Skagway – Ulen Adventures

Water Pump thoughts.

A few words about water pumps.

We were on our way to the Arctic Ocean. There’s only one road in North America where you can drive your own car to the Arctic Ocean, and we were headed that way. You turn off the pavement and drive 540 miles up a dirt road and there it is. It’s not really on the way to anything, because when you’re done at the ocean, you drive back 540 miles on that same dirt road until you hit pavement again. There’s a couple of small towns with gas and stores near the ocean, and one half way between the ocean and pavement. And there’s some long stretches of road with absolutely nothing. A complete lack of human presence except for the dirt road. It was a trip we wanted to make…

There was a territorial park with camping at the 50 mile point, and that’s where we spent the first night. It was there that we discovered liquid dripping underneath the truck. There was a pretty good puddle. A basic inspection showed it coming from the front of the motor (eliminating the radiator having been punctured by a rock) on the driver’s side. A look at the cooling system schematic showed the water pump near that area. The radiator overflow bottle took quite a bit of water to bring it back up to where it was supposed to be. Using the camper “tea kettle”, it took 2 1/2 kettles worth of water.

So what to do? There’s a Ford dealer every 1,000 miles or so up in this part of the country, and the closest one to us was about 400 miles away. And our route had us going the other direction. We’d have to drive about 80 miles to even get cell phone service to make a phone call.

Our concern about things getting worse while we were in the most desolate place you could drive in North America won out over the need to dip our toes in the Arctic Ocean. We made the decision to turn around and drive the 400 miles to see if it was something that could be easily fixed, and hopefully under warranty.

The Ford dealer was in Whitehorse, Yukon. We tried calling them as we’d get a “bar” or two of cell service while making the drive, but were basically unsuccessful. We stopped frequently to check the leak. It took another kettle of water at the first stop, and then nothing the next 350 miles. We hit the dealer about 4pm. Even though they were booking service appointments ten days out, they agreed to run some cooling system tests for us the next day.

The verdict at the Ford dealer was indeed the primary water pump (these dang diesel motors actually have two water pumps and two separate cooling systems). It wasn’t a part they had in stock, and it would need to be flown in from the US. And then there’s that long wait to get an appointment in the service department.

Waiting around is not something Chuck does very well (surprise!). So we decided to do some touring in a “towable” radius around Whitehorse. This would get us to some nice places like Skagway AK and Atlin BC. So off we went…

After putting a couple hundred miles on the truck after first discovering the leak, here’s our analysis of the situation. It leaks when the motor is not up to temp, and the cooling system is under pressure. Once you get it up to full operating temperature, we haven’t seen any puddles. But do sightseeing first thing in the morning, and you get puddles. And there’s still the concern that this isn’t a static situation, and that things could go from bad to worse at any time.

So we’ve been to Skagway, and are currently camped lakeside in Atlin, and have an appointment in Whitehorse on August 10th for the installation of the new water pump. Coincidently, that is exactly the day were were scheduled to be in Whitehorse for an oil change. But we haven’t gotten to see the Arctic Ocean. So as we sit looking at the mountains across Atlin Lake, we have a decision to make. Keep to the original schedule and arrive home around August 27th, or figure out what corners can be cut, how many days we can add to our trip, and head north instead. Decisions, decisions, decisions…

3 August 2018. Skagway AK

But, here is a little about our trip to Skagway. We had previously dropped Skagway as a destination, because we were a little tired of cruise ship towns and we had wanted to spend more time in Atlin, which is definitely not a cruise ship town. But with our added time waiting for the water pump, we headed to Skagway and were glad we did.

The road to Skagway was worth the entire trip to the town. It changed from Spruce Forests to pine trees ( We hadn’t seen a pine tree in a month!), interspersed with small lakes. Here is a photo of Rainbow Lake, which contained the same colors as our Camper!