Nobody likes car trouble, especially vehicle-based-travelers, van dwellers, and overlanders. With our homes and our freedom of movement tied up into one neat package, an automotive hiccup can mean big changes in plans when on the road. Chelsea and I have had a few issues in the past with vehicles - our first Baja trip included a week laid up in Loreto, BCS waiting for a Pinzgauer clutch master cylinder, and our original ambulance (Campbulance!) conversion had an A/C compressor seize and eat a serpentine belt. Stubbs the Bus made it a whopping 5.9 miles on his inaugural journey before stranding us with a failed alternator.

Walter, our 1996 Mitsubishi Delica L400 Space Gear, had been showing some signs of a possible transmission issue since driving a 4x4 trail in California. I don’t think it was the trail or the driving that caused the problem, but the first symptoms did appear right after we hit pavement in the trail’s parking lot and staging area. The problem was very intermittent at that point and stayed that way until about halfway down the Baja peninsula, when it started rearing its ugly head again. The van felt like it had almost no power on takeoff. The engine would rev, but almost no power was getting to the wheels until I hit roughly 10KPH, then things were a little more normal. I assumed the van wasn’t engaging 1st gear, as I had 1st gear when I shifted the automatic transmission into ‘L’ and that gave me power at takeoff. I could even drive the van like a quasi-manual, shifting into ‘L’ at stoplights and then gaining speed in 1st, then shifting into ‘2’ and then ‘D’. Otherwise, I tried to limit stopping, much like we did when we lost the clutch master cylinder on the Pinzgauer years ago.

I got most of the problem sorted by calling the mechanic at the dealership who sold us the van, but as we closed in on Jalcomulco the van got worse and the problem became less intermittent and more permanent. Jalcomulco was our goal, and while I would not say we limped the van there, we were certainly saying more prayers than usual as we got closer to our favorite little jungle river town.

The goal had been Jalcomulco not just because of the rafting and the paddling, but also because we have friends and acquaintances in the area and we had already planned to rent a house and stay in the town for at least a month, giving me time to do some maintenance and work. I needed to change the oil and rotate the tires, I had some plans to add a few creature comforts to the van like some bungee storage for flip flops and quick access clothing, and now I had a mysterious transmission hiccup to work out. We had been in town for a few weeks, paddling and exploring and generally carrying on with new and old friends, before I finally forced myself to even look at the van. I had called some contacts in the states and made a few forum posts about the issue, and the path forward seemed to be to check the throttle position sensor (TPS), adjust it if necessary, and then reassess.

I ran some quick tests with the multimeter I had thankfully brought with us, and then decided to adjust the TPS - it was reading .96V at idle and everything I read suggested .78V at idle, so I dialed the voltage down. Upon starting the van, everything seemed ok, so Chelsea, Gracie, Oscar and I loaded up for a test drive, as Oscar needed to run some errands in the nearest city of Coatepec and I needed to purchase oil for the oil change. It was a short 40 minute drive away that included some decent windy hill climbs, but stayed off high speed freeways. We got up and out of town, and onto the plateau above the Rio Antigua with little problem, but suddenly the initial issue was back, the van lacked power in 1st and essentially had no power on takeoff. I decided to press on, hoping to gain some more experience with the issue, cycling between ‘L’ and ‘D’ hoping that would kick 1st gear back into existence, but to no avail. Eventually the ‘A/T’ light on the dash started flashing, indicating that the automatic transmission was overheating - this was a troubling new symptom and I had not seen any warning lights while dealing with this problem from California to the Gulf Coast. We immediately pulled over and let the van cool off, apologizing to Oscar that we couldn’t take him to the city today. He shrugged, said “It’s okay, no worries!” and caught a ride on a bus in less than five minutes, leaving us to limp Walter home as he rode towards the city on the much simpler, much more reliable public transit.

Oscar’s brother-in-law Tino is a mechanic in town and was willing to look at the van with me. He eyeballed the engine bay and then whipped out his OBD-2 scan tool to read any stored codes. The A/T light had stopped blinking by the time I got the van to the shop, but the codes were still stored in Walter’s brain. I though for sure that Tino’s scan tool was not going to be able to identify the vehicle, as most lists of vehicles here in North America don’t list the Delica as an option, and my heart sank as he scrolled through page after page after page of Mitsubishi models, but lo-and-behold, the Delica was on the list, and the scan tool was fully equipped to translate for us.

The scan showed that one of the three or four transmission solenoids had failed to engage properly, but it wasn’t the one associated with the 1st gear, and the problem felt like a one-off, maybe the product of an overheating transmission from too many starts in 2nd, but not the problem creating the lack of power. I thanked Tino, and we made a plan to possibly pull the transmission pan and physically inspect the solenoids, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that the solenoid issue wasn't the problem I was looking to solve, as it was a brand new symptom and the original issue had been plaguing us for months.

Consulting with Oscar and tino upon our arrival in Jalcomulco.

Tino working his magic with his OBD-2 scan tool.

Only one saved code showed up, a solenoid fault in the automatic transmission.

I hoped that if I stared hard enough I would get some answers from the scan tool.

Contemplating possible fixes to a mostly unknown issue.

We parked the van again and settled back into our Jalcomulco routine: sleeping in until the sun woke us up, coffee, crosswords and podcasts in the morning, throwing the disc for the dog all day, pack-rafting and kayaking in the afternoon, exercising and stretching in the afternoon, and tacos for dinner. It was a great routine, and it still is as I sit here writing, staring at the river and sending WhatsApp messages to set up a shuttle for a kayak lap on the Pescados. It was easy for us to slowly slip out of travel mode and into living mode. The van got emptied, our camp kitchen became a house kitchen, our clothing exploded into the bedroom, all our gear got piled in a corner, and Gracie wore paths of destruction into the yard as she chased her disc around the pool and the palm trees. A few years ago the stagnation had driven me crazy, because living in one place, even in an exotic place, just isn’t traveling. But now, the stagnation is appreciated and even celebrated, maybe because I am older or because we have already done some of the travels south of Jalcomulco and that is less of an alluring unknown, or maybe it’s because Chelsea and I have stumbled into a daily routine that is vastly improving our physical and mental health. Whatever it is, we like it.

A few weeks after the transmission overheated and the diagnosis of a solenoid fault, I played around with the throttle kick-down cable some more, inspecting both ends and its entire length for signs of a blowout or an abrasion. I adjusted all the slack out of the cable, and everything looked and acted fine again, other than the fact that I have no more room to adjust if the symptoms arise again. We took Walter on two test drives, one just up to the top of the plateau where the transmission had previously overheated, and another on a two hour trip up into Coatepec to run errands. Everything felt fine, there was a minor low speed hiccup here and there, and he was down on power due to my adjusting of the TPS, but otherwise he was fine - no overheating, no codes, and full power on takeoff.

We were ready for travel again, with the open road extending out in front of us, and adventure on our doorstep. We could leave today on a grand expedition to Oaxaca and the Yucatán and Chiapas! Maybe we will leave tomorrow. Or maybe next week. Certainly next month. March at the latest. Until then, we will be here on the porch, drinking local shade-grown coffee and eating pan dulce, waving buen día to our friends as they walk past our gate, throwing the disc for the dog, relearning how to kayak, working out in the afternoons, and enjoying tacos in the evenings. Adventure is what you make of it.

Salud, amigos.

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Walter's Woes : "Stuck" in Jalcomulco with Transmission Troubles

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