Sunday, December 25, 2016
2016 Holiday Message...
Todd, Shonah, and Chip would like to wish all of our friends and family a very merry and safe holiday season!!
Monday, December 19, 2016
F... O... R... D...
This post is a bit technical in nature for those with an interest. Others can feel free to skip this post for the next one which will be one of our more common travel updates.
Our EarthRoamer is built on a 2006 Ford F-550 Super Duty chassis. We had heard the acronyms before, F.O.R.D. - Found On Road Dead, Fix Or Repair Daily, etc, but never thought there was much to them other than some partisan vehicle enthusiasts. We picked up our EarthRoamer in January of 2014 and after a few customizing projects, made our first trip back to Colorado from Ohio in March of 2014. Not far outside of Denver, and with just slightly more than 40,000 miles on our engine, we lost our engine coolant. We quickly stopped, let the engine cool and refilled the coolant before heading to our "home" Ford Dealer - O'Meara Ford in Denver to have the engine checked out. They diagnosed a blown EGR (Exhaust Gas Recirculation) cooler, oil cooler and EGR valve. We gave the approval to move forward with the work and sat down in their waiting area where we promptly started to research our 6.0 liter Powerstroke engine in more detail.
It didn't take long for us to discover that FORD's 6.0 liter Powerstroke is notorious for certain design flaws which resulted in recalls, class action lawsuits and millions of dollars in awards. Typical problems with this engine include: ruptured EGR cooler, ruptured oil cooler, blown head gaskets/stretched head bolts, cracked water pump impeller, and low voltage FICM (Fuel Injection Control Module) power supply. We also uncovered a company in Mesa, Arizona called Bulletproof Diesel that was founded to fix the Powerstoke's shortcomings.
After spending more than $3,300 to fix this first issue, and reading that this issue repeats itself about every 40,000 miles, we vowed to dig into the Bulletproof design fixes in more detail and stopped by their facility in Mesa, Arizona on one of our trips out west for a tour and to discuss details, options, timing, and pricing to upgrade our engine. By this time, we had also developed stretched head bolts which didn't allow us to utilize our turbo without blowing additional pressure and coolant out our degas bottle. This made going up mountains out west a painfully slow process. Not wanting to immediately shell out $11,000 for Bulletproof's level 3 full service package, we decided to baby our engine until we were closer to the next 40,000 mile failure and ready to commit to the expense.
As Murphy's Law would have it, on our most recent trip out west in August, in the middle of nowhere Kansas, on a farm country road with no cell service, on a hot and humid 100 degree day... we broke down. This time the culprit was a blown fuel injector. We parked in a pull off to the side of the road and started walking toward a grain silo and small group of buildings we had just passed with the hope that there would be a phone available for us to use. A truck with an ATV passed by us and pulled off next to our vehicle. We quickly returned to meet quite a nice agronomist (one who studies soils for agriculture) who let us borrow his cell phone to call AAA. Two hours later, with no tow truck in site, and after setting up our portable generator to run the air conditioning, we set out again for the grain silo where we found an office that allowed us to call and check our status with AAA. They were working on it, but due to our vehicle size, were having difficulty finding someone to tow us. We headed back to our truck to continue waiting when an hour later we had a knock on our door and found the same agronomist who had returned with a cell phone call for us from AAA. They had finally found someone 3 hours away that would tow us, but wanted to confirm details before driving the 3 hours to us. Needless to say, it was 7 hours after we broke down, before the flat bed trailer would arrive to tow us another 100 miles to the nearest Ford dealer in Hays, Kansas.
The only good thing we can say about the Ford dealer in Hays, Kansas is that they had a 30 amp outlet we were able to use over the 4 days it took to get our 1 fuel injector replaced. After shelling out another $800 of unplanned repair expenses and wasting several days, Shonah and I decided it was time to commit to bullet proofing our engine. Using our "home away from home" at Copper Mountain Resort in Colorado, we drove our vehicle to Mesa, Arizona and returned with a rental car to wait the two weeks it would take to do the full level 3 bullet proofing.
Two weeks later, we put the "new" engine through its paces going through the mountains on our way from Arizona back to Colorado. Not once did we have to drop below 65 miles per hour going up hill and could even accelerate to pass other vehicles when desired. It was a significant $13,000 investment, but we now have an engine that finally performs incredibly well, even with our vehicle weight and size, and which should now be reliable for another 100,000 miles or more.
STEV now proudly wears the Bulletproof Diesel badging to signify that he has:
Our EarthRoamer is built on a 2006 Ford F-550 Super Duty chassis. We had heard the acronyms before, F.O.R.D. - Found On Road Dead, Fix Or Repair Daily, etc, but never thought there was much to them other than some partisan vehicle enthusiasts. We picked up our EarthRoamer in January of 2014 and after a few customizing projects, made our first trip back to Colorado from Ohio in March of 2014. Not far outside of Denver, and with just slightly more than 40,000 miles on our engine, we lost our engine coolant. We quickly stopped, let the engine cool and refilled the coolant before heading to our "home" Ford Dealer - O'Meara Ford in Denver to have the engine checked out. They diagnosed a blown EGR (Exhaust Gas Recirculation) cooler, oil cooler and EGR valve. We gave the approval to move forward with the work and sat down in their waiting area where we promptly started to research our 6.0 liter Powerstroke engine in more detail.
It didn't take long for us to discover that FORD's 6.0 liter Powerstroke is notorious for certain design flaws which resulted in recalls, class action lawsuits and millions of dollars in awards. Typical problems with this engine include: ruptured EGR cooler, ruptured oil cooler, blown head gaskets/stretched head bolts, cracked water pump impeller, and low voltage FICM (Fuel Injection Control Module) power supply. We also uncovered a company in Mesa, Arizona called Bulletproof Diesel that was founded to fix the Powerstoke's shortcomings.
After spending more than $3,300 to fix this first issue, and reading that this issue repeats itself about every 40,000 miles, we vowed to dig into the Bulletproof design fixes in more detail and stopped by their facility in Mesa, Arizona on one of our trips out west for a tour and to discuss details, options, timing, and pricing to upgrade our engine. By this time, we had also developed stretched head bolts which didn't allow us to utilize our turbo without blowing additional pressure and coolant out our degas bottle. This made going up mountains out west a painfully slow process. Not wanting to immediately shell out $11,000 for Bulletproof's level 3 full service package, we decided to baby our engine until we were closer to the next 40,000 mile failure and ready to commit to the expense.
As Murphy's Law would have it, on our most recent trip out west in August, in the middle of nowhere Kansas, on a farm country road with no cell service, on a hot and humid 100 degree day... we broke down. This time the culprit was a blown fuel injector. We parked in a pull off to the side of the road and started walking toward a grain silo and small group of buildings we had just passed with the hope that there would be a phone available for us to use. A truck with an ATV passed by us and pulled off next to our vehicle. We quickly returned to meet quite a nice agronomist (one who studies soils for agriculture) who let us borrow his cell phone to call AAA. Two hours later, with no tow truck in site, and after setting up our portable generator to run the air conditioning, we set out again for the grain silo where we found an office that allowed us to call and check our status with AAA. They were working on it, but due to our vehicle size, were having difficulty finding someone to tow us. We headed back to our truck to continue waiting when an hour later we had a knock on our door and found the same agronomist who had returned with a cell phone call for us from AAA. They had finally found someone 3 hours away that would tow us, but wanted to confirm details before driving the 3 hours to us. Needless to say, it was 7 hours after we broke down, before the flat bed trailer would arrive to tow us another 100 miles to the nearest Ford dealer in Hays, Kansas.
 |
| Poor STEV, broke down in the middle of nowhere Kansas. |
 |
| STEV finally loaded on the flat bed trailer. It was a bit unnerving to look back at our vehicle bouncing around as our driver (who had a Bulletproofed 6.0 liter Powerstroke engine) sped down the road at 70 miles an hour. |
The only good thing we can say about the Ford dealer in Hays, Kansas is that they had a 30 amp outlet we were able to use over the 4 days it took to get our 1 fuel injector replaced. After shelling out another $800 of unplanned repair expenses and wasting several days, Shonah and I decided it was time to commit to bullet proofing our engine. Using our "home away from home" at Copper Mountain Resort in Colorado, we drove our vehicle to Mesa, Arizona and returned with a rental car to wait the two weeks it would take to do the full level 3 bullet proofing.
Two weeks later, we put the "new" engine through its paces going through the mountains on our way from Arizona back to Colorado. Not once did we have to drop below 65 miles per hour going up hill and could even accelerate to pass other vehicles when desired. It was a significant $13,000 investment, but we now have an engine that finally performs incredibly well, even with our vehicle weight and size, and which should now be reliable for another 100,000 miles or more.
STEV now proudly wears the Bulletproof Diesel badging to signify that he has:
- new Bulletproof designed EGR cooler
- new Bulletproof designed remote mounted oil cooler
- new Bulletproof designed remote mounted oil filter
- new Bulletproof designed FICM power supply
- overhauled heads with new hardened exhaust valve seats
- new head studs
- updated head gaskets
- new fuel injectors
- upgraded water pump with aluminum impeller
- new thermostat
- cleaned and reassembled intake manifold and turbo charger
- new oil pressure switch, seals and fluids
- an extensive 200 mile test drive prior to pick-up
Saturday, August 13, 2016
Cash Rebates and Rewards...
Lots of people ask us how we can afford to travel full-time without working while on the road. Without going into how we prepared ourselves financially for travelling full-time which is included in our blog bio and FAQ's, we will instead share a few of the ways we save money and earn cash rebates which we try to maximize everyday.
Here are just a few ways that we earn or save money....
1. We try to use our cash back credit cards wherever and whenever we can to generate cash rebates. Not that we want to promote increasing credit card spending or to recommend specific credit cards, we simply look for ways to earn cash rebates from the purchases that we are going to make anyway. We like to use a combination of credit cards in order to maximize the cash rebates we are able to earn. We use the Chase Freedom card for those purchases that qualify for the quarterly bonus categories earning us 5% cash back on those purchases. And in general, we place all other transactions on our Citibank Double Cash card earning us 2% cash back versus the 1% cash back that we would earn if we used the Chase Freedom card. On occasion, we may introduce other cards in the mix based on sign-up bonuses or other bonus opportunities that come up from time to time. Just to give an idea, we have earned over $3,400 in cash rewards since we started travelling full-time.
2. While looking for additional rebate opportunities, Shonah came across various blogs discussing shopping rebate apps and websites. There are a variety of cash rebate apps and websites out there, but the main shopping app we use is ibotta (available for Apple and Android). Ibotta is a smartphone app that earns us cash rebates on everyday purchases from many of the stores that we shop from including big box retailers, major grocery stores, some clothing stores, and even some restaurants. Since signing up this year, we have earned $116 in gift cards that we redeemed for Amazon and Starbucks. The majority of those rebates came from grocery and alcohol purchases (mostly from Walmart or major grocery store chains) that we were going to make anyway. If you are interested in earning rebates from ibotta, feel free to use our referral code: hmgione to earn cash back and not only will you get a $10 sign-on bonus after submitting your first rebate, using the referral code will add you to our team increasing the team's opportunities to earn monthly cash bonuses based on total team rebate submissions. In addition to ibotta, we use the SavingStar and Find&Save apps but those aren't as extensive in their offerings as ibotta.
3. In addition to earning cash rebates using the apps, to save money at the time of purchase we utilize the Retail Me Not, Coupon Sherpa, and Gas Buddy apps for discounts and specials. The Gas Buddy app gives us the ability to seek out the lowest prices for diesel for STEV and premium for STEV II. Since using the app, we have saved hundreds of dollars on fuel since Gas Buddy shows us the huge swings in prices from one block to the next. We also print manufacturer coupons from the Walmart coupon page that can be used at any store that accepts coupons.
4. While online shopping isn't always convenient for delivery of physical items while travelling, we still take advantage whenever we can. Amazon.com is one of our favorite online shopping websites and use it extensively while at home and whenever convenient while on the road. And thanks to one of our very good friends, we are grandfathered on his Prime friend's membership which allows us to take full advantage of the 2-day Prime shipping benefit.
5. We also try to keep our legacy airline, hotel and car reward programs active to retain those previously earned points, miles, or membership. The most prominent opportunity is earning airline miles from retail and dining purchases wherever possible since while we enjoy travelling in STEV, we also like to travel by flight from time to time.
Just some quick tips on ways that we obtain cash rebates and rewards to supplement our spending money while traveling that can also be used by everyone. Happy Shopping...
Here are just a few ways that we earn or save money....
1. We try to use our cash back credit cards wherever and whenever we can to generate cash rebates. Not that we want to promote increasing credit card spending or to recommend specific credit cards, we simply look for ways to earn cash rebates from the purchases that we are going to make anyway. We like to use a combination of credit cards in order to maximize the cash rebates we are able to earn. We use the Chase Freedom card for those purchases that qualify for the quarterly bonus categories earning us 5% cash back on those purchases. And in general, we place all other transactions on our Citibank Double Cash card earning us 2% cash back versus the 1% cash back that we would earn if we used the Chase Freedom card. On occasion, we may introduce other cards in the mix based on sign-up bonuses or other bonus opportunities that come up from time to time. Just to give an idea, we have earned over $3,400 in cash rewards since we started travelling full-time.
2. While looking for additional rebate opportunities, Shonah came across various blogs discussing shopping rebate apps and websites. There are a variety of cash rebate apps and websites out there, but the main shopping app we use is ibotta (available for Apple and Android). Ibotta is a smartphone app that earns us cash rebates on everyday purchases from many of the stores that we shop from including big box retailers, major grocery stores, some clothing stores, and even some restaurants. Since signing up this year, we have earned $116 in gift cards that we redeemed for Amazon and Starbucks. The majority of those rebates came from grocery and alcohol purchases (mostly from Walmart or major grocery store chains) that we were going to make anyway. If you are interested in earning rebates from ibotta, feel free to use our referral code: hmgione to earn cash back and not only will you get a $10 sign-on bonus after submitting your first rebate, using the referral code will add you to our team increasing the team's opportunities to earn monthly cash bonuses based on total team rebate submissions. In addition to ibotta, we use the SavingStar and Find&Save apps but those aren't as extensive in their offerings as ibotta.
3. In addition to earning cash rebates using the apps, to save money at the time of purchase we utilize the Retail Me Not, Coupon Sherpa, and Gas Buddy apps for discounts and specials. The Gas Buddy app gives us the ability to seek out the lowest prices for diesel for STEV and premium for STEV II. Since using the app, we have saved hundreds of dollars on fuel since Gas Buddy shows us the huge swings in prices from one block to the next. We also print manufacturer coupons from the Walmart coupon page that can be used at any store that accepts coupons.
4. While online shopping isn't always convenient for delivery of physical items while travelling, we still take advantage whenever we can. Amazon.com is one of our favorite online shopping websites and use it extensively while at home and whenever convenient while on the road. And thanks to one of our very good friends, we are grandfathered on his Prime friend's membership which allows us to take full advantage of the 2-day Prime shipping benefit.
5. We also try to keep our legacy airline, hotel and car reward programs active to retain those previously earned points, miles, or membership. The most prominent opportunity is earning airline miles from retail and dining purchases wherever possible since while we enjoy travelling in STEV, we also like to travel by flight from time to time.
Just some quick tips on ways that we obtain cash rebates and rewards to supplement our spending money while traveling that can also be used by everyone. Happy Shopping...
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