PV to Mazatlan, or The Blog Fodder Run.

More and Pics to come



Since we had a Time Zone change to our advantage 15 minutes out of Puerto Vallarta we weren't too worried about our 9:40 departure from the campground. We thought we might take an old favourite route north, turning off the 200 at Las Varas, through San Blas and Via Hidalgo then north on the 15 libre until able to get back on the cuota (toll road) a further up. This is a nice drive, though a bit slower and it avoids a lot of mountain driving and a couple of tolls between Tepic and Estacion Ruiz.



Driving through Puerto Vallarta in a heavy vehicle (trafico pesado--any vehicle with duals or towing--we are covered on both points) requires that we be on the lateral, which is comprised of two narrow lanes. Buses also use the lateral and almost all of their stops are in the right hand traffic lane. For this reason we travel in the left lane.

A few blocks along (for those in the know, even before Pluvial,) we were alongside a parked bus, about 15 feet from it's front when Gillian shouted "That but is pulling out!" BANG! Right side mirror disappeared. The bus kept going, we couldn't see if it was safe to move into the right lane to pull over. Art finally went past another parked bus, there was no traffic in front of it of course, so when it appeared in the rear vision camera he was able to get into the right lane and a block or so later was able to pull off.

The mirror was hanging by the control wires, the shaft cleanly snapped. This shaft is part of the main interior mounting plate and is made of some cast metal. possibly aluminum. No way it can be repaired. The flat main mirror glass was long gone, likely shattered on the road behind us.

(Meant to take photos but had removed the damaged part before I remembered. Senior's moment.)

Art grabbed a roll of PVC tape and taped the mirror head to the arm so it wouldn't swing around and break the wires. He'll try to disassemble it in Mazatlan.

This meant of course that we were not going to take the narrow road route as the right hand mirror is critical to negotiating some of the narrow streets in the villages we would be passing through. So Plan B; onto the mountain roads to Compostela then north to through more mountains to pick up the toll booth for the cuota just south of Tepic and then the cuota all the way to Mazatlan, tolls and all.

We had taken this route last year and found it quite enjoyable, the rig had handled it easily. We weren't concerned at all, just a little disappointed that we were going to miss out on the delicious banana bread available in the tiny village of Matachén near San Blas route. (The plain wood toothpick pointer in the top photo.)


We again enjoyed the drive until just a few kilometers out of Compostela, on the down hill side of this range of mountains, the red CHECK TRANS warning light came on! Having spoken to Freightliner and Cummins service in the past Art knew that while an amber warning light can be ignored for a while a red one usually requires immediate attention.

He then realised that the transmission was stuck in 5th gear. (The motormome version of the Allison transmission is essentially a 4 speed transmission with 2 overdrives, called 5th and 6th.) A short distance further on there was a space at the side of the road that just allowed us to get out of the way of traffic. Here Art realised that it was really stuck--it wouldn't even shift into neutral! Art got out to look for obvious signs of anything wrong--ie spilt transmission fluid, smoke, smell, but found nothing.

The internal checks on the shift pad showed the transmission oil to be down 7 quarts! Testing with the dip stick however showed it to be full! We sat and commiserated for a while then Art started the engine. The waring light was out! He put it gear and carried on.

For another four or five kilometers. CHECK TRANS. This time it was stuck in third. Art decided to keep going as Compostela (red toothpick) was only a few kilometers away and there was really no safe place to pull off the road, the shoulders looked very soft.


Entering the edge of town we found a wide spot in the highway at the junction of the highway to Tepic and the road into the main part of the town. As we pulled off we both noticed a very welcome sign on a building across the highway: Taller Mecanico Diesel! (Taller means workshop or garage.) The time was about 11:30.

Art walked across to seek help and chatted with one of the mechanics who was helpful and concerned but not completely helpful and he had no wish to investigate a transmission! Art asked where the nearest truck transmission, preferably an Allison dealer (parts) and was told Guadalajara, several hundred kilometers away in the wrong direction. He did however know who to call in Guadalajara.

Art handed him his cell phone and he made the call. He greeted him with Hey Vaquero! (Hey, Cowboy!) obviously an old friend and chatted for a moment before explaining our problem. He then said that they would call back when they had located someone who spoke English! Art would have tried Spanish but it is a lot easier face to face than on the phone!

Some time we received a call from Nestor who's English wasn't perfect but it was a lot better than our Spanish. Between the two languages we made out just fine. After quite a bit of back and forth, and several phone calls, the decision was made that they could send out a service truck shortly. But:

They couldn't send the "Rescate" (rescue) until they had received or guaranteed payment. The mechanics were unable to accept cash or credit card, nor could they accept a credit card number over the phone. They would e-mail an invoice for 2 mechanics and the 560 kilometer round trip service call and also email the banking instructions where Art would deposit the amount into their account, they would check that it had been received and would then send the crew. It was by this time about 1:00 PM. We had no internet where we were so Art had to find an internet cafe, find a Banamex, withdraw some cash from the ATM and make the deposit. All before 3:00 PM when the banks would close for the day!

Art got it done and called Nestor to advise him that the deposit had been made. They were having problems confirming it, Art's best guess to his explanation was that the system was down. Whether it was their system or the bank's didn't seem to matter. Nestor said he would call back in 20 minutes. An hour later Art called back. Nestor was no longer there. Art was not happy and it seemed the person on the other end of the phone realised that and phoned Nestor who said that he would call in the morning at 8:00 AM. Did I say how much we had paid? 12,490 pesos; 1,000.00 dollars in round figures! Art wanted some assurance that someone was going to show up!


Morning came, 8:00 AM, no phone call. 8:30 no phone call. 8:45 Art called Nestor. He was talking to the mechanics, the money was in hand and the mechanics should be on the way soon. 9:00 AM the mechanice were leaving immediately, ETA two to two and an half hours, say 11:30. They arrived at 12:30.

Somewhere during this time the mechanic from across the street who had been so helpful came over to chat with the Gualalajara mechanics. Art over heard one of them say (in Spanish of course) " So you know Vaquero!"

After much poking around and a test drive that recreated the problem we still had no resolution. The mechanics asked several times if Art knew where a particular device was located. He had no idea what they were talking about. The mechanics spoke no English. They were concerned that the oil level as reported by the automatic readout on the shift pad showed 7 quarts low yet the dipstick showed full and the fact that there was a notch on the dipstick well above the full mark. They next added a gallon of transmission to see if the shift pad showed any difference. It didn't. It would seem that I now have an over filled transmission which is also not good.

The mechanics were now convinced that the problem was electrical but they could not trace the fault since they could not find the component they were looking for in order to trace the wiring . They suggested that we proceed to Guadalajara while they followed close behind. There they could put the motorhome on a hoist and be able better to see and access the engine and transmission.

Later Art realised that he had made a large error here and had not pointed out that the top of the engine compartment could be accessed from under the bed.

So at 4:00 PM we filled the fuel tank at the nearby Pemex and set off for Guadalajara, the mechanics following close behind. The transmission performed flawlessly (thankfully) along the way, faulting as we approached the first toll booth just out of Compostela. No problem, Art just shut it down and restarted at the tool booth and all was fine again through the worst of the very serious hills and mountain passes. It faulted again about 8 kilometers later just short of the toll both at the entry to the Tepic-Guadalajara toll road. Again no problem. We were now facing a long down hill so at the toll booth Art shut the rig down once again and restarted and set off. Suddenly the LOW AIR alarm went off for the rear air tank, showing zero air pressure! This was half our brake air! He pulled over to the far left of the on ramp and stopped.

Art walked back to the mechanics who had pulled in behind us to give them the good news! They came out but they too could not hear any air leaks, so they asked Art to switch the engine off. They then announced that they could hear an air leak "up high". Now Art said that we could access the top of the engine compartment from under the bed.

So the slide was extended, the bedding heaped on one end to the collapsed dinette where the dogs travel, the mattress removed and stood on it's side against the closet, the wood platform mattress support was also removed and leaned up against the mattress. All the stuff stored under the bed was stacked on the couch. Then the mechanics went to work to remove the steel plates that separated the bed from the engine.

Once they were off, one of them called Art over and pointed out the component that they had been looking for! And within seconds they had located the air leak! A plastic air line had melted and the air pressure had blown a hole in it. The air line was bundled with several electrical cables one of which showed signs of serious heat--one side was badly melted. This might be the source of the transmission problem! Sorry for the blurred pictures.

One or possibly more cable ties had failed and the entire bundle had drooped and was touching the top of the engine! At least we had escaped the major catastrophe of an engine fire! The airline was cut and rerouted, the electrical bundle was opened and checked to show burnt insulation on many of the small wires inside.


The mechanics were quite sure that this was the source of our problems. They made some repairs, packed every thing up, Art started the engine and air pressure built as normal.

Bedsides all this good news there was a nice view from this location!

The mechanics suggested that one of them would ride with us the other following in the truck. If the warning light did not show in the next 20 or 30 kilometers we would turn around at the next opportunity and head north and they would carry on to their base in Guadalajara. So off we went, all the stuff from under the bed still piled on the couch. Some 20 kilometers later at the town of Ahuacatlán we pulled over. They wrote up a further work order, got into the service vehicle and headed for home. At 7:10 PM we turned around at the exit and set off northbound. Getting dark!


As we headed north we discussed the options of where to stay the night. There were really no options for a campground so it looked like a rest area at one of the toll booths. Art hoped for the one after Tepic, but a lot would depend on what we found at the one before Tepic and how Art felt.

The first one arrived 35 minutes later, not a lot of room so we carried on. Through Tepic in light traffic we arrived at the next rest area 5o minutes later at 8:35. Gillian remembered from a previous south bound trip that the rest area was to the south of the toll booth (before it northbound) so we kept our eyes open and sure enough there it was and fortunately there was room. We pulled in and parked. No room to put the slides out but that was no big deal. We walked the dogs, cooked some delicious pork chops for dinner, fed and walked the dogs and went to bed.

Art asked Gillian that if he should wake at say 6:00 AM if she would mind if he just started driving. She said no.

4:00 AM Art woke up. Too damn early, went back to sleep. 5:50 woke up again. Took the dogs out for their morning constitutional, got a bottle of water, fired up the rig and set off at around 6:20.

7:15 AM Gillian was awake so Art made a semi illegal stop on an on ramp and we carried on. We were glad that we had stopped of the night when we did. Every toll booth and rest stop was full to busting with semis parked for the night. Not until 9:00 at Rosario did we find room to pull off for breakfast.

We made that a leisurely one hour stop then proceeded on to Mazatlan. Last year the highway through Maz was under major construction. Now it was almost complete. We knew that the turn we used to make was closed, but every left turn was signed for Centro. That covered a lot of territory, most of which we didn't want to attempt with the motorhome. At the last minute we realised that we had missed the new turnoff. To be perfectly honest Gillian pointed out the turn but Art wasn't sure so he kept on. This resulted in an 8 kilometer detour to the north, then a westward run to the Cerritos area and back south bound run to the RV Park. Here too Art wasn't sure of Gillians assurance that we should turn left here until it was too late to do so. A U turn through a Pemex we soon made the right turn and arrived at San Fernando RV Park at 10:30. Except we were still on Mountain Time from Puerto Vallarta and points south and it was really 9:30 and we had started driving at 5:20!