Pausing for Painful Repairs

We spent the last four days taking care of some unpleasant, but necessary, repairs on Ferd. After a scenic, but hilly, drive through the Cumberland Pass area of West Virginia, we arrived in Fairfax, Va, to try out the local Elks Lodge where we heard they have nice accommodations for rvs. That is so true, but then there was the bad news.


Immediately, Jerry noticed the signs of the transmission oil leek on the back of Ferd and the front of Ole Yeller. Well, we had just had this problem about 1500 miles ago when heading east through Oklahoma. It didn't take long to conclude that the gasket we had replaced at the Allison transmission shop in Tulsa must not have been the entire problem.
Fast forward after conversations with the Foretravel factory in Texas and mechanic shops here.....we have a new bearing in our transmission installed at the Western Branch Diesel repair facility in Manassas, Va. So far the $2700 fix has put Ferd back on the right path.
Our experience with this shop was super. We had a very impressive mechanic, Seth. Here he is pointing out the problems and solutions to Jerry on our transmission. Everyone at Western Branch Diesel was accommodating and seemed professional. They pushed us out of the shop so we could stay in Ferd the first night. So we only had to go to a hotel one night when the transmission was completely removed and we couldn't move outside.
It's not fun to have these problems, but it could have been much worse.
Now we're ready to get on with our plans.