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Well, we are selling the Dodge Sprinter that we recently purchased. Reason being that we just don’t use it enough to justify the cost. It didn’t take long to find a buyer and at the rate things are going, the new owner will take possession within the next week. What this means, is that Buster is now our own vehicle. With a deal pending on the Sprinter, we have moved it to the RV parking in the back yard until the new owner can pick it up. It’s nice having just one vehicle. Someone I know told me a very simple statement once: “The amount of stress/work in your personal life can almost often be directly related to the amount of spark plugs you have to maintain.” Well, we’re down to 4. Compare that to the 30 plus from a year ago. I can attest to the fact that it’s nice not having to maintain as many spark plugs.

With Buster being the only ride though, it’s more important that he stay running well. I’ve been fighting a battery charging issue for the last several months that is being caused by some bad wiring from when I installed the CB radio and the radio deck. I’ve disconnected those for now until I have time to go through the wiring and clean things up. Since I did that, the battery hasn’t been draining at all and I have not resorted to using the battery jumper pack while running around town. Another issue more recently is problems getting up and running well in the morning. The engine starts up fine, but it’s pretty rough. If I floor it soon after starting, it acts as if the timing is very retarded. It takes about 3 minutes of babying the gas pedal to get it to finally idle smooth. After that, its fine. I suspect issues around the cold start valve. Others have mentioned the thermo time switch as well. I’ve got some handy FI troubleshooting documentation from a friend so hopefully I can check this out this weekend.

One other tasks we have now, is looking for another vehicle. Yes, we just got rid of one, but Buster isn’t as reliable as I dream about. New engine and all, he’s not like those new fangled cars out there. Leah and I both agree that having something a little more reliable and easy to operate would be nice. We are currently looking at both the late model Vanagons, and the 2002+ Eurovans. Ideally, whatever we get would be the pop top weekender model with the jump seats. This layout would be much easier with four kids. Especially since there are a few car seats to deal with still. We’ll see what we time brings.