derrick had bad news. The hydrobooster and the master cylinder were fried. They had both been running dry for so long that they were done. It would be another few hours to get the parts and have them installed. And of course the parts and labor on top of that.
We had been in the shop for so long that everyone who worked there knew Penny by name and gave her pets whenever they came in. She spent most of the afternoons sleeping on the floor and getting to know everyone who came into the shop. For two days.
I have many moments on this adventure I don’t talk about where I wonder if I’m not doing something stupid. But here’s the brutal truth. My brakes failed when I was at the water station, filling my freshwater tank. Not when I was rattling down a washboarded road or climbing the side of a mountain. It happened someplace safe and boring, just like it could happen to anybody. Just like it does happen to everybody.
They guys at Brake Masters in Lake Havasu were awesome. They fixed my bus and now when my foot touches the brakes, I realize just how badly it had been working before. I’m lucky they went out at some mundane stop instead of braking hard to avoid a collision on the interstate at 65mph.
The good news was that the master cylinder was fine and only the hydrobooster needed to be replaced. They were honest about that, whereas many other mechanic shops would have just replaced a good part and charged me for it anyway. I can’t recommend them enough.
I left Lake Havasu City today after a month of camping outside of town. The temperature is getting hotter and spring is coming fast. The flowers are blooming in the desert, and I am ready to start heading north to see some other terrain other than creosote bushes, cactus, and palo verde trees. Now I have brakes. Penny made some friends. And I have been wondering for the last few weeks if I haven’t been getting a little odd from my lack of human interaction. I think this weekend I talked to people more than I have all month. So, now it’s time to move on.
I’m not on this adventure to sit in one place and fall into a routine of doing the dishes, working, napping, sleeping, and cooking and eating. On here to keep my eyes and ears open and experience the world as it comes. Now it’s back to work doing just that. So long, Lake Havasu! Thank you for being home for a month!
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