After the Very Large Array, Abbey and I stayed at the Datil Land Management Campground where we were the only ones there. The temperature got down to 12 degrees during the night, but Abbey and I stayed warm by keeping the top on Evelyn down and running our small heater all night.

In the morning, Evelyn was exceedingly difficult to start. I had to parallel the house battery to the starting battery, and the way she coughed and sputtered once she fired up was moderately disturbing to me. We set off West and started to have problems immediately. Evelyn was momentarily cutting out and “bucking” as we tried to drive, but under idle and no-load conditions she was OK. Introduce the slightest bit of acceleration or hill though, and the intense bucking was so bad I wasn’t able to get over about 15 mph. It figures this was the day we were cresting the continental divide in the middle of nowhere, with no phone reception, in February.

I immediately suspected a fuel issue. We had just filled up the day before at a somewhat seedy gas station, so I wondered if there was a bunch of sediment in the gas or maybe water that had frozen overnight. The fuel pump also seemed to be unusually noisy, and I wondered if the original unit, with 290,000 miles on it, was finally giving up the ghost.

I pulled over on the side of the road and prepped myself. It had warmed to about 16 degrees outside but the howling winds were so fierce I bet the windchill was subzero. I mentally went through what I was going to do outside and prepped the tools. With a deep breath I jumped outside and crawled under the van. I disconnected the fuel line from the tank and got free flow of gas. I rodded the line back to the tank with bailing wire, but the amount of gas that came out had me convinced I didn’t have blockage before the pump.

Next I disconnected the fuel filter and poured out the gas – there was some sediment, so I hooked up the filter backwards and then gave the pump power to backflush the sludge onto the ground (sorry, environment). The gas that came out was pretty clean, though. I then reinstalled the filter in the correct orientation.

Since I carry a spare fuel pump, (but not a filter, oops) I decided to put that in. The new pump had different electrical connectors so I had to cut and splice the wiring a bit. Regardless, I got through all these efforts in maybe 10 minutes. The evaporative cooling powers of gas plus the windchill meant that my hands were quite numb, though.

We hopped back in Evelyn and started down the road. And….. no change. The problem is still there. Damn. Since we were now past the continental divide, we more or less coasted into Pie Town, New Mexico, and decided to go warm up and eat pie at The Gathering Place.

New Mexico Apple Pie is like normal apple pie but with pine nuts and green chiles that give it just the right amount of heat. We talked with the two employees – the only other people in the place – at length about how they ended up in such a remote area and what it’s like living out there. After telling them of our van problems, the lady offered to drive a few miles down the road to get a bottle of heet for us, since I was still partially suspecting a frozen fuel line. We took her up on her offer.

I dumped the bottle of heat in the tank and after profuse thank-yous and goodbyes we left Pie Town towards Quemado. It’s the next “town” over, 22 miles away, where there was a small repair shop. They didn’t have the right fuel filter, but they did have a filter of similar dimensions and application for a Ford something-or-other. I installed it in the parking lot, filled the tank with premium, and….. no. Problem still there. Two old timers at the garage (and a couple onlookers, as it seems this garage is the town meeting place to gossip about the weather) listened to the engine, poked around, and were stumped like me.

I started to question my initial assumption that it was a fuel problem, so I began scouring the ignition system. I took off the cap and rotor. They looked fine, but I swapped them anyways for known working spares that I carry. I inspected all the plug wiring and ignition coil connections. I checked the engine grounds and took ohm readings to verify good connections. I took ohm readings on the primary and secondary ignition coils. I swapped in a spare coil anyways. And I wiggled and poked things while the engine was running because sometimes that will identify problems. None of this helped.

Abbey and I decided to turn back and head towards Albuquerque. Now is not the time to be heading deeper into the backwoods of New Mexico.

Limping along with our hazard lights on, we finally made it to Socorro where there was a NAPA. I got some electrical contact cleaner, the correct fuel filter, and more heet. I went through all the electrical connections, pulled each spark plug to inspect, but still found nothing that fixed or pointed to the problem. And now we were in a pickle, because there were really only two ways to get to Albuquerque from here. One was the busy I-25 with screaming 75mph traffic and Friday rush-hour traffic. The other was a string of winding remote dirt roads that took you miles out of the way.

Abbey and I started limping down the back roads, but the first hill we came too was so steep Evelyn simply couldn’t get up it. She sputtered and stalled and I knew that this way would be impossible. We turned around and realized our fate: tow truck time. I wasn’t about to get on I-25 going 15mph during Friday night rush hour traffic.

I hold a sense of pride in my ability to maintain vehicles, and calling the tow truck was very hard for me. I felt dejected and lost. A problem I couldn’t figure out.

The tow truck driver went 87mph up the I-25: certainly the fastest Evelyn has ever been. It was only 60 miles to Albuquerque, so we were there in no time.

We dropped Evelyn at Foreign Aide, a vintage air-cooled VW shop that will have all the tools, parts, and experience to figure out what’s wrong (hopefully). Not every city has such a place, so I guess it’s good we weren’t too far. My wonderful cousin Dave was there to pick Abbey and I up, and we’ll be staying with him and his wife Ariel in Albuquerque until we get this figured out.

Bummer!