It goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway, that the success of my odyssey is very dependent on the health of my beloved FJ, Baby Blue.  We’ve had our moments — such as when I had to replace a broken windshield, and a couple of times when my immobilizer system has gone haywire and killed my battery — but for the most part the FJ has been rock solid reliable.  Well, that’s why I bought a Toyota.

Just a note on the immobilizer, since it happened to me again near Milwaukee — I may have finally figured out what’s going on.  I suspect that something triggers the alarm system during the night, and the immobilizer kicks in.  The alarm keeps going somehow and drains the main battery.  The auxiliary battery is still charged, but inaccessible because of the immobilizer, so it seems to me that everything is dead.  So the solution is to first get the alarm and immobilizer shut off, and then to jump the starter battery from the auxiliary or another vehicle, which is what I did in both Milwaukee and on Amelia Island in Florida.

Now there’s another commonality between these two places.  In Milwaukee, I’m aware that a raccoon spent part of the night under my truck.  On Amelia Island I was plagued with invasive armadillos.  My hypothesis is that both secretly possess excellent automotive electrical skills, and find a way to trigger the alarm, setting off the chain reaction.  I’m being sabotaged by vermin.

In any case, the problem that’s been haunting me lately is a right rear tire with a slow air leak.  It started in Kansas, so I’m blaming the entire state of Kansas for my frustration.  That seems fair.  I looked several times for a puncture, but couldn’t find anything, so assumed that it must be a broken bead or valve stem.  I finally bought a professional grade small compressor so that I wouldn’t get caught out in the middle of nowhere with a flat tire.

And then one evening, as I was setting up camp about a half hour drive from the nearest town…. I discovered the surprisingly obvious source of the leak.  That bolt there with the head as big as my thumb!  I’m either unlucky or blind not to have seen that earlier, but I was reluctant to drive much further on it now that I had seen it, for fear of a potential blow out on the highway.

I do carry a patch kit with me, but it’s really meant for standard nail and screw punctures, so I was not at all confident that it could handle this situation.  And I was reluctant to remove the bolt without knowing that I could effectively patch and inflate it again.  Luckily, the next morning I found a very nice tire service center in the nearest town where they told me to pull right in.  It’s just as well that I didn’t try to fix it myself, because it ended up needing an inside patch.

And there it is, the reason for the slow leak from Baby Blue.  A carriage bolt.  Seriously.  How does that even puncture a tire??

Ah well, it wouldn’t be an adventure if there was no risk of things going wrong occasionally.  Windshield, battery, tire puncture… all easy fixes, so I’m still feeling pretty lucky!