9156.7 km
1090.5 L of Diesel
10 L of oil
2 Turbos
2 Headlight bulbs
1 Transmission Pan
I just got back from a road trip from Calgary to Montreal and back... The trip was amazing, despite a few Delica problems...
On Monday September 22nd I dropped the Delica off for service, I wanted an oil change done before my trip, and I wanted my air conditioning repaired too (just needed the refrigerant topped up actually). Here is where my first Delica problem started, the mechanic upon inspecting the vehicle informed me that my transmission pan was leaking badly and needed to be replaced (I think I smashed it in to a rock underwater on the previous weekend) being that I planned to leave Calgary on a cross country road trip on the Friday I knew I had to get this solved quickly, I called Coombs Country Autos and asked them to send one to me express overnight. Tuesday they got it sent off by DHL with guaranteed delivery for Wednesday... or so we thought... Wednesday it didn't show up, Thursday it didn't show up... it appears DHL "accidentally" sent the part ground instead of air... it finally showed up Friday around 1030hrs. My mechanic put it on, filled my A/C, and had us on the road by 3pm... a little later than we had planned, but we had only lost half a day really...
We headed off to Saskatoon the first night, we had originally planned to have dinner with my girlfriend's cousins, but due to our late start we rescheduled for breakfast... we found a out of the way "point of interest" and camped for the night... as a side note, the "points of interest" labelled on signs on the side of Saskatchewan highways don't seem all that interesting... generally a small sign in a farmer's field explaining some very vague importance the general area might have had many years ago, but no real detail, and nothing other than the sign to actually see. This did however provide some seclusion to climb in to the back of the Delica and sleep.
The next day we had breakfast with my gf's cousins and then headed eastward, we really didn't have much we wanted to see in either Saskatchewan or Manitoba so we pushed on straight through to Ontario. Late that night we pulled in to Kenora Ontario looking for somewhere to park for the night, on the way in to town we drove through an OPP (Ontario Provincial Police) checkstop, I thought they'd never let us through! not because the cop thought I had been drinking (I've never had a drink in my life!) but more because he was so fascinated by the vehicle that he kept asking more questions about it. eventually he let us through and we pulled in to a truck stop to get a few hours rest. When we got there and walked in to the store the clerk informed us that we had just missed a large bear in the parking lot and to be careful... I was disappointed, I would rather have seen it!
The terrain in Ontario is so different from everything up to that point, the Canadian shield starts very abruptly at the Manitoba-Ontario border, and from there you are driving through rocky ground and swamps for days, Northern Ontario is also extremely long!
We stopped for lunch at Kakabeka Falls, the falls are beautiful, and powerful, the flow on this particular day was listed as 200,000L/s (hard to imagine!) these are known as "Niagara of the North" as they are the second tallest falls in Ontario after Niagara:
We pulled in to Thunder Bay and got our first view of the great lakes. This picture is of a place known as "Sleeping Giant" due to it's resemblance to a person lying down on the water:
Immediately After Thunder Bay we stopped briefly at the Terry Fox memorial, Terry Fox had to abandon his great cross country run for cancer near this spot as his health was quickly deteriorating, he died shortly thereafter. It is quite the testament to what people can achieve...
The drive around the north edge of Lake Superior was amazing, the fall colours were in full effect and were positively breathtaking, for anyone who has never been to the east in the fall, you can't even imagine, I have a few pictures, but as usual they don't do it justice even in the least.
We continued our drive from there and stopped for the night at a private campground, we tried the provincial ones, but oddly enough they were all "closed for the season" (I'm not sure what "season" they are talking about, as I find this time of year perfect for travel!) While at the campground we helped extract a vehicle that had gotten itself stuck in a fire-pit, I considered pulling them out with the Delica, however I'm sure I would have damaged their vehicle the way it was sitting in the metal fire pit, so instead I helped instruct them on the proper use of a jack...
This and the next day was when we learned just how ridiculously long northern Ontario really is, to quote the musical group The Arrogant Worms "Northern Ontario is 80 billion kilometers long." and it is full of "Rocks and trees and trees and rocks". We also get a good appreciation for their song "Canada is really big"
We stopped in Sault Ste Marie for lunch and visited the historic locks, it is here that the first ships would have passed to get up to the level of Lake Superior.
After lunch, on our way out of town I was stopped behind a car with a lot of chrome on the back end, I could clearly see our reflection in it, and more disturbingly, I could see that neither of my headlights was working! I pulled in to the service station across the street and checked the fuses, all good, but still both headlights were out, I wasn't sure what could cause both of them to die at the same time, but I decided to check the obvious first, after some minor disassembly I proved that it was indeed the bulbs (though why both in the same day I have no idea!)
We took the bulbs in to the garage, and they said they had never seen a bulb like it (they're standard H3 bulbs available at every Canadian Tire!) and that it must be something weird for "that weird vehicle" I eventually talked them in to checking, but they didn't have anything in stock, they phoned Partsource, and told the person on the other end of the phone that it was a really weird bulb that they wouldn't have... eventually the person at Partsource convinced them to read the number off it "H3? of course we have those! I'll have 2 sent up right away!"
Half hour later we were back on the road... As I always say, these vehicles are easy to work on, you just have to convince people not to be afraid of them!
Trying to find a campsite that night proved extremely difficult, every one we pulled in to was closed, eventually we found an offroad trail on the side of the highway and drove up it until the branches threatened to take the antennas off my roof, we camped there for the night.
The following day we drove to Niagara Falls, this was our most expensive camping of the trip... those people at KOA have the nerve to charge $40/night for a parking spot with access to a bathroom! many of the motels were advertising cheaper rates... though they looked a lot sleazier than the Delica... Niagara falls seems to be a bit of a Vegas of the north, lots of casinos, lots of extremely tacky tourist traps, etc... most of the town is best avoided to be honest, but luckily the area immediately surrounding the falls has not succumbed to this and has maintained an air of a century ago (plus or minus a half dozen tour bus loads of Asian and European tourists)
We viewed the falls during the day, but came back at night too as they light up the falls with spot lights that change colours, it really is beautiful.
The first picture is the Canadian falls during the day, the second picture is the American falls at night.
From Niagara Falls we headed through Toronto toward Ottawa.
We stayed on the expressways, but what expressways! this stretch shows a total of 14 lanes of traffic!
We got to Ottawa that evening and went straight downtown, and stumbled across quite the lively demonstration
Turns out we arrived the evening of the french language leader's debate, these people were outside the building the debate was happening in. They were quite an enthusiastic bunch, but also amazingly Canadian, they stayed completely on the sidewalk, didn't obstruct anyone, and had big jugs of Tim Horton's coffee stashed behind them to keep everyone going, despite the obvious political differences they didn't seem to attempt to attack each other in any way, even verbally, but simply presented their preferred party to the passing traffic.
Along with this group of course came the inevitable protester trying to get a point across:
but even he just stood there for all to see.
The Green party had the most enthusiastic supporters, they even asked us to join them "Come join us! we have spare signs!" we declined however.
Ottawa really is a beautiful city though, and we wandered around a bit until it was quite dark.
We then tried to find somewhere to park for the night... This proved to be more challenging than we thought... we never did find any campgrounds, or even truck stops! we eventually found a parking lot at a trail head on a quiet back road and camped for the night.
I noticed that the oil light on the dash was flickering a bit as we pulled in to the camp spot, so first thing the next morning we went to the nearest gas station for fuel and oil... Things rapidly went down-hill from here...
I checked the oil and the dipstick was completely dry, I added 5 Litres of oil to bring it back up to normal levels! Not good!
after this the vehicle immediately started smoking, and I don't mean a bit of smoke, we're talking James Bond smoke screen, or worse even! I decided all we could do was find a mechanic, and pronto. We stopped at a Mr Lube and they recommended a place down the street, that place refused to look at it "We don't do Mitsubishi, and we don't do Diesel!" but recommended another place a block away, This fellow was hesitant, but with a bit of prodding he was crawling all over it. Apparently oil was being pumped out of the engine and into the exhaust system through the turbo, our exhaust was full of oil at this point, hence the smoke. The shop decided to block off the oil supply to the turbo, this would allow us to limp home, without continuing to loose vast quantities of oil, but at the expense of the turbo, which seemed already dead anyway.
We discovered at this point why Delicas have a turbo! our speed from here on was 60-70km/hr maximum, and dropped to 30 or less up some hills, and all the while pouring tons of black smoke out the back any time we touched the accelerator...
I would like to apologize now, I have been a lousy ambassador for the Delica community to eastern Canada.
We returned to the same spot we had camped the night before with plans to head to Montreal in the morning, we were determined not to let a "minor" mechanical problem spoil our vacation.
We pulled in to Montreal and headed straight to the centre of town to Mount Royal for an overview of the city from the lookout:
We walked around the "mountain" and had lunch in the park, following this we headed up to the Laurentians where my extended family have 3 cabins on a lake. The fall colour is just amazing out there, this is the access road up to the lake:
The entire ground is covered in maple leaves everywhere you look
And the view over the lake is just amazingly relaxing:
I am so jealous of my Uncle who's property we were staying at, and my cousin who has the 2nd house, and my father's cousin who has the original house... to be able to get away to such a place, and all less than an hour's drive from Montreal...
After an delicious supper prepared by my Aunt, we returned to the Delica to sleep, we were offered our choice of rooms in their house, or above their garage, but by this point we decided that the Delica was just too comfortable, and too much of our home, to sleep anywhere else.
In the morning we headed in to Montreal to explore, we parked at the first Metro (subway) station we could find and took that down to Old Montreal, the old city is really something to see, the history of the place is fascinating, as is the architecture.
Some of these buildings look like they haven't changed a bit in a couple of hundred years, everything from the grandiose "Hotel de Ville" (City Hall)
to the simple shops that look like they are straight out of yester-year
It is also interesting to see some of the old streets, there is no way you could get 2 vehicle to pass in here, for that matter many of the modern vehicles wouldn't fit down this road by themselves!
We also decided that no trip to Quebec could be complete without one essential thing:
Poutine! Actually the whole meal was simply amazing, I don't think I've ever had a better sandwich! (If you're ever in old Montreal, try to find a little shop called simply "Montreal Poutine" their sandwiches are to die for!)
We headed back up to the lake and my Aunt had one of her friends over for dinner, her friend is a professional chef, and between the 2 of them we were quite spoiled, I haven't eaten better than on this trip in a long time... or for that matter, possibly ever!
The next day we decided it was time for a vacation within our vacation, we spent the day just relaxing at the lake. We let the Delica relax as well:
But all good things must end as they say, so we headed back to Ottawa the next day.
During the drive to Montreal we had decided that we simply couldn't live with the vehicle in this condition, and again I called Coombs Country Auto, they said they had a turbo in stock and agreed to express overnight it to the shop in Ottawa who would put it on the Delica when we passed back through there west bound. After our fiasco with DHL a week earlier Glen decided to ship the part UPS. it was Friday and we decided we would return to Ottawa on Tuesday for the repair, so we got "next business day by 12:30" service, the part should be arrived on Monday around noon...
Monday evening the part hadn't arrived, the UPS tracking website showed "on time" but it obviously wasn't, a call to UPS told us it was "on time for delivery tomorrow" (how it can be on time and a day late at the same time was something they couldn't explain) so the next day we enjoyed the Canadian War Museum. The collection there is extensive, and I highly recommend it to anyone who has the time, and it does take time, we had 7 hours and ran out of time, allow a full day!
Unfortunately the turbo didn't arrive this day either... the tracking website showed "exception", a call to UPS returned "we think we might have lost your package" MIGHT HAVE??? they explained it would take 24-48 hours to decide if they had lost it... and they would know the next day...
The next day we visited the Canadian Museum of Civilization, if I had praise for the war museum it is not alone, the museum of civilization manages the feat of putting you right in the past, their recreation of ships, encampments, villages, towns, and even modern airports is something to behold, Another one well worth seeing, but again, you will need at the minimum a full day, we had about 8 hours and ran out of time.
When talking to UPS this time they were unable to provide any further information, they now said it would take 8 days to determine what had happened to the package, they were also unwilling to discuss reimbursement of the shipping cost until it had arrived. Getting desperate I called Glen at Coombs Country Autos and he agreed to ship a second turbo, again using UPS next day service, guaranteed for 1030hrs, UPS refused to eat the cost on this, and insisted we pay again for shipping the replacement. (let alone my campsite bill in Ottawa!)
The next day we dropped the Delica off at the mechanic, we were desperate, if the part (or the replacement) didn't arrive that day we would be forced to limp back across the country with the Delica in the condition it was, we were out of time.
We dropped the Delica off at 1025hrs, at 1029 we got a call from the mechanic, BOTH turbos had arrived... UPS is currently refusing to reimburse for either shipping charge because "both packages arrived" (never mind that one took a full week for "guaranteed next business day before 12:30") and we haven't convinced them to return the second turbo either (except if we pay for more shipping)
With the Delica repaired we headed for Sault Ste Marie and to the USA for our trip back, The fellow at the border seemed intrigued by the Delica, but as we all know, US officials are not allowed a personality, so he didn't say much about it... Coming out of the border we hit the expressway and I immediately saw a sign "Maximum 70 mph, minimum 55 mph" my first thought was "I don't know, but I'll try!" freshly repaired though the Delica performed perfectly and maintained just a hair over 70 until our turn off, the rest of the roads were either 55 or 65 all the way accross.
The trip across through the states was relatively uneventful though it gave us another chance to admire the fall colours nothing I can say will do them justice I'm afraid.
As we turned north toward Canada the weather started to deteriorate:
and we started to see some snow on the ground, after crossing in to Canada the weather continued to get worse and the roads started to get quite slick.
We stopped briefly in Estevan Saskatchewan for a photo op, but that was about as long as we could stand being out of the vehicle in the cold and the sleet/snow/rain. Estevan is a mining town, the machinery used digs up the earth by the bucket full, the very large bucket full!
From there we continued on north to Rouleau, this will be familiar to any fans of the TV show "Corner Gas" the town is about as large as the show portrays, and doesn't have diesel, for that matter, their one and only fuel station wasn't open when we were through (4pm on a Sunday)
We continued northward and the roads continued to deteriorate, we passed a 4x4 crew cab pickup truck with duallies and a very large 5th wheel trailer jack-knifed in the ditch, when I tried to stop to see if he was alright I discovered just how slick things were, it took far enough to stop that I had a long drive back to him!
later on we found a 4 door sedan in the ditch, and helped them call for a tow truck (the highway was too busy for me to want to try anything, and I couldn't find any place on their vehicle that wasn't plastic to attach to!)
They also told us that the poor roads continued until Moose Jaw, and cleared up after that.
We continued north and joined the Trans-Canada just before Moose Jaw, it wasn't in any better shape, I accelerated a little too hard trying to merge on and fish tailed badly, I tried to recover, but after a couple of back and forths it was obvious that there was only one place we were going, the ditch... after that realization I aimed straight for it and although the bank was steep we stayed upright and in some form of control. placed in 4x4 we were easily able to return to the road... well, easily once we took a bit of a run at it...
We pulled in to Moose Jaw and stopped for fuel, the weather was awful, and the roads were worse, we had heard it was supposed to clear up here, but no evidence of it, the attendants at the gas station couldn't give us any useful info, so we pressed on, hoping to find the edge of the storm front, luckilly it was only about 100km further until we were suddenly on dry pavement again.
What was really interesting about that though was that for the next 600km all the way to Calgary we were finding clumps of snow on the road that had fallen off vehicles... 600km from any snowfall...
Despite our obvious problems on the trip, we still had an amazing time, and nothing managed to ruin our fun. My Delica is currently having a well deserved servicing, and I am back at home, I already miss the vacation, and my bed still doesn't feel quite right, but it is nice to be home.
Fuel Statistics:
9156.7km using 1090.5L of diesel for an average economy of 11.9L/100km not as good as I had expected, but not horrible either.
our worst fill was just shy of 14.6L/100km and our best one was 9.3L/100km. Fuel prices ranged from $0.977/L up to $1.380/L
Lessons learned:
DHL sucks
UPS sucks
Canada is REALLY BIG
Diesel is almost impossible to find in Ottawa (took us 2 days of searching to find it!)
American drivers don't dim their highbeams... ever!
I must actually like my girlfriend, because not only did we not kill each other on this trip, I actually let her drive the Delica for 1,000 km or so, I even have proof!
I want to send a HUGE thank you to Glen (ccautos on this forum) of Coombs Country Autos. He bailed me out of a sticky spot twice in as many weeks, he was wonderful to deal with, and extremely helpful. I just wish the couriers would have played nice too!
And one parting image, for all those who haven't been to the east, and who haven't seen true fall colours, our national symbol, in it's true glory:
I like every bit of the country I've seen, which include the places you visited. Good going not letting the issues get you down or frustrated. ccautos Glen is top-shelf, for sure - a real pillar of our community. Glad he was able to help you out from afar like that. We consider ourselves lucky delica drivers indeed to live 125 clicks (exactly, door-to-door) from ccautos. Thanks again for the detailed post and the pictures. Really first rate 
"I could be just around the corner from heaven, or a mile from hell." -- Jackson Browne, "The road and the sky".