Damanta played a Sunday night show in Canmore, Alberta on July 28th and was heading south for Great Falls Montana when...It all began as we came over a rise on the way down to Calgary, The Pooka backfired and the red light of death (a big red G) lit up on the dashboard. We pulled over and discovered that we’d thrown the fan belt. No biggie except we couldn't get it back on and the VW manual was a little unclear. Eventually, with the help of a police officer who had stopped to give us protection from the highway traffic, we figured it out and were on our way. Elegwen noted that our power was way lower and it began to seem like we'd lost our cylinder again.
We struggled to Lethbridge and found a VW dealership who would look at at it the next morning stone cold and so we headed back to O'Reilly's to drown our sorrows and call Great Falls and let them know we'd not be making our show that night. I camped in the van at the dealership and helped them push it into the service bay the next morning.
The prognosis was not good. The cylinder head was likely gone and now the fan was loose. The service manager suggested finding alternate transportation as the van was on it's last legs. I had no choice but to ask him to adjust the valve clearance (for the third time in two weeks) and give us a new fanbelt. I was told that the van might not make Calgary, let alone back home to Vancouver.
We headed out of Lethbridge later that afternoon with our fingers crossed--that the cylinder woulnd't have to be replaced (>$1000) and that the fan would hold up (new crankshaft/new engine required)...We got 45 minutes out of town when the red light of death came on again.
The fan belt was off again and this time when we went to put it back on, the fan was no longer attached to the engine. Bad news. A call to the CAA confirmed that I was right to get their exclusive Gold coverage with extended towing benefits and we there we were stuck on the roadside waiting to go back to Lethbridge for the third time.
Anthony, our tow truck saviour, showed up an hour later and let us know that he was into Irish music and speaking German. Him and Elegwen became fast friends which was good because we got up close and personal in the cab of Anthony's tow truck. Let me tell you, four guys in the cab of a full sized pickup don't fit so well.
We had Anthony tow us to the Ellis Autodrome (for cheaper than dealership pricing, we hoped) and ended up back at...you guessed it O'Reilly's. It was like groundhog day all over again. Anthony actually asked if we wanted him to put the flashing lights on to announce our presence. Uhh...no, thanks.
3 days later, on Friday we were trying again to leave Lethbridge. Jesus, the manager of O'Reilly's had already told us of the local legend that once you get to Lethbridge, you can't leave and we were starting to believe it. With our fan welded onto the crankshaft we hit the highway once more in hopes of making it to our Chicago show on Sunday August 3rd.
We didn't even make it as far as we did on Monday before the fan snapped off and it appeared our tour was over. Anthony showed up with a flat deck this time and we loaded up the Pooka for the third and potentially final time in its service to Damanta.
No comments:
Post a Comment