So this is similar to the 4 Valve stem day I had a while ago, but lots more expensive.


Driving down from Zion National Park, 30 miles of hairpin curves, thru the National Park and off to St George, Ut. Another 30 miles of down hill and the last bit full of hair pin curves.

I get to the bottom, ready to turn left on a flat section of road and just when I stop the "low pressure Oil" light is on and the engine has stopped running.

I can not get it to start again, so I get out and see oil everywhere, and up the road about 200 feet. Shit…. not good.

Call the Good Sam tow guy, sheriff comes by to help. and 1 hour later the guy shows up with a huge tow truck.

Hooks it up, and takes me to the mechanic which is closed for the weekend. We camp there in St George, nice town actually.

So I check the oil and transmission fluid and all are fine. The oil is from the power steering unit, which also turns the coolant fan for the engine.

That is empty, bone dry and it holds 12 quarts…..

But why will the unit not start. There is no fuel to the fuel injectors…

What does a blown power steering line have to do with the engine not running.

So it seems that two not one thing happened at the same time.

The fuel line and the power steering line were rubbing each other since the coach was built I assume.

They each weakened each other, but the high pressure power steering line burst from that weak spot and when it did it blew a hole into the weak spot on the fuel line.

The engine only ran a min or so after the broken fuel line but that was enough time to squirt out a lot of the power steering fluid.

I had a very lucky experience with this thing,

First was that I had gotten down from the mountain passes and was slowing down getting ready to stop when this happened. If I was flying down the hill, on a curve when suddenly I lost power steering and power I am not sure if I would have had a problem or not.

Second the oil leak was on the very bottom of the engine so mostly al the oil was on the road/under side of the engine and not all over the top and inside the compartment.

Third I had been noticing a clunking when shifting into reverse or down shifting into second or first gear. When I was towed they took the drive line off and one of the universal joints was dry and they needed to replace it.
with a new one. So I had a failing universal joint anyway.

The good sam towing was free and prompt and the guy knew what he was doing.

The Mechanic spent 8 hours working on this, getting the hoses off and put back on, etc. $300 for hoses, $100 universal joint/power steering fluid/parts, $500 labor plus tax.

Expensive but very fair in all and I got a chance to camp in St. George, Ut in a Truck Repair Shop.

Very lucky to have a non-injury breakdown.

Tom,

Glad you're still with us and that you didn't get to find out if losing power steering while flying downhill around a curve is a problem in a 37' bus.

By the way, since our Monarchs look to be pretty similar, just exactly where were those two hoses rubbing. I think I ought crawl under Tonka and look around a little.

How many miles on your Barth?

Thanks,
Wally

Just glad to see you're ok... odd how both hoses went at the same time. Driveshaft too??? Wow, you dodge a bullet for sure.

The two hose sections were touching just under the rig, at the bottom near the drive shaft. I don't know how to check if these types of hoses are just tied together for better stability or crossed where they can rub, sort of a judgement call. Coach has 85,000 miles on it or so.

I put a new back up camera in the rig also, running the wires front to back was 6 hours, 4 cups of coffee, and a nice lunch. Display is 7 inch color and a lighted camera, $240 from Amazon. Seems sharp.