Burning Man 2006
Sep 4th, 2006 by C. Alexander Leigh
It’s hard to say if this is the worst Burning Man I’d ever gone to; 2004 was pretty bad, but (weather), this was horrible. The reasons were less about the event (I don’t buy into BM sucks more every year), and more practical and personal.
We loaded down Remington with a couple of passengers and a truly impressive amount of gear. I want to say we were under the GVWR. I want to believe. A week or two prior the cooling system had been acting a little weak, culminating with the plastic coolant overflow tank blowing a seam. I replaced the tank and hoped that was good enough.
Well, all that weight and some mountains later and the water pump was on it’s last legs. Either it blew whatever was left of the seal (not much I would find out later) or just straight cracked a bearing, but, it was leaking coolant on the way out to the event. I hitched a ride with Bryan Wann to Reno (the closest LR dealer) and then replaced the waterpump in the field. Given limited tools this proved to be a pretty big challenge, and I ended up having to build some tools. Thank god for Bryan and his receiver-mounted vice and surplus EMC.
We made the trip back home more or less uneventfully, other than it tended to overheat on the mountains (maybe gear, maybe clogged radiator, probably a good part the crappy coolant mix). The over-heating from the blown seam also melted out the radiator plug – the OEM part is plastic, a weak point on an otherwise great coolant system. Replaced mine with brass, replace yours, too, before it’s a problem. EE sells them, as do most auto parts places.
The event itself went by as a sort of surreal procession. Looking back I am not sure I didn’t hallucinate the whole thing, I’ve had dreams that were more vivid.