June 27, 2017 - We left NAVSUBBASE - Kings Bay early on Friday, June 23rd, and headed north up I-95 and everything went smoothly. We had packed lunch so we stopped at a rest area in South Carolina for lunch and then we were back on the road. Arrived at Twin Lakes RV Resort around 6:00 PM and got checked in. Then back out into the rig to drive to our camp site. Started the engine and went to shift into drive and the gear shift lever just flopped to the bottom of its travel. There was no connection between the shift lever and the transmission so we were dead in the water. Camp manager and a friend tried to trouble shoot but no luck.
Believe it or not this is the same problem I had 44 years ago, also in a Winnebago. The work around I figured out then is the same one I used this time. With someone in the driver's seat with their foot firmly on the brake, you crawl under the rig, find where the shift cable connects to the transmission (it's a lever on the side of the transmission) and physically move the lever by hand. You then get the hell out from under the RV and proceed to drive. This worked and we were able to get to our camp site, but since it was now 6:30 on a Friday evening there was nothing we could do until Monday when we were supposed to be headed north to Virginia. Talked to Ford Road Side Assistance on Saturday and found out from them where we could take it for repairs. Nearest dealer that could handle an RV was in Greenville about 30 miles away.
Anyway, the reason we stopped here was to visit some friends, John & Linda Schafer. John and I worked in the same program office when I was stationed at Los Angeles AFS in the mid 70's and in the mid 80's we were both in the Pentagon and lived close to each other. He helped me build the deck on my house and I helped him build his. We had a nice visit on Saturday and John grilled a couple of rib-eye steaks that we shared. They have a really nice house in a great development with lots of big hardwood trees and really green grass.
Sunday I did some more investigating into what happened to the shift mechanism. On this vehicle there is a cable that connects the shift mechanism to the transmission. What I found was that the cable had been resting against the exhaust manifold and the heat from the manifold had burned through the cable breaking the connection.
Monday morning we got up very early, broke camp and Pat kept her foot firmly on the brake while I crawled under the RV and put it in drive. We then drove to the Ford dealer to see how fast he could get it fixed. Turned out the nearest replacement cable was in Detroit. So they ordered it as a critical warranty repair item. John and Linda had volunteered to put us up while the RV was in for repairs, so we headed over to their place. We all went out to a very nice Italian restaurant in Washington, NC which is just across the Pamlico River from Chocowinity.
Tuesday morning I was on the phone to the Ford dealer seeing if the cable had come in. Finally around 11:00 AM, it came in so we had lunch and then headed over to the Ford dealer. They were just finishing up the paperwork when we got there so I turned in our rental car and by 2:45 PM we were on our way to Ft. Belvoir, VA which is our next stop. This has put us one day behind our schedule so we will have to make changes in reservations once we get set up at Ft. Belvoir.
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