We made an unscheduled stop in El Paso at Rocky Mountain Cummins, one night free in their parking lot.
The problem first occurred a few days back. We were leaving the campground in Bowie, as we were going up the the freeway entrance ramp. It felt like engine missed a beat, but it also felt like it could have been a bump in the ramp. After that the engine ran fine.
Leaving Las Cruces we experienced the same thing. Now although still subtle, it seemed more like a engine miss but, just a couple of times and then it ran fine.
Leaving Van Horn we experienced the same thing. Today we were headed for Midland for a visit with my aunt and uncle. As we were approaching El Paso it seem that we didn’t quite have the normal zip. Then going through the city we were defiantly losing power and could barely keep the speed up. I thought about stopping to get it check out, as we passed the Cummins shop on the way out of town, but thought we would get it checked out in Midland. If it turned out to be something time consuming, at least we would have some family there. And Interstate 10 looked straight and flat as long as the eye could see.
After about an hour of limping along at 50 mph, a ridge of mountains appeared in the distance in front of us. As we approached the base of the mountain range, it became obvious we couldn’t make it over and we decided to take the next off-ramp and go back to Cummins. Of course there weren’t anymore off-ramps and then the right lane was closed ahead. We stopped in right in front of the barricade to evaluate our options. There was light traffic so we were ok stopped in the lane with our emergency flasher on and the mile of lane closed signs behind us
Almost two hours and 150 miles east of El Paso. I knew we didn’t have power to continue over the mountain pass and since it was now one lane, I was afraid to try and get stuck. Especially blocking a mob of mad truckers. Looking at maps on the computer and using our Verizon Jetpack to access Google maps I could see a rest stop a mile or so ahead on the opposite side . I tried to see ahead with binoculars but the highway curved to the right. I did see an unmarked exit road about 100 yards ahead that connected to a frontage road that ran along side the highway. We decided to try to get to the rest stop on the frontage road, even though it was not clear looking at the maps if it would connect and not dead-end.
I also called Rocky Mountain Cummins. They wouldn’t be able to look at it until the next morning but said we could overnight at one of their sites which had 30amp power and water.
We waited until there was no traffic behind us and I slowly (as fast as Horizon would go) ventured out in to the center lane. We made it up to the turn off and on to the frontage road. We could only creep along up hill because pushing the pedal down too far caused the engine to start miss firing but at least we didn’t hold up traffic. We lucked out as the road joined up with the rest stop road which went under the interstate. On the westbound side we made our way back to El Paso at 40 mph.
The next morning Cummings fit us in and started evaluating on the problem. Turned out to be a clogged fuel filter. They had up back on the road before noon. A great shop with very friendly people.
I was surprised the filter had clogged up so fast as I just had the rig serviced in Marysville at the dealer before we left at the end of Oct. The Cummings mechanic said he didn’t thing it had been changed that recently. That night I pulled out the receipt which I keep in the computer using Neat Receipts. Surprise, they hadn’t charged me for a replacement but they should have offered. I usually have the service done at the Freightliner shop and they have always taken care of everything.
I now carry a spare filter and gallon of diesel fuel.
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