Melted Me

The engine compartment of my motorhome used to get hot. Very hot. So hot that on a hot summer day I could not drive it without paying at least some attention to the placement of my right foot while cruising down the road (on cruise control). This is because if my (bare) foot touched the metal case of the cowling (doghouse) next to my foot I would get a burn. That metal rim would reach temperatures high enough to leave skin stuck to it and leave me howling for some ice cubes.   The 440 Dodge exhaust manifolds are carried high on the motor and very close to the shielded floor panels. There had to be a way to attack this hot problem. A call to Hooker headers and some $$$ later I was looking at a half a days work and the possibility of much decreased Band-Aid support. I yanked off the stock cast pieces and put the new, better designed tubes in place. They even LOOKED cooler. I couldn't wait to try them on a trip.   A few days later I took the rig out for the weekend. Cabin temperatures were much lower as was the temperature of the metal band which I had been giving all sorts of names since I owned the thing. It seemed like it still could be better. I thought I could prevent even more heat from entering that metal piece AND my cabin. I ordered up some of the (new then) exhaust wrap.   I took the rig out again and just as the ads promised, the temperatures were dramatically improved. I could now touch the metal band with my hand and it felt about as warm as it should. I would put my bare foot on it for miles just to "get even" with it. I had a trip to Glamis coming up - perfect timing. I would be driving my rig and towing a trailer. The long haul to Sand Land.   Three other guys were coming with me. The 20' trailer looked stressed with 5 quads. My TRX, a Quadzilla (500), a Banshee, a LT 250 and another friends TRX250R. The 500 was running alcohol, so it had a hundred gallons of the stuff on board. Add to it 2, 55 gallon drums of 113 ERC for my TRX and the Banshee. The other bikes ran pump gas, but we had it all in plastic cans on the trailer. The trailer looked like a rolling bomb.   We always go to Glamis with plenty of wood to burn and this trip would be no different. We placed pieces of wood in every possible space we could. All totaled there must have been about 1/2 chord on the trailer. It was piled high - I was glad the trailer had double 3500 lb axles.   Once loaded up with the necessary supplies - more weight from liquids than from food - typical for a guy trip... we were on our way. The big block Dodge would not get any awards for gas mileage this time but it had plenty of power to pull the hills. As heavy as it was, it was still able to pull 45 - 50 MPH up the Grapevine. I was liking it a lot. We would switch drivers every once in a while just for the fun of it. We didn't want anyone to miss the fun. With cruise control on, the driver could slip out from behind the wheel and a new driver could slip right in without even having to stop the vehicle. I don't know where it says that this is illegal - at least there was no mention of it in any of the materials I had that came with the rolling home. There was no mention of additional heat or anything like that from anyone who drove.   I thought I heard a light ticking sound right before a gas stop - perhaps a small header leak so I took a peek under the vehicle to check the collectors. I was surprised to find them glowing and red. I thought that since it was night time the color was exaggerated. There was no mistaking the color though - the headers were cherry red from where I could see them all the way to the collectors. I had a friend verify the color for me as they quickly lost their color as the motor was turned off. Aside from that, everything seemed fine.   From then on, every time we went up a hill I could picture, in my mind, the color of the headers. I wondered if it could start a fire by touching something down there. I was concerned, but not worried. There were several vehicles in our party, if there was a problem one of us would be able to fix it. We motored on. At the next gas stop I joined a friend in the back of another friends cab-over camper. I would ride back there for a while. The nice thing about campers and such is the ability to go to the bathroom while not stopping the vehicle, that is as long as you're not driving. This particular time I went to the bathroom was one I would never forget, because when I got out of the bathroom, my buddy - who was sitting there at the table with me watching TV - was gone. The driver and co-driver were still in their positions, but I was alone in the back. I glanced at the speedometer and noted that we were traveling in access of 70 MPH on highway 5. There's not very much room to hide in the back of a slide in camper, even if it is 11 feet long. I started feeling like a fool. As foolish as I felt I looked out the back door.   There he was. On the trailer. Actually, sitting on his bike, which was sideways on the trailer, traveling 70 MPH down the highway. All the while yelling "Yee-Haaaaaaaa." A certain moving violation for sure. I figured I'd lock him out, since I didn't need that kind of aggravation. After a couple minutes of showing off for the motorists who carefully positioned themselves along side our rolling citation, he decided to come back in. After a couple minutes of him knocking on the door I gave in and opened it. After all I didn't want him to get hurt. The joke was about the look I must have had on my face when I opened the bathroom door and I was alone. Though it was funny - I must have looked very surprised, I worried about the guy with the balls to ride his KDX250 sideways at 70 MPH, standing still. He was college educated and all. What was this world made of. At the next stop, I got back into my own rig.   It turns out that there was a football game on TV that night and everyone wanted to see it - including my friend who was driving. I positioned the TV on the dash so we all could see it. It was a very exciting game and with everyone else watching the game on their own TV's in their own motorhomes the chat on the CB radios got pretty loud. The microphone was getting wet from all the hot air passing over it. Our convoy of vehicles was spread out far enough that the leader couldn't hear the caboose. Maybe a couple miles between the two - all of us in between - I think 6 or 7 vehicles total. A flashing blue light reflects across and into our line of sight. A blue light that was accompanied by a sound. A business like sound, it was saying "Pull over." With all the static of the CB I guess the siren of the police car wasn't heard by any of us. The lights the police use are so small and useless that unless the cop went out of his way to make it flash, there would have been no way we would have even seen the darn thing.   We pulled over. Like a little dog who had just gotten caught doing his duty on the rug, I opened the side door of the RV. The policeman was standing there with a hand on his gun and asked that we all step out of the vehicle. I didn't pay attention to the speed the motorhome was traveling - perhaps it was too fast. The nice cop explained to us that as he was going beside us he noticed a TV on the dash. In plain view if the driver. My friend explained that was so he could see it too. The policeman didn't think that was funny - my friend was being serious, then realized his stupidity. After a few more minutes it looked like the cop was a pretty cool guy. In fact he liked football and even had put in for a shift swap with someone so he could stay home and watch it. After things settled down a bit the policeman said " Is that a pot roast I smell?" It was. My buddy, the cook had been slowly roasting a hunk of flesh as we motored down the freeway and it was at the point where it could be eaten. We made a plate of food for the friendliest policeman I had ever met in a situation like that or any time I had been pulled over or stopped. The cop asked us to not let the driver watch TV as we drove down the road, and gratefully tucked his meal into his car. I think he made out better than we did, but we still made out OK since we didn't get a ticket. We were very close to where we were going.   That little tick-tick sound got a little louder over the miles, but when we turned off the road and onto the sand of the Imperial Sand Dunes it suddenly got real loud. Like a collector gasket had blown out. I wasn't worried, I had a couple extra packs. We got out to stretch our muscles and talk with the drivers of the other rigs. We needed to chat about where we were going to park. Someone noted that he thought he saw a small flash from behind the front tire. I put my hand there - I could feel the exhaust. It wasn't a collector gasket it was coming from the manifold area. Again I wasn't worried, I had spares. Though it is a bit of a pain on the 440 to change them because the exhaust manifold bolts go into the coolant passages which means I would have to drain the coolant before I changed them. We found our place in the sand - made a carrousel with our vehicles and parked them for the week.   In the morning I got up, went outside and started to look at the damage. There was a hole in the header pipe. The hole was about 1" x 1/3" in second pipe from the front. I knew it was loud, now I knew why. I went over to Dirty Bob's to see if he would come and weld it up for me. He said he would come by that night.   I went riding all day long. The sand was so great. It was smooth and new, not rutted and traveled on. It was like I was the only person who had ever been across it. It was evidence that there had been wind there recently. I didn't care about that - though wind is not my favorite kind of weather, I prefer it to rain. It didn't look like it would rain. In the back of my mind I was thinking about the hole in my header.   My friend, the cook started cooking dinner when it started getting dark. I am fortunate enough to have friends who are unique in their talents. Another friend of mine is real good at opening beers, so he was busy opening them while sitting around the fire as another friend took instructions from him as to where there might be beer for HIM to practice opening. We had plenty of coolers. It was easy to get confused with that many vehicles, coolers and brands of beer.   Dirty Bob showed up. I had previously removed the doghouse from the engine to gain additional access to the exhaust header. Dirty Bob looked hungry, especially once he got a look at the meal that was being fixed inside. Bob practiced opening a couple of our beers while he looked over the situation. Imagine my surprise when he poked the tube with a welding rod and the small hole opened up to 10 times its original size. Further probing punched holes in every pipe on that side. The outside of every pipe was gone. The metal was completely wasted. The header wrap had done a wonderful job of keeping heat away from our feet inside the cabin at the expense of crystallizing the metal of the header pipes. They were all bad. Mr. Dirty Bob said it was no big deal and that he had a set of the headers somewhere kicking around and he would exchange them with me. I felt OK about it, though it still was no fun thinking about the huge holes.   The next day we decided to go to Mexico. When you get a bunch of people together to do anything it can be fun. When you get a bunch of ATVers together to make a long trip to a foreign country its even better. One of the guys in our group (who was staying in a different rig) was riding a 350X 3 wheeler. He was a big guy and did not have dirt tires. All he brought were molded rubber v-paddles for the rear. With a 4 stroke on a gravel road and v-paddles they turned every small rock into a projectile. Those v-paddles sent every rock at sling shot velocity. Rocks were sailing past us with alarming speed, consistency and regularity. I choose to let the big boy stay up front while I gathered some thoughts after getting pelted in the neck by a near golf ball sized stone. It was all I could do to keep breathing. Several minutes would pass before I could continue - probably just as well because just ahead my friend who had the other TRX that was on my trailer was stopped beside the road. I thought he had a similar thing happen to him - he didn't. As we made eye contact he was indicating to me that his motor was not compressing. A victim of the midrange lean out. I towed him back to camp. I knew I had parts to help him, but it was later revealed that when it went lean it holed the piston, sprayed the interior of the motor with aluminum and took out the main bearings. Those I didn't have - nor did anyone else around there. Even the dealer in El Centro didn't have them then. Fortunately he was the friend who was real good at opening beers because he would get much practice doing it for the rest of the week.   As I was towing him back to camp, another friend of mine was on the side of the road. The LT500 was sitting idle. That's a whole lot more common to see than a similarly positioned TRX. In this case however, things were not as bad as they could have been. He too had been pelted by stones. He had been hit so hard that his headlight was severely smashed and one rock had hit him hard enought o break a section of his chest protector. He was bent over in pain from the rock that had hit him there. It was not funny. We waited for him to get his wind back before we all started back to camp.   Several hours passed before the Mexico riders would come home. In the meantime I made trips to my favorite spots and checked out the sand scene at the store. It was getting busier and busier every day. I liked to stop there to see all the other people and the machines they ride. A ride to Dirty Bob's showed that he hadn't forgotten about me. Indeed he had located a header set and he would have time to work on it the next day. My friend and I compared our bruises - his purple bruise to my "hickey" looking one. The 350X rider was dumbfounded by it all - "Me?" he said?   Several of us went dune cruising the next day and found places like China Wall and others. It was fun locating them. Even more fun cruising up them. I found out that there are steeper hills out there just traveling to the "steepest" hills. Even when shifting all the body weight forward - sitting on the tank - it was way too easy to become light and feel the front airborn. There are hills out there without a name that are so steep that they are kept a secret. If everyone rode them they might get flattened. It's probably best to not tell others about them - or where they are.   During one ride my buddy on the LT250 was having a tremendous amount of fun. So much fun that he may have not been paying attention to his RPM or the amount of time he had spent at that RPM. Had a dirt tracker turned road racer background. I think he got lost in the sound of the engine as he worked the hillside over for those last few RPM because the connecting rod strongly protested by showing itself to him - through the cases. He would spend the rest of the week practicing opening beers too. The aluminum recyclers would be happy to see us when we rolled into town.   All week long I checked with Bob, and finally he would come through for me. It turns out I didn't need to worry at all because once he knew the day I was going to leave, he had secretly decided that he didn't need to get the job done until I was ready to leave. He had taken my header, cut the tubes from it and in their place welded in the tubes of an old header set he had laying around. For what it was and where it was happening, it was wonderful work. It looked like it would work and he only asked for $30. He probably only asked for that much because he practiced opening a couple of 12 packs of brew and ate with us a few times while he was "measuring things."   When everything was together it sounded ok. I had to use a couple of header gaskets on one side because the plate was warped a bit but I was able to clearance the holes and draw it in better once it got hot. I would be able to leave on time with the others and have a quiet motorhome to boot. Things were looking ok. The week was over, I had learned a lot and my ride home was fixed.   A couple hundred miles into the trip the exhaust started to tick again. Only this time when it ticked, it got louder very fast. Suddenly it was so loud it became unbearable. I had to stop. Quickly pulling off the doghouse revealed a new hole in a piece of the pipe that had not been replaced. I had nothing to repair it with, except beer cans... The tin snips cut pieces of cans to make a multi layered patch. With 4 layers of Bud cans and a couple of hose clamps, the sound quieted way down. We were on our way again - but we needed to get gas first.   Normally getting gas is no big deal. And it wasn't this night either, except that when it's late and there's a lot on the mind things happen. What happened was a very mild (in boating terms it would be called a near miss) touch of the trailer tire to the pole protecting the gas pump when pulling out. I stopped to look - as a wonderful woman said to me " You just rubbed the pole." Fine. No big deal.   About 40 miles passed before we heard that noise that was starting to become more than just bothersome. Stopping again to look revealed yet another piece of pipe that had burst. This time there were no more patches. We had trashed the bulk of beer cans and since it was the middle of the night, there were no people practicing opening new ones. I looked across the street where there was a trucker checking the air in his tires. I approached him and told him of my dilemma. He responded by giving me the only thing he had, a couple of empty cat food cans. They would help, though they were small. We snipped them up and patched the hole to be on our way quickly. We were getting low on patching material and clamps.   With about a hundred miles to go another pipe bursts. Exhaust is spewing out and screaming as it does so. The sound from the big block Dodge is frightening. People in vehicles we pass look at us as though we were hurting their ears on purpose. The noise inside the rig was incredible. Anyone who had tried to sleep could no longer even try. I got a headache from the noise and switched positions with my friend who would try driving for a while. I stuck a couple of cigarette filters in my ears. It helped a bit. I found the Tylenol for my headache. This was not funny. Up front the drivers were munching on peanuts to pass the miles. It turns out that peanuts fit real well in the ears too, since both guys up front used them to plug the sound. With at least 3 header pipes opened up and a couple of others leaking badly, the volume was much, much louder than any rock concert I had ever been to. Even in the loudest concert I've been to, though I could not hear the person next to me, I could always hear myself think. This was loud enough that I could not even do that. Cruising down the road with 14 thousand pounds of vehicle and towing several more thousand pounds, it was putting a load on it in such a way to extract every possible decibel of sound that could be extracted. I started to think that even the exhaust that was going out the "good" pipes was exiting the bad pipes, just to make me mad.   There was a new sound under the hood. Though with only 30 miles to go it hardly mattered. The alternator belt decided to come off and get eaten when the air conditioning clutch decided to seize. We would be running on battery power the rest of the trip. Stopping now meant making things worse.   We reached our destiny. And turned off the engine. Those of us who could forget the sound for a couple of minutes were able to get to sleep. Those of us who couldn't starred at those of us who could. The morning would come soon, and to me, too soon. Having forgotten about the "near miss" completely, the daylight came upon the trailer to expose its ugliness. It was clear that the tire had been hit hard enough to bend the axle enough to point the tire outwards and start an incredible black line down the road. At some point the tire must have worn through because all that was left was a messed up rim, and a bead or rubber connected to it. If you looked closely you could tell it used to be part of a tire. Again I was glad for 2 axles.   When all was done and the headers were taken off, I noticed several articles that had sprouted up about the heat retention abilities of header wrap and how its not always advisable. Funny how I never saw those articles before I burned out the pipes. I got a new set of headers and had them ceramic coated. Screw the wrap. Ceramic did the trick. The ceramic is still on them, and keeps my driver compartment as cool as the wrap. The metal rim gets warm, but not hot.   When I learn things the hard way, I learn them in a way that makes its value make sense.   Rick

Date Last Modified: 5/23/99
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