Premise: The world has ended, with a slow decline and some wars.
No single major event.

writing about the Shifter's family. Last time I left them they were pulling into an old abandoned horse ranch with their RV redlining the Temp gauge.

They have an RV full of various supplies and supplies were left at the location. Supplies are also available at the ranch, but they are old farm tools and such. I can fudge a bit if I need to.

Problem 1: The head gasket is blown on the RV. The town is occupied with Mexican troops busy looting. They are about 20 miles outside of town in a heavily vegetated area, mix od creosote, ocotillo and Mesquite. What can they use that they might have to make a temporary head gasket? Cereal box cardboard?

Problem 2: I'm going to make their water run out. There is a well and pump on the property but its 220v and the genny on the RV only makes 110v. The well is 110 feet deep.

Other problems will surface. I am also willing to accept suggestions for problems. They will remain at this location for about a year while the OLD Shifter trains the young Shifter. I am looking to entertain readers but educate them on the sly.

If any of the buildings has a sheet steel or copper roof, use that.  They'd need punches and drills and stuff but it should work for a while.  
As to water, a long rope and a bucket?

Its a well pipe, the diameter is 8 to 10 inches.

I did find a resource that said copper sheeting would work but may also leak a bit, but it will keep your engine running.
I found a resource that said they used a cherios box smeared with Peanut butter in a two stroke engine and it lasted for years.

I would imagine the oil in the PB helped. I was thinking of using oil soaked cereal box. Its for a 454. I'm going to write that only one head gasket failed. How do I tell what side without compression testing? Visual inspection through the sparkplug hole?

So the troops are looting now, but the main characters are going to be there a year?
Why is the head gasket an immediate concern if the aren't needing to go anywhere anytime soon.
I'd think they'd want to stay out of sight as much as possible

I've been on a couple of old farms, and it seems that they always have ways to lift/move heavy things and old farm trucks. Maybe they could find a pickup or some other piece of equipment,(t-boned off the side of the road or something maybe) that has a chevy big block in it. Or maybe it could be fun to have the previous owner of the farm be a drag racing nut, and have new engine parts around.(maybe even a fresh spare engine on a stand in a shop outbuilding or something )

I wouldn't say that a cereal box would work for a head gasket. Too much oil and coolant. I have used it in place of paper gaskets to seal stuff on intake manifolds though, so that may be usefull to you. It would probably be fine in an air cooled 2 stroke, but I don't imagine it would last more than a couple of minutes in a v8.  Sheet copper would be best, if you have to improvise something. Don't forget that the intake manifold will have to come off, even for one head. They'll likely need oil and coolant, as they usually mix when a head gasket pops. Timing will need to be set, as the distributor will come out to remove the intake manifold.(this could be accomplished by either finding a timing light, or marking the position of the rotor to the distributor housing, and the housing to the intake) it'd be handy for our hero to stumble upon a tube of rtv to seal things up also. A blown head gasket could be identified by pulling a spark plug and finding coolant in the cylinder.

This is all generic advice, as I have never replaced a head gasket in a big block chevy, so a few minor details may be wrong, but, you should be able to get started. It may be a good idea to go to the library and read a Chilton or Haynes manual about the repair on the actual engine in the story, if you want to be as accurate as possible.

Hope it helps.

They want to hide out for a while but they want the RV to run in case they have to evacuate. They are a ways out of town so the troops have no reason to be out their way. They end up staying a year because they can't fix the RV, or they fix it but the fix doesn't hold past an emergency usage or something.

DFARM

That's what I was looking for. I want enough into to sound knowledgeable but not get bogged down in the details.

I might have the RV fixed long enough to visit some other farms to find a genny that will run 220v or located a solar well pump setup they can acquire. I don't know yet.

We had a head gasket blow out in the Scout van on the way to summer camp. We were about 100 miles from no where NM. It took all the water we had packed to get us to a buddy of the scout masters house. I remember he lived near a bar that looked suspiciously like the Titty Twister from Dusk til Dawn.

It took them all day to fix it so we spent the night at this huge ranch style villa so far out in the NM desert that you could not see the glow of city lights anywhere.

A scout is always prepared. So we made sure we filled out water jugs BEFORE we packed them even though we could fill them at the campground. To this day I keep enough water in my car to fill the radiator once.

Best bet would have to be the farmer or his son had a big block car they were either racing or working on.
Or perhaps an old farm truck... That could explain having the parts on hand to fix it.  Cutting exhaust gaskets from copper would be more believable than a head gasket, at least without a machine shop.w

It would be believable that a farmer would have big block bow tie parts on hand.

The electrical problem could be solved running 2 110 leads to the well pump. If the jenny had 2 110 outlets and the amp's.YMMV :)

Enough PVC pipe to reach the water and a basic foot-valve and they could make a little crank arm to raise and lower it to bring water up.

2 110V outlets doesn't ALWAYS make 220V.  But if they can couple a found 220V motor to any driveshaft they can get running then that motor will produce 220V.

sheet metal roofing, copper or zinc alloy roof flashing thin gauge. I have seen old time hot rodders do this. They cut the piece to approximate size, lay it on cylinder head or block, and tap with a wood block or hammer to  produce a tracing of the gasket patter and then trim to fit...

why don't you make your survivors convert a vehicle to run on wood gas? that would be really cool...

Thanks for the advice! The MC was able to find enough scrap pipe and such to fabricate a scaffold to use in the pulling of the well pipe. He used a hilift jack and wrapped chain around the shaft to pull it a few inches at a time. It was a bitch but it worked. He then fabricated a PVC Well bucket and used that to bring up a gallon or so at a time. Not an Ideal situation but it was better than dying. When the federal government retook the area from the Secessionists with the help of the Mexican Army they became a stopping point for patrols and the Army installed a Solar water pump system. Buy the book to find out more!

So...  Its basically autobiographical but more Mexicans?

The RV family is pretty much Autobiographical, I just turned stuff up to 11. Like my daughter is a monster in real life but doesn't actually shapeshift. We didn't live on an abandoned horse ranch, but behind an abandoned house. We had water struggles but it was usually leaky hoses or the hose froze during the winter. Good memory!

Title?

The title of the fourth book in my serial novel is Episode 4: Dancing with the Dawn. I am working on Episode 5: The Beginning of the End, and Episode 6: The End of the Beginning, right now.

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