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An American girl and English bloke blending cultures while exploring others

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Category: Monongahela National Forest

This West Virginia forest showcases one of the United States’s most ecologically diverse areas. Here are our trail stories from Monongahela National Forest . . .

  • Monongahela National Forest

West Virginia’s Middle Fork/Big Beechy Hike and Camp

  • by L
  • Posted on June 22, 2018July 23, 2021

In the woods, very seldom do we actually look and sound like we know what we are doing. What more often than not happens is we muddle through and somehow make it to where we intended to go. It’s a miracle really. But at least we have each other.

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If you’ve been following us on YouTube, our 1965 If you’ve been following us on YouTube, our 1965 Clark Cortez motorhome’s squeaks and moans come as no surprise — From Day One, it sounded a combination of horror-movie-door squeals and the imaginary pain of a mechanical-animal if something awful happened to it. We felt confident replacing the front shocks with heavy duty ones would help — or even eliminate — the problem so we went for an upgrade. (NOTE: Our rear shocks were replaced earlier.)

What we found were two dead — and I do mean *dead* — original shocks. Lemme tell you how dead — When we took those suckers off, they *remained compressed.* For people that may start with zero mechanical knowledge (like me), this is equivalent to having a spring that remains tight… or a slinky that never stretches… or — well, I’ve run out of analogies. You’ll see the picture here. It was bad — actually beyond-bad bad because this compressed-shock situation could have led to torsion bar damage or even chassis cracking. Ouch.

Now the great news: We have two new front shocks, along with droplink bushings and bump stops — both of those rubber fellas were super cracked and brittle before. The even better news: Those squeaks/squeaks/moans of pain are now gone. And another plus: The shocks increased our ride height! (True story, despite belief from many.) Glory, glory hallelujah ⭐️ 
***
#suspension #shocks #monroeshocks #lift #moparnation #doityourself #diy #upgrade #restoration #clarkcortez #cortez #cortezmotorhome #1965 #1960s #rv #motorhome #campervan #campervanculture #classiccar #classiccarrestoration #vintagevehicles #oldcar #retrorides  #renovate #overhaul #vanlife #rvlife #englishbloke #americangirl #cargirl
Can you spot the snake?! Y’all know we’ve bee Can you spot the snake?!

Y’all know we’ve been focusing on our mechanical overhaul for our 1965 Clark Cortez motorhome restoration, and we’ve almost wrapped up our mechanical work — which is absolutely the most exciting hard-to-believe sentence that I’ve ever written here. But before I tell you what we are working on currently, we have lots to catch up on and now that it’s getting warmer, Andy’s and my thoughts mainly go back to this one mechanical job…

Back in April last year, we replaced the spark plugs on our steel beast. We were hoping this would solve our irregular starting problems while also allowing the Cortez to run better.

What we found was cracked, sooty, and oily spark plugs — good news because that means the culprit of problems — so we replaced them with beautiful clean ones… and that meant a test drive… which is when we found a much larger surprise inside our antique RV — a SNAKE!

The speed at which Andy and I literally propelled ourselves from our steel beast — let’s just say a fire couldn’t have moved us faster. Meanwhile, our harmless four-foot common black snake was more than happy to move in and not leave. Consistent move to eat? Yep. Shelter? Check. Zero threats or disturbances? Well, mostly.

Long story short, that sucker took some persuading to get out — and those ridiculous antics are totally in our YouTube video (link in bio). But here’s the craziest part: The truth is we had ANOTHER SNAKE move in after this guy escaped! So listen, if you’re one of those people posting about mice problems in RVs — Let’s just say we have ya covered. The solution is a snake… or two…
***
#crazyvideo #snake #snakes #snakesofinstagram #cantbelieveit #v8 #mopar #sparkplugs #engineservice #enginework #testdrive #dodgeengine #360la #vintagecampers #retrorides #antiquerv #antiquevehicle #classiccars #clarkcortez #motorhome #rv #camper #vanlife #restoration #overhaul
If you’ve been following our Cortez restoration If you’ve been following our Cortez restoration story here or on YT, you’ll know we’ve had problems getting our steel beast to reliably start. Andy has maintained swapping to EFI, or electronic fuel injection. Meanwhile, I’ve stubbornly stayed on the other side because EFI is costly and I’m not gonna be throwin’ more money at our lass unless I know fundamental parts of her are strong.

“What needs to be there so you change your mind?” he asked me one day.

“Her engine,” I answered. We’ve stupidly and blindly done all this work and don’t even know — for sure — if the engine is actually *good*.” See, the engine we have is not original. Instead of the factory inline-6, our girl’s was changed to a v8 at some point in her life — so it should be powerful… should be…

“Right,” Andy responded then immediately followed up with “We will do a compression test.”

This has been at the top of our list of Jobs to Do… but, well, y’all know how to goes when you restore an antique vehicle…

Needless to say, Andy and I made the journey to the farm with fingers crossed because, let’s be honest here, the last bit of news we wanted was that we needed to swap an engine.

Turns out, after a dry and wet compression test, our girl has a super strong, reliable engine!
…so now, talk to me about that EFI 😉
***
#engine #v8 #mopar #dodgeengine #360la #engineswap #compressiontest #compressiontester #antiquecar #vintagecar #classiccars #rarecar #antiquerv #vintagerv #retrorides #classicrv #rarerv #clarkcortez #clarkcortezmotorhome #1965 #1960s #rv #motorhome #camper #campervan #vwcamper #restoration #overhaul #vanlife #rvlife

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