My family of 5 growing up could go to town in our VW Bug if need be, when the Valiant was unavailable. But there were no enormous backwards facing car seats, off road strollers and all the things that accompany today’s babies. We didn’t need an SUV or a minivan but it would make life easier. I was pretty biased against transverse engine V6s so minivans were out. Apparently at that time, I was also biased against having money so that’s how we ended up with a high mileage Explorer in the garage.
The imminent arrival of a second child meant we were looking for something bigger than our Honda Civic. The maternity leave my wife was about to take would cut our income drastically. I looked at my fleet and as I was possibly done with contracting I decided to liquidate the gray Toyota 4×4. I took the cash and went to Calgary to find a clean SUV. The best one was a 1992 Explorer that was in nice shape despite its 300,000 plus kms. The owner had been fastidious about maintenance. Buying in Alberta meant an Out of Province insurance inspection so I spent a week going through the checklist making sure it was ready and it passed with no issues. We lived in town by then and it would be mostly doing shorter trips anyway. Owning an Explorer was not on my life’s bucket list but I was trying to be a grown up.
This was the first automatic I had ever purchased which annoyed me to no end. These were a pleasant enough drive other than the emergency handling was a bit alarming. Braking hard and steering at the same time was something to be avoided. The AC was not working well but there was enough ventilation without it.
A lot of things had changed in my life in the year prior to acquiring the Explorer. After my 6 months of work at a normal job, I had ended up in a very small hamlet with nothing on the horizon for the winter. I started to put in some feelers about getting some contracts but Forestry was going through a bad time and I thought I’d better try something else. I had sent my resume to an exploration company that phoned me and wanted me in Calgary in two days. I grabbed my bush gear and hopped a bus to Calgary. After a day of H2S safety training, I was crammed into the back of a Dodge extended cab for a long trip to a camp a few hours north of Fort MacMurray.
Exploration jobs had a low hourly rate but a huge amount of hours per week, usually 12 plus hours per day. They started me at a higher wage because of my bush experience, a lot of people didn’t last more than a few days. I’d done tougher work so I was fine, other than being a bit elderly, mid 30s, older than nearly everyone on the crew. The first morning while they were getting the new crews assigned the line supervisors picked their new teams. I had major flashbacks to junior high volleyball while I stood there not picked until the last round. When there were just a few of us left one supervisor said he would take “Junior,” meaning me. Luckily my feelings are not easily hurt and I made it through the first day and retired to my spartan accommodations.
Seismic exploration, if you are not aware, is the measuring of the refraction and reflection of waves as they pass through various underground strata. A disturbance is set off with dynamite or mechanical means and a huge number of geophones are set out to capture the seismic waves. This takes miles of cable and many people to lay out. It’s a bit like setting up the most elaborate holiday light display imaginable.
Primitive winter tracks are put in to facilitate laying out the cables. There are a lot of logistics to this which means vehicles of all types. Crew cabs and Suburbans move people. Larger trucks like 5 tons and semi tractors are used to move equipment between sites. If the lines are long it is more cost-effective to have a helicopter drop a set of 6 cables every so often than try and carry them by hand.
This picture shows just how many cables it took. The crew is looking a bit sad as someone left a $14,000 recorder in a cable bag and we had to unload the entire semi-trailer to find it.
There’s really only one thing to know about ex-oilfield trucks and that is never buy one. Put a new truck in the hands of a 20 year old kid and the potential for calamity is always there, not even taking into account the terrible conditions. There was a permanent mechanic on site with us, who drove a Dodge. He hated Suburbans as they were hard to work on in the bush and said he would quit if any more showed up. The Party Chief had a Tundra, the supervisors had GMC 3500s and the line crews got Ford F-350s and 450s. F-450s can actually be jumped as I witnessed once.
I think everything mechanical thing broke at some time while I was there. Suburban fuel pumps, a V-10 Ford spit out a spark plug. The Dodge Batt Shack lost 5th gear in the first hour of a 20 hour relocation to the BC Yukon border making for a long trip with a low-revving Cummins. The F-450s would sink into the muskeg when the ground got soft. This Chevrolet lost an alternator at 4 o’clock on a Sunday afternoon in Peace River. Nice to have a common truck where you can get a hold of a part in an hour though.
The funniest fail though was on the diesel Ford Excursion used for transporting big wigs and some days the crew around. A nose-ringed hyper-cool young lady who was one of the field accounting types, (per diems were in cash!) managed to get her Britney Spears CD stuck in the stereo. With no radio stations in that part of BC, it was Baby One More Time or Sing in that vehicle for the rest of the winter.
Halfway through the contract we had to relocate from Northern Alberta to Northern BC. This turned out to be an outstanding adventure that bore a lot of resemblance to some movies I have seen, like Convoy, The Cannonball Run, and a touch of Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas for good measure. The boys had all got their cash per diems and were sick of camp life. Somewhere around Dawson Creek we lost the fellow who had been driving the International 4900 HIAB truck. I don’t remember the circumstances but I think he had to retrieve a hijacked company van we had seen on the news, which was being utilized for a crime spree in Edmonton, as well as bailout some young men who had been rolled by a couple of ladies of questionable moral standard.
Being a grown up and a father of an infant I had been responsible and avoided going on a drug and alcohol-fuelled binge, so the next morning I was appointed truck driver and headed up the Alaska Highway behind the wheel of the International. I enjoyed driving the DT466 Diesel with Spicer 7 speed combination. It took some concentration on the ice roads with massive and high speed oil and gas traffic everywhere. There was one big police check we luckily got through unscathed as the RCMP officer was from Prince Edward Island as was most of our crew. There were Arsenault, Gallant and MacDonald boys in every vehicle. Luckily I knew all the words to Bud the Spud, though sadly no one else wanted to sing it.
Just before spring break-up, I had a job offer from the organization I had worked for the summer before so it was time to head south. On one of my last days, we got a radio message that if we wanted a quick ride out rather than an hour walk there would be a helicopter to pick us up half a mile away but we had to get moving. The snow was knee-deep and I made it but started to have the feeling that maybe it was time to consider working with some heavy Excel macros rather than hoofing it in snow boots through the bush. I hopped the bus in Fort Nelson all the way to Kamloops, where after a bunch of time doing bush work, fell down the Greyhound steps. My only injury in all the time I was up there. I got picked up, went home for a few hours, moved to a new city Sunday and reported for desk duty on Monday morning.
And that was that for a whole phase of my life.
Anyways the Explorer. It was almost strictly a vehicle for taking the kids around to all their appointments and maybe a Sunday picnic or two.
Somewhere along the way, the Wife with the Motorcycle had become the Wife with the Horse which led to a temporary title of Wife in the Wheelchair. The Explorer was a good way to pack saddles and horse gear around.
It pulled our little travel trailer around for summer vacations quite easily and became a veteran of family camping trips.
It didn’t do much tough off road work though it could. Here it is all chained up with V-Bars on a mission to rescue the Mighty Alpine after a relative who I told to not pull the starter cord too far out did exactly that thing which I told him not to.
One day my dad was doing some concrete demolition work. There was a utility trailer hooked to the Explorer. He overloaded that trailer so badly it broke a spring on the trip to the dump. And a few days later there were red spots under the Explorer. The A4LD transmission had started to go. These were a crap transmission based on the C5. So I did some research and figured I could solve this problem by swapping in a 5 speed manual. I sourced a parts car in Calgary, and being very careful not to mention the word Explorer to U-Haul Trailer Rental, dragged a manual transmission Explorer home behind the White Truck.
The swap was pretty straightforward. The pedal assembly just unbolted. I swapped the computer and hooked up a few wires and now we had a 5 speed brown wagon. The automatics had a lower rear end than the 5 speeds so this truck was a hot rod compared to before. Fun to drive other than the diabolical handling. I remember my dad, a friend and I hitting the scrap yard after hours to drop off the donor car. It rolled off the trailer and kept on going down the road. My dad and my friend’s reaction was to run and get the hell out of there. Luckily it stopped before doing any damage.
So I never did seismic work again and I’ve only once been north of Kamloops since. The first couple of years after I avoided gravel roads. The horse was replaced with a motorbike. I think Britney Spears is in the “Where Are They Now?” file along with Taylor Swift but I could be wrong as I don’t follow pop culture much. Stomping Tom Connors died in 2013 after writing a lot of songs about Canada.
So again, a faithful family vehicle carries on in the background with little fanfare. My second daughter came home from the hospital in it. I sold it for not much. The buyer came back to me about a problem that I didn’t know about and I paid for a part to fix it. I saw it listed a few years later with a ton of kms. on and still apparently running.
Next week I realize I haven’t been using enough gasoline so I rectify that problem in a big way.
” … feeling that maybe it was time to consider working with some heavy Excel macros … “.
This is a good way to shift from a life of adventure (and work camps and deep snow) to the more cerebral (?) employment of a desk pilot. But for those of us who started a career looking at screens – or for the elderly, punch cards – there’s always a feeling that we may have missed something in our youth.
Seismic exploration work camp employment sounds about as rough as one could expect anywhere, on people and trucks. It’s interesting that most truck makes and models had failings of one sort or another. So, it seems there were no “work-camp-proof” work vehicles in this post?
” … my dad, a friend and I hitting the scrap yard after hours to drop off the donor car. It rolled off the trailer and kept on going down the road… “.
It may not have been funny then, but it sure reads funny now. Fortunately I was between coffee sips when I read this line.
These posts are great reading, and in my case, educational.
What I like even more is the next line:
“My dad and my friend’s reaction was to run and get the hell out of there”
Way to set the example, Dad!
This was another great read.
I too started with punch cards. I should have kept a small stash, because they make the best bookmarks. I spent some time with Lotus 123 before ending up at Excel.
At least punch cards are nostalgia rather than affliction, I have taken to using the tyvek label/lid from a Dexcom glucose monitor sensor since we go through several a month.
Yup, my moment came at an Aluminum smelter in the USA. I’d been there for a month, my pregnant wife was furious and another contractor told me “you either need another family, or another line of work”
Glad to hear that wife with horse recovered. My wife with motorcycle never liked horses “they have attitudes and so do I”
Interesting that you were able to do a manual swap on the Explorer, I’d have figured that between the huge amount of work swapping wiring harnesses, computers etc and no instructions on what needs replacing it would never be fully electronically happy. Well done.
” … my dad, a friend and I hitting the scrap yard after hours to drop off the donor car. It rolled off the trailer and kept on going down the road… “.
Reminds me of the time that I used a friend’s tailgate-less pickup to haul a junk engine and rented cherry picker. The engine, of course, was never fully drained of fluids. It sat patiently behind the cab during many stops and starts during the day, but after I dropped off the cherry picker, it made its move. As I accelerated out of the parking lot, I heard a “woosh” sound followed by some clunking. The leaking coolant had greased the pickup bed and the engine accelerated out of the bed at the same rate as the pickup. Fortunately, it tumbled its way to the curb. Put it back in the truck and tried to repeat the routine at the scrap yard. It worked as the engine slid to the end of the bed and out into the junk pile.
Been in the “old guy” on the physically demanding job too. Horrible third shift position unloading a glass tempering oven in Texas. I was at least a decade older and am pretty sure I was the only one there who had not done hard time.
You had to wear what was basically a chain mail sweater in 120 degree heat. One of the guys wasn’t wearing his and got a deep forearm cut that was jetting. The supervisor told him he better start driving to make it to the ER before he passed out.
Really made me question my life choices.
When I started reading about a high-mile (or km) Explorer, all kinds of possibilities blossomed in my mind, but none of them blossomed on your vehicle. I am impressed with the manual transmission conversion – that combination of a high-trim vehicle with a clutch pedal would have been my ideal (and a combination which was probably never offered by Ford).
My only manual labor experiences were summer dalliances during college and law school, and the start of a new school year always brought a combination of relief and a little regret. Your outdoor career looks to me like a young man’s game, so you would have hit your expiry date sooner or later.
Higher-trim Explorers were offered with manual transmissions for a while, though they were rare even when new. A friend of mine had a ’91 XLT with the 5-speed – like you mentioned, that was my ideal SUV.
It was a very nice powertrain and an easy swap. I thought about finding an Eddie Bauer with a blown A4LD and doing it again. Put a mild lift on and I think it would have been a great adventure truck.
Thanks for another interesting chapter involving work that I only barely knew existed for humans to do. Outstanding.
Actually, I do know a bit about seismic exploration as it’s basically the same work that a good friend of mine from high school days has built a career around as a research scientist in Antarctica. I recall 35 years ago when he started that and communicated to us that the active duty of his PhD work involved drilling deep holes, shoving dynamite down them and blowing stuff up. It sounded like a dream job to me. All except or the Antarctica part. Well, he’s still at it…although at close to retirement age, this season (he’s down there now) may be his last in the field. So he says.
Thanks for another well-written read.
Your life and mine have taken somewhat opposite trajectories. I got into tv at age 25, and within three years was behind a desk managing the station. That led to more of the same until I was unceremoniously dumped at age 39 due strictly to a change of management at the top of the company (Telemundo), which then resulted in a massive purge.
I could have found other management jobs, but decided I was done with that. ironically, part of my decision was that I had seen older guys in their mid-50s begging me for jobs; they had once held decent management jobs in the sales area, but ageism was a real thing, and their careers were falling apart. You either had to keep climbing up successfully or you were headed down and out.
So after a couple of years of dicking around I got into building houses and then renovating a little fleet of old moved houses. This was all quite hard work; building foundations, fixing dry rot in crawl spaces, and every sort of related work. Initially I had told myself I was too old to put on a carpenter’s work belt at age 42 or so, but perhaps because I had spared my body 20 years of hard physical work, it went pretty well. And I still do some of that, but not as much anymore.
I stopped by to see the friend that got me into building 30 years ago; he’s still at it, working 6 long days per week renovating an older house he owns in order to sell it. And then he’s going to build a little cottage in the small lot behind it. I’m pretty sure he’s a year or so older than me (70). And he’s been doing this all his adult life, since high school.
Sounds like you made a good choice.
Just about to read the write-up.
What got my attention was the photo of the 1st generation Explorer, just this morning I saw one parked outside a car repair shop and I was tempted to turn around and ask if they would be interested in selling it (it didn’t have a license plate on it). Ford just got “it” so right with that barely adorned 2 box design.
May still go back and get the story on that blue box.
Its quite a leap of faith to buy an Explorer here Ford dont carry parts and as a friend found out you cant sell them so you are stuck with it, even having an Ed Bauer edition couldn’t help my friend nobody has ever heard of it, The Australian Territory outsold them the moment they arrived slightly underbaked as usual from Ford AU with a new model, but popular.
Fort Nelson to Kamloops on the hound? Yikes. I had to do Fort St John to Kelowna that way in the late ’80s due to unforseen vehicle problems. 3 days before Christmas, and it took 24 hours. I can only imagine adding another 200 miles to that.
No one liked riding the dog, but it was always an available option to get home in a pinch. No more though….
We had some “Exploders” of that vintage in the fleet, every one got an automatic replaced under warranty and most at least once more after that. We never considered trying a 5 speed conversion, but these were manager’s vehicles so it probably wouldn’t have flown.
Even when I was a tough young guy living in the North Peace we all knew to stay the hell away from the seismic crews when they hit town….
When I made the switch from field based Mechanical Foreman where I was on my feet all day and outdoors most of the time to a desk job in my mid 30s I gained 15 lbs in a year! Outdoor work is a tough way to make a living but it does keep you in shape!
The transition to sitting and not moving was the absolute worst. Pretty sure I gained 20 in two years until I adjusted. I absolutely love the rare occasions now when I get a field day at work.
Another great installment Jograd.
“There’s really only one thing to know about ex-oilfield trucks and that is never buy one.”
Yes, when my daughter was on the way I decided to buy a crew cab truck, found one suspiciously cheap and bought it quickly as I was too busy and distracted at work to pay too much attention. The salesman brought it to my office which should have been the first clue . . . . the other clues manifested themselves shortly thereafter.
“Never a buy a used white truck with no front license plate bracket” (Alberta) was something a wiser person told me, after I bought it.
My brother in law briefly had a white, no-front plate truck that upon delivery here the entire interior was removed and thrown in the dumpster, even the headliner.
My now-rebuilt 1979 Ford crew cab was also a seismic truck from High Prairie and looked every bit of it.
I had two Explorers, a 1992 that belonged to my sister that survived an unbelievably long time and my (now ex) wife had a 1998 that provided excellent service to the high 200,000 kms
Looking forward to more!
Figures that a late 1970s Ford Crew Cab would survive seismic. The 77 1/2 to 79 F250s were a top 5 of all time pickup in my book.
I enjoy your articles, equally for the automotive content and your descriptions of life and work. Another great installment here of both – and I keep laughing about the Excursion with the Britney Spears CD stuck in it.
Wonderful reading in my Arizona campsite with strong cell service. I had an office job for 40+ years. The first ten years or so mostly staring at a drafting board or other paper, then a screen. My post retirement “hobby” is trail building as a volunteer for a local group. Shovel, Rogue hoe, McLeod etc. I prefer to avoid the rock bar. Hard to keep up with guys 1/3rd my age but still lots of fun. I try to earn my beer. An SUV did family duty for us after the kids outgrew the jump seats of my SuperCab Ranger, but we went for Toyota not Ford, despite the good service the Ranger had given us.
That’s excellent. Someone snuck into my shed a few years back and replaced my rock bar with one that is10 lbs heavier. Seems to happen a lot lately to my tools.
I loved trail crew work. My daughter had a job doing it two years ago and as we both got ready for work each morning I was definitely thinking we should switch jobs for the day.
More great tales from tough (if beautiful) places.
It’s said work enobles man: it is truer that work more often entombs him. Most men in hard physical jobs are eventually worn bare by them, and by 67, retirement is either short or uncomfortable. Such work should never be glamorized (not that you have, I hasten to add). It should always be done in such a way as to wear them minimally, and arranged to get them out of it when there is still life left. It’s no coincidence the young fellows went wild out of the camp, as they do here. It is an outlet of unknown anger: often, with little or lesser education to give them alternatives, to be wearing one’s body out for financial survival is a savage option. All talk of things like over-paid mine workers or of increasing the pension age to 70 only ever comes from the flabby-handed class like mine, and is a cruelty arising from ignorance.
(A caveat. I have known folk who so love their physically hard job that they’ll work literally till death in doing it, but they are usually doing a task where something is created – it’s the personal choice of both a woodworker and a mechanic of my acquaintance, but it’s uncommon).
I’ve driven an Explorer manual V6 of this very vintage years ago, and still recall the handling as hair-whitening. It at least matched the visible quality in direness, but that is an unhappy double act. Their rep here went on to be very poor, and they haven’t been sold for some time. I can’t imagine one as a 300Kms purchase, but it can clearly be done.
Another incredibly well written story about an old truck and the life it and you led at the time .
Also good to hear the Ford ‘Exploder’ was in fact a good basic truck . IIRC that’s the same platform my 2001 Ranger is made upon and yes, parts are getting hard to find, thank God for the internet these days .
I don’t mind ‘Riding The Hound’ but it’s not the same as it was from the 50’s into the late 80’s that’s for sure .
I find the Ranger’s handling is fine until I go faster than 60 MPH then it’s a collision or rollover waiting to happen as it’s very twitchy at speeds so I try no never exceed 70 MPH in it .
I too agree that “work makes the man”, I had planned to work until I died, luckily my Sweet told me I had to retire before I was stuck in a wheel chair permanently .
I too gained weight and haven’t been able to loose the paunch .
Please continue sharing your life stories .
I currently own a 1992 Explorer XLT. I bought it 10 years ago this month with 73,000 original miles to use as a winter vehicle. Out of California the year before it had no rust. Just a couple of dents (since fixed).
The A4LD leaked and it turned out to be the intermediate servo cover. An updated part (and a lot of work) later, that was fixed. I’ve thought about a 5 speed conversion but in the salt belt, all the gen one Explorers have long since been sent to China. No donor ones are around here anymore.
I take good care of it and it still is in nice shape with 107K on the clock. Yearly spray oiling underneath does wonders as does keeping it washed. When the tires on it started cracking (235/75R15) I decided to go smaller. I put a set of 205/75R15’s on it and that made a whole different vehicle out of it handling wise. Funny what the loss of an inch in height does for an old Explorer. It still has enough ground clearance for what I use it for.
I agree it was the best car I used to have one Ford explorer I used to have one