In March of 2001 my fiance and I drove my '92 from Anchorage, Alaska down to Reno, NV, and then over to Austin, TX, and back to Anchorage through Idaho, Montana, Alberta, etc.
The first of two problems we encountered was about 80 miles outside of Las Vegas, at a place called Fort Amorgosa, where we lost the water pump. Unfortunately, while I was prepared for belt and coolant hose failures, I hadn't thought about the water pump, which had 180k miles on it at that point (obviously that's something I should have replaced before we left Anchorage, or at least taken along a spare).
The second problem was a slow driveline thumping vibration that only occurred between about 15 mph and 30mph, which I discovered in Austin was a dying drive shaft u-joint which had no grease at all, and whose vibrations had killed the driveline carrier bearing.
The only rough road we had to worry about on the entire trip was about 20 miles between the Alaska/Canada border and the first Canadian fuel stop, where the road was very coarse gravel. Speed was limited to no more than 35-40 mph. Some people call the Cassiar Highway "rough"--they've never driven rough roads before. The Cassiar is mostly a smooth "chip coat" type pavement which resembles a hard packed dirt road, but which is uniformly smoother. We drove the majority of it at about 100kph (60mph). I should point out that the Cassiar is mostly speed limited to 80kph, and claims to have photo radar. I never saw any speeding tickets among the mail when we returned to Anchorage.
Distance between fuel stops was *never* a problem. The longest stretch we drove without seeing fuel stations was clearly marked as such (ie, a sign something like "Check fuel--next stop 200km"), and was towards the southern end of the Cassiar Highway. If I remember correctly it was a little over 300km. In the first week of March coming down through the Yukon and BC, there were many fuel stations which were closed down because it was still early in the tourist season. Just use common sense, and avoid going below a quarter tank, and you should be fine. For what it's worth, we only averaged about 15. 5mpg through Yukon and BC, and my '92 only has a 30 gallon tank.
Regarding fluid changes, it all depends on when they were last done. For example, if you just had the transmission serviced 5000 miles ago, it wouldn't pay to do a full transmission service prior to the trip. HINT: Bill K. is in Abbotsford, BC, just north of Washington state.
Obviously though, there are huge numbers of competent shops along the trip which can change fluids.
I wouldn't think Mag-Hytec pans/covers would be necessary; however if these are WANTED, then certainly this would be a good time to install them. I still have yet to purchase either the MH diff cover or transmission pan, and we're planning a trip from Anchorage down along the west coast this summer, and I'm perfectly comfortable without them (although they WOULD be cool--no pun intended
).
Mike
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