The Montana section: This needs some explanation for those who haven't made it through the Rockcrawler reports. Just out of Calgary, Alberta, we noticed a new noise starting that got a little worse as we went along. It finally quit getting worse, but we had lost a lot of power and we couldn't pinpoint the sounds because it was only there on hard acceleration. Luckily, someone from one of the bulletin boards I posted to before starting the trip volunteered to get a list of people all along my route that were willing to lend a complete stranger a hand if something came up along the way.

We nursed the Jeep to Great Falls and I called John Bushnell in Helena very late at night and left him a message. The next morning he got back to me and after explaining he said he and his buddies could help if we made it to him in Helena. With little else in the way of options, we slowly made it there and met him around noon.

John took us to meet Stan Cronin and Clay Burkett and Stan hopped in the Jeep and after 30 seconds of driving he said he thought it was an exhaust manifold leak and when we stopped and he checked he was right. (Stan's a master mechanic).

With that knowledge, John asked to use Stan's shop (Stan had other work to do) and he agreed so off we went. Before we left though, Clay offered to give me an old exhaust manifold he had lying around "Just. incase you find out yours is warped." We stopped for some parts and supplies, got to the shop and started work around 1 PM.

I won't go through every detail, but we found that the front, lower exhaust manifold bolt had been broken off at some point and someone had just jammed in a short bolt that wasn't even finger tight. We drilled it out and put in a Helicoil repair with a better bolt and a new gasket. Of course, when we went to put the manifolds back on, the exhaust manifold was indeed warped about 1/8" and we couldn't use it. Thank God for Clay and his manifold or we would have been scouring for one the next day.

We finished up around 1:30 AM and the Jeep was running better than ever, after finally sorting out the vacuum routing. We camped out that night and took Stan, Clay and John out for lunch the next day before we headed out. We still owe those guys so much, no amount of thanks will ever do it.

This is just ONE HALF of Stan's incredible shop. He was working on the Dodge on the lift so we had to struggle to get by with jackstands and an air lift/jack. Did I mention that I think Stan has every automotive tool known to man? Here she is, ready for the operation. We changed the tranny fluid, filter and gasket, then went to work on the manifold bolt. Doug, Jason and John trying to figure out vacuum hoses from the Haynes manual after putting in 13 hours already... ugh! I had this shot in the other section, but I just couldn't resist putting it here too. I want to live here. Big Sky country is exactly right! This was shot in Stan's front yard.
The finished helicoil repair in place. It was a bear to drill through all the broken bits in there, but we made it finally. The reward (other than a non-leaking manifold) was that we got to camp at this incredible site up on a ridge. We slept like bricks that night and the beautiful view almost made us forget how sore and dirty we were. This is the farthest off-road my postal went on the trek. It's the trail heading out of our campsite.