Our 2011 Alaskan Adventure: Day 50, 51, 52, 53 Cummins Shop Anchorage

Day 50...We arrived at Northwest Cummins at the appointed time, 8:00AM.

A nice young lady, who has family in Guthrie, OK, took the information and said they would send someone out. 10:15 a person comes out and looked in the engine compartment. Then he leaves and comes back with another person, and they look at the engine compartment. They leave and he comes back with another person and they look at the engine. 11:30 they tell me it is probably a head gasket (exactly what I told her at 8:00). OK move it to the end bay on the other side of the building.

Now comes the shop foreman, nice guy, Cody. First they will drain the oil and remove the oil pan. Then pressure test the cooling system. Then they have to remove the bed and it's substructure to get to the engine.
By the time they got the oil pan off, I had the engine exposed (with some help from Lon, who showed up in the midst of the project to say good-bye). They were off to Valdez. Nothing they can do here.
The bed had to go somewhere.

By the end of the day, the valve cover and a lot of other stuff was off.

Day 51- Friday morning more stuff came off the top and the back. By the way, this is our bedroom!

Just before 5:00 they put this steel beam, attached to a forklift, on top of the head.

Then attached the head to the beam and lifted it out with the forklift. 300+ pounds of head.
The mechanic said it is apparent the the problem is with #4 cylinder. Is that 4 from the front or from the back? They all look the same to me, except the pistons are at the top of the center 2. They will pressure test the head for a crack Monday morning. They don't work weekends.

Day 52 - Now we wait. Saturday is another rainy day. The reason we have been behind on the blog is that there is no WiFi here at the shop. Did I tell you, we are living in a parking lot? Our Datastorm satellite system will not find the "97W satellite" that we need here in Alaska. Even after many hours of trying at different locations. So we went to Best Buy and got an AT&T HotSpot. Now we are back in business, and a lot cheaper.

After the trip to the mall (where the girl at the liquor store was from Lawton, OK), we took Heidi for a walk by Ship Creek. Ship Creek runs through downtown Anchorage and is a very popular fishing hole. The Silver Salmon are running now.

There were people fishing everywhere, but they didn't know where the fish were.

We did. Heidi found them!

Day 53 - Woke up Sunday morning and OMG the sun was shining! So we had to get out. We packed the cooler and headed out for Arctic Valley Rd. On the way we saw this truck with an Alaska brush guard (they call them moose guards up here). I'll bet Don Ransom wants one of these.

The "Valley" road was on a military base, Ft Richardson, and actually was a mountain road. Half way up you could see Anchorage from above.

Anchorage is in the center. The Cook Inlet is beyond. The Turnagain Arm is the water to the left. The Knik Arm is the water to the right. click to enlarge(if you really give a ----)

At the top of the mountain, end of the road, was a ski area. There were people everywhere picking berries. (you probably can't see them unless you click twice)