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It is with great sadness that I must report the loss of a great machine, and a much beloved adventure rig.
Recently I moved my family from BC to Alberta, about 30 minutes east of Edmonton. On moving day, while cruising along the freeway about half an hour from Vanderhoof, BC, the engine suddenly died, and I immediately thought it was the timing belt. After having the vehicle towed to PG where our hotel was for the first night, re-jigging everything in both Ganbaru and the family mini van, and continuing on to Edmonton, we waited a week to find out my fears were confirmed and the timing belt had snapped.
At this point, we were over 8h away in another province trying desperately to secure our new home (a lot of drama was involved in that, which I won't go into) and we were faced with a choice. The B20z engine is an interference engine, which for any who aren't familiar, means that the pistons and the valves occupy the same space, but not at the same time so long as the timing belt is intact. When it snaps while the engine is running, there is a chance that the valves impact the piston heads and the engine is badly wrecked. The B20z actually has an amazing track record of surviving timing belt failure, and anecdotal evidence suggests it's more likely than not that the engine is just fine with a new timing belt, but it remains a gamble.
The choice was to roll the dice on a $1000 repair on the car, then go through the difficult logistics of getting me back to Prince George to recover the vehicle and drive it the rest of the way to Alberta, or to let it go and send it to the scrap yard and purchase a new vehicle in Alberta. I was strongly considering fixing it and taking the risk, but in the end, all things considered, including the fact that given our new 5 acre property would likely demand that I have a pickup truck, we decided it didn't make sense to take the risk on the CR-V. My father in law graciously recovered almost all of my adventure gear from Ganbaru, including the CR-V table, and most importantly, my OB member badge, and we bid it farewell.
In practical terms, it was a simple decision. Why risk pouring money into a 23 year old vehicle on a repair that might fail, given that it had other issues going on like a leaky steering rack, busted exhaust pipe, and would never pass an out of province inspection in a million years? And yet, it was not an easy decision, and in the end it was a sorrowful one.
I'm not a materialist by any means, and ultimately a car is just a car, but in reflecting on why I was so sad to lose Ganbaru, I realized that it isn't the car itself that creates a feeling of loss, so much as all the amazing memories associated with it.
This was my first ever 4x4, it was the rig that I used to dive into the world of overlanding and offroading. It was the vehicle I learned to drive off road in. I poured hours and hours into fixing and modifying it. It was the rig that took me to some of the most amazing places I have ever been in my life, including Kitsault, Doreen, the Telkwa Pass, Work Channel Inlet, the top of Windy Knob and Mount Cheam, the Fraser Canyon, and the list goes on and on. Every time I sat in the driver's seat of Ganbaru, I had a direct connection to those experiences, a connection which is lost now, although thankfully I still have many photos and videos to remember them by. I also lost all the potential adventures I hoped to have in it, including a potential run of the Whipsaw Trail, and other places I hoped to visit someday in Ganbaru.
Even now, as I write this, I still feel that sense of loss. I like to think, however, that this is really a sign that it served its purpose admirably and gave me many wonderful memories and experiences that I will cherish forever, and so I am very thankful for the time I had driving Ganbaru.
I also remind myself that this is Overland Bound, and here we believe that Adventure is Necessary and It Doesn't Matter What You Drive.
With that in mind, I introduce my new adventure rig (and homestead workhorse):
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A 2006 Dodge Dakota. It has a 4.7L V8, a proper transfer case with 4hi and 4low settings, air conditioning, AM/FM/CD stereo, power doors, windows, and mirrors, and a 5.5 Ft pickup bed for all my adventure gear, hay bail, tool and garbage hauling needs. It even came with a cheapo vinyl roll up tonneau cover, which although not great, provides some shelter to whatever I throw in the bed.
I have some ideas, but as yet I'm uncertain how I'm going to fit it out. One strong possibility is that I will convert the custom DIY roof rack from Ganbaru into a bed rack for the truck.
My days behind the wheel of an RD1 CR-V may be over for now (I won't rule out buying another one some day, I still love them) but my adventuring is far from over.
Please feel free to message me any time about anything CR-V, as I am and will remain the CR-Venturer (it was my first 4x4 after all, and I still have the folding table!) and stay tuned for a build thread on the Dakota sometime in the future.
Keep adventuring!
