Thank You Dodge!

Well, after reading our blog, the powers-that-be at Dodge decided to step up and offer us a vehicle with a little more power.

We just need to find some 335mm wide low profile snow tires and we're good to go. If we can't find the tires, then we'll just have to stick with the Ram pickup. :)

More packages arrived.

Boxes from PIAA and ARB came this week! When I picked up the lights at PIAA's HQ in December, we forgot wiper blades. The pair that came in the mail are their Super Sporza silicone blades, which will do an great job, (we have some on Eric's rally car.)

ARB sent us a vehicle recovery strap, their largest, rated at 15,000 kg and 30' long. Ideally, this will only be used to haul Subarus and Mistubishis from the ditch. Knock on wood!

Thank You Safe Drives!

Thank you to Safe Drives for the generous donation of safety gear! Emergency Triangles, a re-usable flare, and an extra bright reverse light came along with some brackets for securing things in the truck (like our shovel, hoe, or AR-15).

The coolest part of the package is the first-aid kit. This "rally" kit meets requirements of rally sanctioning bodies in the U.S. It is packed with everything that we hope we don't need! It has a nifty handle to secure it to a roll bar. I really like it!

Thank you Ross and Tammy Jo!!!

I got home from work to a big care package from Ross and Tammy Jo H. today! Frank told me there was a package on the way, but I had no idea! Thank you!

In addition to head-lights and flashlights, we now have a nice extension cord good down to -40C, a splitter that will allow us to plug in both battery blankets and the block heater, and an AC circuit tester, to make sure whatever outlet we find has juice! We also received six bottles of Power Service Diesel Fuel supplement.


Here's one of Abby checking out the new circuit tester:

A skunk in the truck.

After clearing the snow off the truck this morning, I got in and fired it up. Then I noticed a smell, later localized to our new floor mats.

You know when you're in a car and smell a roadkill skunk, kind of faint, but still bad? That is what these smell like.

Some google searches for "hexomat smell", "hexomat stink", and "hexomat skunk", all turn up results similar to those I'm experiencing.

I'm going to through them in the back of the truck tomorrow and see if just being exposed to the air will make the skunk smell go away. I don't really want to return them, so I hope that works.

THANK YOU TEC TRUCKS!

This week we received a HUGE donation of oil and supplies from TEC Trucks. There's enough oil here to give the truck an oil change before and after the Alcan.

We're really lucky to have their support and owe a big thank you to Tim for bringing this stuff over!

Wrenching, Day 2

Bill and I got together on Saturday to get some more done on the truck. We started the morning with a trip to Andy and Bax military surplus store to look for some warm clothes. Most everything they sell is camouflage, but we still came home with some warm sock liners. Andy and Bax also sells wrestling masks and sailor caps, but we passed.

We got our new tires mounted today, thanks to Scott Huhn of Black Sun racing services.

Next, Doug finished up the light wiring, and ran power into the cab for the radios.

Speaking of radios, Bill got those mounted. We're taking two radios- A Yaesu HAM radio, and a Midland VHF radio. The Midland radio will be our main radio, operating on the same frequency as every other Alcan competitor. The HAM radio will serve as a backup to Midland and also let us chat with others who are using HAMs. We'll also bring Motorola FRS radios, and for a last resort, a long string connecting two soup cans.






































Our new floor mats also arrived. Since Frank has been so kind as to loan us his truck, we're going out of our way to take care of it. If the floor ever thaws out after the event, we don't want the carpet to be soaked!















And here's a photo of the whole truck!

Got a new goody today!!

When I dropped off Abby at Mom and Peter's this morning, Peter gave me a new headlight. It's a Petzl TACTIKKA Plus. It is a 4 LED light with three brightness levels and a flash. But he really cool feature is a red lens that flips over the LEDs.

It's nice and light, and the band will fit around my big head!

With red filter:



Without:


Testing it out it's map-illuminating capabilities in the dark:

We've got a lot of work to do this weekend, so stay tuned!

First day of wrench turning.

After months of planning, we finally started turning wrenches on the Dodge. I met up with Doug at 10:00 Saturday morning and we planned our course of attack: a trip to GI Joes for parts/accessories, look at some tires Doug found on craigslist, pick up an order of vinyl decals from Paul, install fog lights/wiring, install driving lights/wiring, install block heater cord, and try to sort out some radio programming demons.

Our trip to GI Joes netted us one more fuel filter, an air filter, some ice scrapers, and spare headlight bulbs. It should have provided us with a 5 gallon diesel fuel can, but I left it on a shelf in the store and forgot all about it.


Next stop, tires. They looked a lot better in person than they did on the craigslist ad, (or probably in the pictures below. We bought the set, and now just need to find two more.



After we got back to Doug's, we pulled the truck most of the way into the garage, (it's too long for the whole truck to fit in,) and started working on the lights. Doug volunteered for the unenviable job of wiring, while I mounted the brackets and the lights. Since we haven't sourced our lighbar yet, (maybe today?) we only installed the driving light harness.

Fog lamps mounted and with bezel.



After mounting up the fogs, I installed the block heater cord. Apparently, all Dodge Rams w/the Cummins diesel engine come with a block heater, but not all have the cord. Thanks to Cummins NW for the cord ($13.62,) and more importantly, its location! The plug is under the exhaust manifold, forward of the turbo, aft of the oil filter. I tried getting to it from the top, but eventually was successful from the bottom.

Top view:


Bottom view:


Installed, picture taken from the top facing forward, turbo inlet hose in the foreground:


In the meantime, Doug had managed to sort out this mess...

and route it through the firewall, to the lights.

We used Doug's heat gun to warm up our lens protectors, (thick 3M vinyl,) to make them easier to mount to our lights.



After dinner, we hooked up our surplus Midland VHF radio, and tried to get it to send/recieve on 151.625. We still have to make it work on that freq, but have confirmed that it will send and recieve on the HAM bands.


We still have lots left to do: lightbar, radio mounting, find two more tires, change the oil in the diffs, ditto t-case and engine, etc, etc. It's starting to come together nicely though!

-Bill

Brought the truck home today.

We went down to visit Frank and Delphine this weekend and to bring the truck back to Portland. We left the Nissan down in North Bend, where it will undergo some minor cosmetic surgery. We had a good time in North Bend.

Abby was a little confused as to why we were going in "Grandpa's truck."

We stopped in Eugene to visit my Pop, and raid the collective stash of cold weather gear there. My best find was a pair of mukluks that my brother had when he used to live in Denali.

I also found my old cold-weather combat boots that I had while I was in Germany. I was beginning to think that maybe I'd Goodwilled them, so it was a relief to find them.

Traffic was nice and light today until north of Woodburn.

Sponsors

We're still holding our breath that a tire sponsor will come through for us. Hankook went with the Mitsu team, (nice one Jeff!) and Maxxis said "nice proposal, but we don't have anything that would work for you." Found a nice set on craigslist, but the seller is mighty proud of them! We'll have to make a decision soon.

I would have to say our biggest sponsor right now is my father-in-law, Frank Green, the mayor of Hauser, Oregon. He not only is lending us his '04 Dodge towing-beast, but is currently in the process of turning 20 lbs. of top sirloin into jerky for us.


Next, I have to thank Ricardo at PIAA for generously providing the additional lighting for the Dodge. Stay tuned for the install!

We received the most gracious "sorry, but no" letter from Garmin that either of us had ever seen, and they offered some discounts if we were interested in buying. Hella is focused on Baja racing right now, but also offered to put us in touch with a vendor for some "racer pricing."

I thought we'd be a shoe in for a Warn sponsorship, (I'd interned there as a MECOP, and later went back to work as a contract engineer,) given the nature of the event and the eventual need for vehicle recovery, but I was wrong. At the time, we had no secured media exposure, so I understand Warn's decision.

We got a few steps up the ladder w/Toyota, angling for a FJ Cruiser or one of the new Tundras. Sterling Truck agreed to lend us one of there demonstration Bullets, (thanks for trying Matt and Jeff!) but we couldn't sort out the insurance issues.

All in all, it's been quite an experience submitting these proposals. Though most have gone unanswered, everyone who has replied, even with a negative, has been nice.

Early Alcan planning.

As I remember it, and Doug can correct me if I get this backward, I first approached him with the idea of doing the Alcan in late summer of 2006. Looking back through old emails though, it looks like Doug’s idea!

Email from Doug on 9/6/06:

“…Alcan Winter. Want to do it in 2008? Let's start planning.

DH “

We both thought it would be fun, and at that point, it seemed a loooong way away.

With a little encouragement from Paul Eklund, we got our deposits in to Jerry Hines, the Alcan Rallymaster by the end of the year. We asked Paul enough questions that he decided to host an Alcan informational meeting at Primitive Racing World Headquarters in Tigard, OR.

We kicked the idea of a Subaru around for a while. I used that as an excused to put the snow tires on my GTI and headed over the mountain to talk to Barrett at All Wheels Driven. Barrett said an Outback Sport 2.2 would be just the thing, only neither Doug or I had one. Still, it was a fun trip, minus the one snowbank at Timberline.

Jeff Zurschmeide gave us a killer leg-up on creating a sponsorship proposal. First we would try to find someone (company) to let us drive one of their vehicles, then maybe tires, lights, etc. Any cost we could defray would be great.

Not to say we didn't have some second thoughts:

Email from Doug on 4/13/07:

“Hey Bill-

Are you still hot on the Alcan? We need to decide sometime soon if we want our deposit back.

Doug”

Email from Bill on 8/25/07

“Hey Doug,

Are you still interested in pursuing it?

-Bill”

Email back from Doug on 8/25/07

"Hi Bill,

Do you think they, (Sterling...more on that later,) could get us the dump truck version? Send it. If they give us a truck, I'll find a way to do it.

Doug"

Bill Beers and Doug Heredos take on Alcan 5000

The 2008 Alcan 5000 Winter Rally runs from February 17th to February 27th.

With generous support from our employers (in the form of paychecks every two weeks), and with wild support from our spouses, Bill Beers and Doug Heredos will be there.

The rally starts in Kirkland, Washington and travels through Canada and Alaska North of the Arctic circle.

It's cold up there.

Bill and Doug have secured a 2004 Dodge Ram 2500 Turbo Diesel from Bill's father-in-law, Frank. This truck will serve as an ideal platform to plow through snow, tow out our competitors, keep us warm, and show off our real sponsors wares.

The truck will be generously outfitted with lighting, wipers, and protective films from PIAA.

Keep an eye on this blog for more information about the preparation of the truck with all the cold weather gear that is needed to survive in -40 degree weather, as well as photos and video of trip.