Too Long, Didn’t Read. TLWIA. Too Long, Wrote It Anyway. The workaround. We wanted to tow our Chrysler Town and Country, but it’s an automatic and it’s not made to tow. If we tow it four wheels-down, the transmission will overheat because the transmission fluid isn’t being circulated and cooled. No problem; there’s a workaround for that. We bought a Remco transmission pump and had it installed. Now, when we’re towing, the transmission pump circulates the transmission fluid even though the engine isn’t running. The transmission stays cool. Problem solved. Except that the Town and Country, won’t go into neutral for towing if the ignition isn’t on. If it’s in neutral, the ignition won’t turn off unless it’s in park. We don’t want to tow it with the ignition on all the time. No problem. There’s a workaround for that. The people that installed the transmission pump also installed a battery disconnect in the minivan for us. Now we can leave the car in neutral to tow, but instead of turning off the ignition (which we can’t do while it’s in neutral), just throw the battery disconnect switch and everything goes dead. So, driving down the road, everything works just fine. Except we discovered that after long hot days towing at wide-open freeway speeds for a couple hundred miles, the alarm that warns us if the transmission fluid isn’t being sufficiently cooled, starts to sputter, beep, then come on as a solid alarm. Now what? We can disconnect and have Judy drive the car separately to our destination, but we’d really rather ride together. No problem; there’s a workaround. We go out to the tow car, reconnect the battery disconnect, start the car, and finish the day, the last fifty miles or so, towing it in neutral with the engine running. No way that’s going to overheat now. Except we discovered when we started the engine we created a new problem. The tow setup includes a system that will apply the tow car brakes when we’re stopping. That helps the motorhome brakes stop everything including the additional five thousand pounds of tow car; a good safety feature for unexpected braking. That seems to work just fine until we get off the freeway and come to a complete stop. It’s then we realize that the system that applies the tow car brakes is calibrated to apply the minivan brakes when there is no power assist. With the engine running, there is power assist, and the tow car brakes are applied more forcefully than we’d like them to be. No problem. One more workaround. The minivan has adjustable pedals. Leave the minivan engine running but adjust the brake pedal down so the brakes don’t come on so hard. Problem solved. Again. But then. The pump started getting too hot sooner in the day, so we had to replace it. That fixed it. For a while. Every time we run it in hot weather the Remco pump overheats and eventually we have to replace it again. The Remco manufactured told us to relocate the pump farther back in the engine compartment so it wouldn’t get so hot from the engine heat of the bus. That was our latest effort, but that didn’t work either. The pusher motorhome generates a lot of heat. The car rides right behind all that heat, drafting the motorhome, so there isn’t much air circulation. Enough of expecting experts to solve the problem for us. Judy and I thought about it ourselves. If the Remco pump gets too hot, then it needs more air circulating around it to bleed away some of that heat. How can we accomplish that? What if we propped the hood open, secured it so it couldn’t fly away, and towed the car that way? Could we get enough air to pass through the engine compartment that the Remco pump wouldn’t overheat? The only spacer we could find was a chunk of firewood, so we used that.
We put it up by the hood latch, closed the hood, and attached a bungee cord to secure the hood.
So far so good. The poor little thing just needed to breathe. Problem solved? Maybe. Time will tell. Life on the road. It’s a learning experience. And the lessons continue. I wonder; if all we need is more air flowing though the engine compartment while towing, maybe we could get someone who understands electricity, and cars, to wire it up so when we plug in the tow car and turn on the ignition switch in the bus, the electric radiator fan in the minivan would also turn on. I wonder if that would be create enough airflow over the pump… 2017 summer trip map Now we’re in Alberta, west of Winnipeg, at a commercial RV Park for the night.
Never been in Alberta before. We’re adding a state to our map, except we don’t have a map of Canada. Guess we’ll have to get one and start sticking provinces on it. Uncle Doug passed away today. I have some thoughts to share about that, but haven’t managed to get them together yet.
We put it up by the hood latch, closed the hood, and attached a bungee cord to secure the hood. So far so good. The poor little thing just needed to breathe. Problem solved? Maybe. Time will tell. Life on the road. It’s a learning experience. And the lessons continue. I wonder; if all we need is more air flowing though the engine compartment while towing, maybe we could get someone who understands electricity, and cars, to wire it up so when we plug in the tow car and turn on the ignition switch in the bus, the electric radiator fan in the minivan would also turn on. I wonder if that would be create enough airflow over the pump… 2017 summer trip map Now we’re in Alberta, west of Winnipeg, at a commercial RV Park for the night. Never been in Alberta before. We’re adding a state to our map, except we don’t have a map of Canada. Guess we’ll have to get one and start sticking provinces on it. Uncle Doug passed away today. I have some thoughts to share about that, but haven’t managed to get them together yet.