And you hearing tic, tic, tic...

...everybody looking, tic, tic, tic...see them all a-searching, tic, tic, tic...that's all they hear-a but they couldn't find out where the noise was hiding.  With apologies to the Kingston Trio, that is the story of Sadie's recent woes.

We did make a trip to Pacific City in July, but the tic, tic, tic that has been plaguing me since last year at this time was driving me crazy.  Here's the whole story:

In September of last year, we went on a wonderful vacation over the Cascade mountains to Sisters, OR; south to Crater Lake; west to Brookings; north to Florence, and Newport and home again.  Along the way, Sadie began to make an unfamiliar and unwelcome noise.  I posted on the RV Forum about the noise, and virtually every reply said, "Sounds like the typical Chevy 454 exhaust manifold leak," or words to that effect.

I took Sadie to one mechanic, whom I trust, and he said, "It might be an exhaust leak, but I'm not sure, and I don't really have the space to work on her." Several weeks went by, and I was walking the dog with my lovely bride.  We stopped to chat with a neighbor who was washing his RV.  During the conversation, I trotted out our tale of woe.  He said that I should take her to the Car Doctor, here in Dallas.

Well, it happens that, in addition to the tic, tic, tic sound, Sadie had developed an oil leak at the rear of the engine.  So, I took her to the Car Doctor and asked him to diagnose the oil leak and see if he thought the tic, tic, tic was an exhaust leak. He correctly diagnosed the oil leak as a bad rear main-bearing seal. And he did find an exhaust leak, which he repaired. When I picked her up, he said, "There is a tic, tic, tic sound coming from the engine.  It might be a lifter. I'd try some Sea Foam and see if it will loosen up."

Well, the short story is that the oil treatment didn't help, and I couldn't stand not knowing what the tic, tic, tic was. So, in August, I took Sadie back and told him, "I have to know what is making that noise."  Rick did some diagnostics and said the sound seemed to be coming from the left valve cover area. "It's probably a lifter. I need to take the valve cover off to investigate further."  So, I told him to proceed.  The result was inconclusive, so we took the intake manifold off and tested the lifters...everything was good, except the tic, tic, tic was still there.

Rick said the noise must be in the bottom end of the engine and asked what I wanted to do.  Well, Sadie is probably worth something like $6-7K on the open market...with a good engine. Without a good engine, she would probably bring about $2K, unless I wanted to part her out. On the other hand, Jill and I love Sadie and are not ready to give up RVing. We can't afford a new coach and anything we could get in our price range would undoubtedly NOT  be as good as Sadie. Sadie's engine was partially torn apart already.

So, Sadie is now sporting a completely rebuilt engine.  We pulled the engine and sent it to the machine shop, where they determined that the number 3 piston had a bad wrist pin that was causing the tic, tic, tic. The cylinder was scored, but it was able to be bored out. Now we have new pistons, connecting rods, crank, cam, lifters, reground valves...in other words a virtually new engine.

I picked her up yesterday, and she just purrs. I thought she ran sweet before the tic, tic, tic ruined everything, but she really purrs now.

Tomorrow, we are going to leave for a three day outing to Columbia Riverfront RV park in Woodland, WA. That is all that is left of the two weeks we set aside for vacation, but Sadie could take us to Timbuktu now, I think. So, we are excited to have her back and to be able to plan trips without worrying that tic, tic, tic will turn into clunk, clunk, crunch, with a piston hanging out the side of the block.

Watch out now, gentle reader. There may be a lot more posts on "Travels with Sadie!"