This is an off shoot to a thread on english reg cars that got a long way off topic. Coincidentally this little screed I posted earlier to another forum site that deals with American RV's.
It forms a part of the How Not to Move to Spain story that I have been threatening to write and post on this forum for some time.
A fellow owner of an American RV asked if it was possible to adjust the fan belt on the engine. I couldnt resist telling this story. This is the sort of thing that always happens to the other guy....but this time it was me (and my wife of course
This was my reply to his question... (Please excuse the typo's!)
My 1988 Chevrolet Tiffin Allegro uses the same 6.2litre V8 diesel as your RV
Yes you can adjust the belt indeed you must!
I found to my cost that not only are the belts prone to stretching, if they do snap or come off there is a possibility of the flying shrapnel from the belt taking out the other two drive belts as well. The fan belt is responsible for the generator/alternator and the waterpump as well, which is what happened to me. The fan belt is a big bugger and consequently stretches a lot. Adjustment is via the generator mounting as used to be the case with most cars.
I contacted GoldRV in Alton Hampshire and they gave me chapter and verse on the subject. You can reach them at www.goldrv.co.uk They are incredibly helpful and carry large stocks of the belts in question. The other two belts control or provide a drive to the cab aircon system and the power steering/power braking system, respectively.
The fanbelt must be adjusted using the generator sliding brackets and should be adjusted so that there is no slack in the longest run. It is very difficult to carry out this adjustment as you need to be under the engine and above it at the same time, so its a two person job. Use only the rght belt, not a near equivalent.
I was driving my newly acquired MH from Caen down to Southern Spain and about 100k's South of Nantes the belt snapped. I didnt fully appreciate what the noise was and attributed it to road debris being kicked up by the tyres. We did not get any dashboard genny fail indicator light. (There doesnt appear to be one anyway) When we stopped for the night however I noticed that the lights were getting a liitle dim...There was no indication of an overheat either, coolant temp appeared to be normal.
Being curious and a little concerned I decided to take a look under the engine cover... no fan belt...oh sh*t.
Spoke to the staff of the aire that we were staying at and they called recovery for us... along comes a Renault Transit size flatbed recovery wagon. We managed to convey to him our problem but we were obviously far too big for him to handle, so he called a heavy recovery company for us. About two hours later the recovery truck turned up with something akin to a tank transporter for a trailer. He was on his way to a motorway recovery but promised us faithfully that he would return to us in the morning and take us to a large Scania garage where they would be able to help. Nine oclock the following morning he did indeed come back to us and this is where we hit our second problem. Our bus has a triangular towing bracket on the rear of the vehicle which projects well beyond the rear bumper. Its about ten feet from the centreline of the rear wheels to the overhanging towbar and whilst we did eventually get the bus up onto the trailer it was only after we had gouged a deep groove in the concrete.
Safely aboard we then headed South towards Spain to the next exit from the motorway, at which point we changed direction and headed back toward Nantes. Total distance I estimate to have been about 100ks...
The truck deposited us at said Scania Garage, (another deep groove in the concrete). We arrived there at lunchtime. so a 2 hour delay because all the mechanics had gone for dinner. At two oclock they reappeared and I drove the vehicle over a pit. They did some measurements with a length of string and decided that yes they could help with a belt from stock.
It took two people about half an hour to fit and tension the new belt.
Total cost so far 300 euros for the recovery truck and 115 Euros for the garage parts and labour. Just after four we left and made our way back to the motorway and started heading back South again...Having effectively wasted a day I became anxious to press on and we made good time.
The following day we were into the Basque country in Spain and into the Pyrenees and the bus was suffering a bit. She is very slow on hills and these are real hills...Which is when I noticed a) coolant temp going up and b) the lights again becoming dim...We are miles from anywhere, way out in the sticks on a dual carriageway being overtaken by some of the biggest trucks I have seen in my life, really struggling and getting extremely worried as to whether we would acually get through the mountains still to come. Then we get a horrible fishy smell and steam starts pouring throught the airvents...At this point I started to swear...It was obvious that at some point the fanbelt had stretched and so we werent getting any water through the engine. It was beginning to get dark as well. I pulled over and stopped and opened the front hatch.... Clouds of steam greeted me and the radiator header tank hose had blown off the expansion bottle so there was boiling water going everywhere. My worst fears were confirmed when I checked under the engine cover...no fan belt and equally worrying no power steering belt either. With no alternatives we had to notify the trafficos the Spanish Traffic police and I did so with a lot of trepidation, not because our papers werent in order, because thet were, but My Spanish is not very good, and this being the Basque rea they have their own language anyway.
Trafficos appeared after about 15 minutes two cars, blue lights sirens the lot. Fortunately one of the guys spoke a little English and between the four of us the two trafficos, my wife and myself we were able to tell and show what our problem was. The english speaking guy put us at our ease and called for a grua or recovery vehicle... again what turned up was a transit sized flatbed. The driver took one lookand then spoke to the trafficos, saying he couldn't help, and he went away. We now have a more serious problem, its full dark now, and we are facing uphill in a vehicle we cant drive. The next turning is about 15kms up the hill..... Trafficos have a fearsome reputation in Spain but they are there to help as well as throw out fines. A brief conversation and a lot of radio traffic then followed all in what I term machine gun Sapnish. After about fifteen minutes we noticed there was no traffic coming up the the hill any more. They had actually stopped the traffic at the previous turning point. The senior of the policemen then indicated to us that we should turn around in the road and set off back down the hill on the 'wrong' side of the dual carriageway. We would be able to do this since we would be coasting down the hill with the engine just ticking over. with the two car police escort we drove about 5kms down the hill, back to what would normally be an on-slip road, where we negotiated a roundabout again the wrong way and eventually found ourselves on the right carriageway for going down the hill the rest of the way to a town we had passed through what seemed like hours previously.
Here the policemen took us to an industrial estate with a large Renault Truck garage. They made sure we were ok and then left us to it. Unfortunately.... it was a Friday night and the garage wouldnt be open again until the following Monday. To be fair the trafficos did pop round to make sure we were still ok over the weekend.
Come the Monday morning and the truck garage opened at 8am. The guys were a bit surprised to find this huge Yank-Tank sitting on their driveway. Our hopes of a fix however were dashed when the manager told us he would not be able to do anything at all for us due to other work committments. He recommended we drive to another Scania garage about 10kms distant. I was immediately concerned that tsince the access to this other garage involved travelling down the motorway, that if we broke down completely we would have to again call the trafficos who would not be at all pleased to see us again...
I tried to explain this to the Garage manager, but again he said he couldnt help. So now we have a real problem and it aint going to go away. I didnt have the tools required to replace the belt myself even if I could buy one somewhere and clearly the belt fitted at the French garage wasnt up to the job.
Eventually after a long and very serious discussion about whether or not, even if we could get the belt replaced, the Yank Tank would be able to complete the trip to Southern Spain still some 1500kms away, we decided enough was enough and got in touch with the Spanish RAC. We were not members but I was able to speak to someone, in English, and explain our dilemna. I suggested that the only viable solution would be to call a long haul, heavy haulage recovery company and have them transport the bus all the way to its destination. After a long chat the RACE chap came to the same conclusion and he set about finding us a company that would do the job. I would add that we did not have breakdown insurance. We had tried and been turned down by ever company we approached either because of the siize or the age of the bus( 31feet & 1988). We knew that trans-Spain recovery would be expensive but at that point we were desperate and the bus was to be our temporary home whilst our newly bought house in Spain was being renovated, It was essential therefore to get it to its destination. The RACE chap phoned us back to let us know he had asked a local company to come and check us out and to give us a quote for the job. Sure enough a few minutes later we had a call and we set up an appointment for later in the day. So it was that later in the day a father and daughter turned up to take measurements make weight enquiries and to discuss the best type of trailer to use for the job. They departed and at about eight oclock that evening the daughter reappeared, with a written quotation; as I said I knew it was going to be expensive but at 4200 Euros including VAT, even I swallowed hard. The terms of the contract was payment by bankers draft paid directly into the company's account. Bearing in mind that our only transport was the bus, that we also had two large dogs with us, our new problem was how to find a branch of our Spanish Bank.
The daughter was to prove very helpful from this point on, not only did she know where our local bank branch was (in Santander, she would drive us there and act as interpreter should that prove necessary. When she saw the monet transferred to the company account it was then she asked the question,'But how are you going to get there?', that we realised that because the company vehicle was an HGV we would not be able to travel, either in the cab or in the bus on the trailer. Train and Air travel were briefly discuss and and discounted on the grounds of the dogs, no direct flights, nodirect rail service, a hire car was the only option. Again the daughter came to the rescue,she made the arrangements with Europcar so that when the company took our bus south, we would head North to Santander to take over the car.Two days later their truck turned up and , leaving yet another big groove in the road they winched the bus aboard what looked like yet another tank transporter, tied the bus down and off they went. She took us to the hirecar office (about 100kms north) where we completed the paperwork, then we hit another snag. Neiher my wife nor I have credit cards, we were happy to pay up front plus whatever deposit they wanted, but it couldnt be done. So now we are really stuffed. Daughter to the rescue once more...she doesnt have a credit card either, but her mother does....and off she goes to see Mummy about giving her credit card details to guarantee us, two complete strangers, transport South. Half an hour later shes back with mum. Mum agrees to guarantee us hands over her credit card to the Europcar agent and we are set to go. We have the car for two days on a one way hire. Santander is a town about the size of Nottingham and just as easy to get lost in so the daughter acts as a pilot to get us out of town and onto the motorway south again. Our truck, by now has a two hour head start on us, but we must be in Granada to meet him when he arrives, so we have a lot of hard fst driving to do after all, even allowing for the Pyrenees, two hours equates to a minimum of 120kms and thats a hell of a lot to make up. The halfway point is Madrid, and I had heard all of the stories about Madrid traffic. All of the GPS routes seem to go straight through the middle, and the way our luck was running I just didnt want to face it. So we found another route around Madrid using the M50 which routes between Barajas Airport and Torrejon Airforce Base and links up with the main road south of Madrid. This was to be a godsend. We used that route and apart from one or two points of confusion ggot through with no problem.
About an hour south of Madrid we cayught up with and passed our truck and then proceeded at a steady 120km/hr right on the speed limit for another hour. The dogs needed a loo stop, we needed a loo stop. The loo stop became a mealbreak stop and as we satmunching away we saw our truck go past. We had GPS in the car thanks to my laptop and a GPS adaptor. We estimated Granada at about 9pm and the truck should be about an hour behind us once we'd set off and overtaken him again. So the meal break having dragged on for the best part of an hour we tried to catch up with our truck again. We did catch up, but he was in an off road layby and the driver seemed to be looking at something under the bus...too late however, we were past the entrance to the layby and on a fast dual carriageway without many turnaround points. we decided to keep on going, after all the company had a mobile phone numbers as did the drivers of the truck. Cant be serious we thought, they would ring if it was...
So we arrived in Granada at the campsite which was to be our home for a while.we arrived a little after nine pm. Ten, eleven oclock came and went, no truck...no bus, nowhere to sleep...
Shortly after midnight the truck turned up and pulled up outside the site. The sie is located just off the hard shoulder of the main Seville and Malaga to Granada motorway . Its pitch black and just after a long sweeping curve. Somehow we have to offload the bus without digging too deep a trench in the road with the tow bracket. As if this wasnt enough the reason for their late arrival is now fairly obvious, the railer bed is awash with diesel... our diesel. Unbeknown to me or the drivers, when they had locked the bus in place on the trailer one of the supporting wood blocks across the width of the trailer found its way under the diesel tank, specifically under the water drain. Shortly after entering Andalucia the road from Madrid become a mountain pass and to say that the road condition is poor is putting it mildly. The driver reckons they hit a poyhole which caused the bus to bounce on the trailer and the drain cock got push into the diesel tank, fracturing the tank, and allowing over 200 itres of diesel to leak out. By the time they got to the campsite there was no diesel left in the tank. The driver took one of his five gallon emergency bags of diesel fuel and poured it into the tank. All I had to do was reverse it off the trailer and park up on the site before the diesel ran out. We nearly made it... every one on the campsite turned out to mandhandle the bus into its final parking slot. Diesel continued to leak out from the tank after I had parked up. (You cant use all the fuel in the tank. the supply pipe to the engine is positioned such that you cant suck up the dregs from the tank, but it can leak from the drain.) A bucket was quickly found to stop the diesel from contaminating the soil on the site. The drivers were most apologetic for the problem, and in retrospect it wasnt really their fault. Trying to avoid potholes is difficult enough but with a free standing load on a low loader trailer, its hazardous too.
Almost a year on and Ive just got around to repairing the tank this morning. Copious quantities of Isopon and other similar products have I hope sealed the leak. Wont be able to use the drain ever its buried under an inch of gunk thats as solid as a rock. But til it got broke I didnt even know it was there! Im going to give the gunk three days to fully cure before I attempt to put any diesel in the tank. then all I have to do is replace the drive belt for the aircon, replace the belt for the power steering and finally replace the bloody fanbelt!
There is a moral to this story and it applies to anyone who has the Checrolet 6.2 litre V8 diesel engine. Always carry at least one of each of the three belts, and the tools to replace them with. and always, always, always, recheck the fanbelt tension after just 200kms, do it again at 500kms and finally at 1000kms. Get the thing as tight as it will go on each check. My tale of woe could just as easily happen to you...This was the recommendation to me by those wonderful people at goldrv, sadly it was after the event.
Afterthought...
The fact that the Yank Tank has been at rest on the campsite since last August has introduced another problem. When we decided to buy the vehicle, we originally intended to drive it over here, live on board whilst the house was being renovated and then take it back to England and sell it. Problem is the road tax expired end of January and I didnt receive the renewal notice (I have my mail forwarded to Spain). next thing I know im being fined for non renewal. I wrote to DVLA and explained the situation asking whether a SORN declaration could be made retrospectively. I didnt get a reply. Now I have another letter from them saying that because I ignored their fine letter, steps were being taken to recover the fine through the courts. This arrived middle of last week. I have agin written to them, including a copy of my original letter, stating that not only is the vehicle off road its also out country and currently undriveable and has been so since August last year.
Because of the length of time its been off road the MOT is virtually expired as well,now so legally, even when its fixed I cannot drive it on the road in Spain, so I cannot return it to the UK for a fresh MOT. After the expense of transporting the big bugger all the way from Santander to Granada, I'm not sure I'd want to risk driving it all the way back again anyway. I certainly couldnt afford the luxury of transportation again. If you have seen some of my other entries on this forum you will know why I cant afford it.... (See thread 'Minor D-I-Y crisis')
So currently I have a nearly fixed Motorhome that cant go anywhere, because the Brits wont accept a Spanish MOT...
For once I dont know what to do....