You know the story-Your thrashing away on a project car and the goal is just to get it to a certain show by a certain date. Its what keeps you up with late nights, makes you spend all your money, and keeps you determined to get it done. For my Merc (... <BR><BR>To read the rest of this blog entry from The Jalopy Journal, click here.
good story. and ah that feeling of "i made it after all that, and it seems to be smooth sailing now". cant beat it!
A story, I am sure, many of us can relate to. Makes for good conversation later, though. By the way, the car looks fantastic.
Had a friend who decided to drive his '29 Packard to the Atlantic City show (yes, in February). Got a flat about an hour out of AC and wrested on one of the spares... that had original tires! He jumped back on the parkway, only to see tread flying every which way. Long story short, he was on the cords of the 2nd spare when he pulled into the show, some 4 hours late without enough money to buy any new tires (this was back in the OLD days, before ATMS).
haha nice. I had a water pump seize up and it was staying cool moving but when I pushed in the clutch it would stall the engine. Limped her in. I feel your pain everybody else was eating BBQ. I was just making it back home for another vehichle.
You are driving along, daydreaming, then you hear something, feel something, notice a difference. She's not running like before. Why is she doing this to me? "Oh come on, don't act up now." Cripes. You turn off the radio. Put down the cell phone. Your heartrate picks up. You are running diagnotics in your head. You wonder if this is the time you get stranded. Check the gas, check the gauges, listen, listen, you talk to her, you whisper curses under your breath, you can't believe this is happening.... look for a spot to pull over. The stuff that road trip memories are made of. Been there.
Amen! And all you gotta do to retain perspective is remember that it could be worse.... You could be doing that drill over a shit box import in the dead of winter.
I can relate. Mooneyes Xmas Party 2008, 2 blocks from home my altenator goes out on my flathead. Call a guy I met on the HAMB, who I remember lives in La Mirada. 7am he crawls out of bed, pulls his alt. off his own truck and we swap the bad for the good in the parking lot that I'm broke down in. Made it to the show and had a great time and a fun story. I have since remedied my alt. problem and replaced it with a tried & true generator. : ) Good times.
lost the tranny lines on the way to my first show in the my white 49 pickup. Wife threw in the towel since she smelled like burnt tranny oil, called a friend, loaded it on the trailer, pushed her into the garage and took the wife on a date after she went home and showered AGAIN. Been there, and look forward to it again in the future. Good times running diagnostics through your head. Its almost pleasing if you can actually get it right before opening the hood
Lost a waterpump a hundred miles from home on a 300 mile drive to a Crosley Club meet in Visalia, California. Had to pull over every 20 minutes to grease the pump in hunnert and two degree heat. It took me about ten hours to get there and I arrived covered in dirt AND grease. Luckily found a pump at the meet and swapped it out for a trouble free drive home. Dirty hands = clean soul.
Yea what can you do I made it all the way back from the GNRS with a wicked vibration that starts around 65-70 and carries all the way up. plan on pulling the drive shaft this weekend!
Funny....I looked at the first pic., and thought..."man that looks just like home" in the background. Sure enough.....next pic. and you we're right in little old San Martin. Too funny!
I had a fun shake down run to Billetproof Ca. 2007. We had thrashed on the new '57 Chevy for a few weeks strait and were down to chasing some wiring problems and misc. little things. The car had been driven around the block a couple times and once to get gas, so I was confident that all was good. The rest of the club left for Antioch Friday afternoon, but I wasnt able to leave until 9:00 that night. We get on 780, my wife is driving the '32, my buddy Gil is driving my '49 and Im following. First thing I notice is that the engine is screaming along at about 3800 rpm and everyone is pulling away. I figure the new Th-350 is not shifting into drive, so I pull over and take off again and count the shifts. 2nd...drive...pull over again and re-check the fluid level...right on the mark, not burnt. By this time everyone has doubled back and found me. I knew the car was low geared, so I figure it probably has 4:88 gears and Im just not used to them. We decide to keep going and just take it slow. I then notice that at the top of every slight grade it feels like Im running out of fuel. Next time it happens, I grab my flashlight and look at the fuel pressure guage...zero, but it creeps back up when the road levels out. The more throttle I gave it, the less fuel pressure I had. Long story short, we made it to the Ramada around 11:00 pm. There were a couple other interesting things that happened on this trip, but this is getting way too long. After I got home I pulled the 3rd member (Olds rear end) and discovered it had 5:86 gears...I counted the teeth 3 times in disbelief. The fuel pressure problem was a brand new Holley mechanical fuel pump that was junk! Good times!!
It's a 14 hour trip from here to Tacoma, WA, on the best of days with a modern vehicle. Hotrod-a-rama '08, took us 29 hours to get down there and easily that to get back. I know the feeling haha. Love the '39.
Yep, those times that seem the worst when they happen, later become fond memories. I have met the nicest folks during the many roadside "rests" that have happened to me. Just when it appears that a tow truck is neccessary, out of the blue the answer appears. Once lost a wheel bearing in the 9" in my 46 in the middle of nowhere Kansas on Memorial Day Weekend, Sunday no less. No place in the small town was open, guy rides by on bike tells us he knows the guy who can fix it. Says follow him??? what else to do? Turns out local rodder has shop at his house and his Father in law owns the local Napa. We install new bearing and then all [folks with us and his wife, bro and his wife plus in laws] go for steaks. While at his place his Dad [about 75?] starts telling us about his A coupe in the barn, we're thinking real uncle daniel untill he opens the door to a channeled rod with a decked out flathead. There were two other couples in rods with us headed to Kalamazoo and Burlington Nats, plus Canada and upstate NY tour. What seemed bleak turned out to be another highlite of the trip. There have been many others not as interesting as that one though. Joe
Wingnuts knows all about the shakedown run for my Model A coupe....Fond du Lac, Wisconsin to the Hunnert Car Pile Up '05...about a 250 mile trip one way...I was up all night putting a cylinder head back on the 390 Caddy mill...Mark showed up a 6am and followed me in my '59 Cadillac (good thing he did too, cuz it proved to be the "support" vehicle). We got to Beaver Dam and I had to stop to adjust the strombergs because the roads were so shitty that there was gas all over my windshield from all of the bouncing. So off we go again...had to stop again in about 30 miles because my steering column support to the dash wasn't tight enough, allowing the entire column to turn when I turned (this wouldn't have been such a big deal if I hadn't put directionals on the car...everytime the cloumn turned the directional mechanism would end up all the way flipped over). We ended up stopping again in another 30 miles becuase of a sticking throttle (I could take my foot off the gas at thirty and she would stay there unless you hooked your foot underneath the spoon pedal and brought her back down). After that, everything seemed to be going smoothly until we got about 25 miles away from the show. I had a wire arcing out under the car from the voltage regulator, so we stopped and fixed that right away. Back on the road, got to the show at about 3 in the afternoon, stayed for about 3 hours and decided to get motoring on home. What I didn't know yet was that the voltage regulator was fried from that wire arcing out. She'd keep running without the battery because I run a magneto, but eventually I'd have to turn lights on, and I run an electric fuel pump, so my time was limited. Got as far as Elkhorn, Wisconsin (about 150 miles) before she died on me while I pulled into a gas station. Jumped in the cadillac and went to Delevan Walmart, bought another battery (that wouldn't fit into the battery tray) jerry rigged it into the car and drove the last 100 miles home. Pulled into my driveway at about 12:30am...I'd been awake for almost 48 hours and the car was open headers, so I couldn't hear a damn thing and was very tired...to add to this the '59 had started having transmission slipping problems on the way back (turned out to be a dropped fin in the torque converter). This was the first trip in the coupe...the car had zero miles on it when we left my driveway that morning and I want to thank Wingnuts for helping me through it. What a gamble, what a shakedown, what a story! I'd do it the same way all over again...
3 days on the road from Phx to Dago in my 67 El Camino for a job. Slept under a bridge 1st night out, fuel pump went second day outside Jacumba, what a lovely spot. (Dad lunched a 454 in his motor home there), oh the memories!!
The thrash before the big event! Been there before. Just a few years on Thursday, the day before the NHRA Hot Rod Reunion in BG, KY. My '55 is in several hundred pieces with an un-finished Richmond 5-speed/hydraulic clutch conversion goin' on. Automatics are fast & easy, but 4-5 speeds are MUCH more fun. Anyway, got up at 6AM, started work on something I wasn't even sure was gonna work or not and actually finished it up around 8PM. Drove it around the block twice successfully and threw it on the trailer, quickly packed some clothes and hit the road by 11PM, driving all night to Bowling Green to arrive at the front gate and take a short nap while waiting in line for the Dragstrip to open. The car actually did fine all day Friday,so much so that I decided to drive it from the track to the Friday Night Twilight Cruise and my hotel room, 5.14's, slicks and all. Then, at a downtown stoplight, something gave up the ghost and the car lunged forward even though the clutch pedal was still pushed in. I was able to get the car into a gas station parking lot and thanks to a great group of friends, including King Chassis, I was able to get a ride back to the track to get my truck & trailer and come back to load that car up. I was always thankful to them for missing the Twilight Cruise to help me with my broken-down mess. In fact, I'm still not 100% sure what happened to cause that problem, but I strongly suspect that the Lakewood Scattershield's stamped steel construction was flexing slightly under the strain of that Big Block Chevy and 5speed transmission because of the fact that it was being supported by a front motor plate and a rear transmission crossmember with no support in the middle, bellhousing area. It's kinda easy to visualize the motor/tranny flexing like a banana and the crank pilot busing seizing on the tranny input shaft. I replaced that Lakewood with a heavy, cast RC Industries bellhousing and a mid-plate for support and never had another problem......at least in that area! Live and learn, I guess.
Yup I had fun dealing with my two cars. I was on my way to prime nationals about 2 years ago. I was driving my 60 tbird and a friend of mine was driving my 60 chevy wagon. On the way down my friend driving the wagon came with in inches of a CHP nailing him as he tear assing out to get a speeder. That was a sign of things to come about an 45 min from Ventura the carrier bearing on the wagon gives up the ghost. My friend pulls over on the freeway not knowing what had happened. I get out nearly getting hit by several cars drive the wagon the rest of the way. It was like chitty chitty bang bangs evil cousin. The drive shaft would true up through centrifical force then you would hit a bump and BANG BANG BANG CLANG!!! Each time it did that I think I pee'd a little. We get to the hotel sleep on it call around the next morning to try and find a replacement with no luck. So we abandon the wagon and take the tbird to the show. Now it is time to leave and it is hot as hades out. We get caught in traffic and the tbird completly blows off the bottom hose and we are stuck on a bridge with cars pileing up behind us. So there we are both sweating like hostages pushing the car in traffic dealing with assholes heckleing us the whole time. We get to a gas station put the hose back on fill up the radiator start the car and now it has a major death rattle. At this point I want to light it on fire tear all my clothes off and dance around like a wild savage. I call my Dad to bring the trailer thinking tommorow is going to be a long day hauling cars around California. My friend talks me into looking into the tbird I am thinking it is done. So to spite my discust I look and find out the death rattle was a loose starter and nothing more. Now faith restored I drove it home follwing my wagon on the trailer. Old cars you got to love them.
1973, I was living in McGregor, Tx and had planned on going to the Street Rod Nationals in Tulsa since I first heard that it was going to be there. I had picked up the 48 as a running beater in March of 73 and was thrashing on my T bucket to get it ready to go when the realization came that there was no way the T would be ready in time. I did a six week thrash converting the 48 from a beater with a hand brushed paint job, bald tires and a stock trans that jumped out of second to a painted and upholstered rod with Gold paint, saddle brown roll and pleats and 15 inch tires on 15x7 Z 28 ralley wheels. I had installed the open drive 61 Chev car rear end and a mid 50's Chev three speed only days before it was time to leave for Tulsa. Jean and I left McGregor at about 8 am and headed out to Tulsa up I 35 and everything went pretty good until we got about 100 miles from the house and the carb started starving for gas. Diagnosis was gold paint in the fuel filter. My buddy who had painted it for me hadn't taped over the gas filler when he pulled the chrome cap off of it. A couple of filters later we were buzzing across the Red River when the truck died and we coasted to the Oklahoma side and the side of the road where Bob Davis and his wife from Waco and fellow club members found us. A quick check told us it was the coil and he had a Ford coil behind the seat. The Chev fired up happily with the Ford coil and away we went. a few more miles down the road a loud squealing and a lot of smoke was coming out from under the truck. We made it into Marietta and the gas station just off I 35 where we pulled the trans with the yoke welded to the output shaft, drive shaft and all. One of the guys at the station directed us to a small wrecking yard where the owner sold me the remains of a core trans for 10 or 15 bucks, handed me a partial tub of wheel bearing grease and said, "lock the gate when you guys get it back together" and left. We pulled the trans apart, installed the other tail shaft and housing from the core trans and were headed back to the gas station in what seemed like short order. Trans in, spare yoke installed on the drive shaft and drive shaft installed. The kid at the station drug out the gear oil pump and I filled the trans, paid up and away we went to Tulsa and ended up staying in Claremore in the Will Roger Hotel. Back to Tulsa the next morning and because our motel room was canceled the night before we ended up finding one that was a mile from the fairgrounds instead of clear out at the airport. Three days of cars and fun and back down I 35 without a single mishap except Jean got the bottoms of her feet sunburned from laying in the seat using my leg as a pillow and sticking her feet out the window. I think if you get through that first road trip with a fresh rig you are good to go.
My first really memorable experience was in 1976 when I was 14 and just a passenger along for a ride in my dad's '33 Plymouth rumble seat coupe, which is now my little brothers. We had a convoy which included the above '33 another '33 Plymouth business coupe, '31 Plymouth rumble seat coupe, '35 Dodge business coupe and a '52 Plymouth 5 passenger coupe which is also my little brothers now. The '35, '33 bus. and the '31 were all recently restored with the '35 Dodge being the most major of restorations. That's the one that gave us the most trouble, ten miles from start on a 160 mile trip the fuel problems begin. Sucking muck from the tank is hard on them. After a few filters and hours lost he finally gives up and decides to have his wife bring the truck and tow it back. So off we go thinking all is swell and making some stops along the way, well about ten o'clock pm one of the remaining cars runs out of gas. We syphon some out of another then that one runs out so we do it again. Guess what? Yeah another one down. At that point they decide to try to find an open gas station. That's hard to do in the middle of nowhere between Nevada, Mo. and Pittsburg, Ks. in 1976. The '52 had the largest tank and was hard to syphon so it made the trip for gas to save the rest. The '35 Dodge made it the next day about half way through our family reunion. All's well that ends well
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