Event Coverage The bad & good from our trip to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee

The Mrs. and I left for our annual pilgrimage to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee for the Shades of the Past car show this past Wednesday morning,,the wagon was loaded up with all the necessities for a long weekend and the car was running great.

The Smokey Mountains are especially beautiful this time of year and the twisty mountain roads were fun in the wagon.

We crossed the highest peak and had traveled through the Cherokee Indian Reservation and Gatlingburg was less than 20 miles when all of a sudden I heard a very unnerving noise,the sound like a fan scraping the radiator or like the scraping of something hitting a flywheel,,I killed the engine and pressed the clutch and eased of the side of the road.

I extracted myself from behind the wheel and opened the hood,half expecting the noise I had heard was the fan,,everything was intact so I ask my bride to crank the car,,I see no problem so I ask her to rev the engine,then I saw the problem and it's not a quick roadside fix.

The bolt holding the alternator had broken off flush with the block so my only choice was to remove the alternator and belt and continue on my merry way assuring my wife the whole time we could travel the last 40 miles or so on the battery,turn off the air and radio,,we didn't need the GPS so everything would be fine.

We made it to the hotel and I decided not to worry about it until Thursday,,besides we had friends that would be coming and I placed a call and ask for a drill and some easy outs.

Thursday my friend Dave showed up with the tools mentioned earlier,,we tried in vain to remove the broken bolt so a decision was made to find a large box hardware store for a larger bolt and some spacers along with some flat bar,,we already had the drill and bits.

After consulting the yellow pages we came to the conclusion the closest big hardware store was almost 40 miles away,so we settled for a small mom & pop hardware store.

Pigeon Forge is a tourist town,obviously not a DIY town.

They had very little,,I needed a 7" 5/16" bolt,,the largest thing they had was 5",,so I opted for a 4' piece of all thread,,the didn't have any flat bar so a piece of 4' angle iron was purchased and then a hacksaw,,the only one they had

So 34 bucks lighter we return to the old Ranch Wagon,, a mere 3 1/2 hours,we had made the temporary parking lot repair,,we were hot,bleeding,hot,ill temper,hot,hungry,hot and did I mention ill temper,,I have used a years worth of cuss works,,Dave has used probably 3 years worth!

From this point on the weekend went well,,we were enjoying ourselves at the show on Saturday when a gentleman came up to us and told us about his mission of picking a couple of cars at this show,,it's called The Shelby Memorial award named for his son who was a tragic statistic of suicide,,Mark is quiet the gentleman and shared the story and presented Brenda with a very unique trophy,you might recognize the Hamber name RAZIN CAIN.

Thanks to Tom (seadog) for taking the photo.

This is Mark Cain's story : http://www.shelbysspeedandkustom.com/foundation/



All in all the weekend turned out good and we arrived home without any more problems.

We got to see a lot of Hambers we knew and meet a few we haven't met in the past.

Did I mention it was HOT! HRP

 

Well it was more good than bad.....

 

When you dont have much to work with it's interesting how creative you have to be to get by. Its more of an adventure. Glad to hear (besides the mishaps) that the trip went well. Love the car by the way. Bet you will never forget that weekend.

 

The joy's of owning an old car!!!!!!!!!!

Sounds crazy but years ago I used to break down whenever we took a road trip so we used to hope it happened early in the trip so we could get it over with and fixed.

It was always something weird that would happen like the time at 2:AM in the morning somewhere in the North Carolina when we heard the fan hitting something.

Turns out a long bolt on the air pump for the truck was backing out and hitting the fan. I tried threading it back in with only a flashlight to see by that did not work so out came the roll of duck tape and I wrapped it around the bolt a few times and it stayed like that until we got home.

Jimbo

 

Great story !!!! And Cain is a good fellow !!!! LOL

 

It's always something aint it. Congrats on the award guys.

 

Your luck in Tennessee aint so hot, but you still managed to get home on your own power....Good job.
You're making quite the career cussing that ole wagon.

 

I'm of the opinion that if you can't fix your car on the side of the road, you'd better stay home...or trailer it...!!! Glad to hear it wasn't anything major...

Did you happen to read about my two week trip to Canada at the end of July...??? No, I didn't have any trouble with my Cadillac, it was a trouble free trip and we put 4552 miles on my car...go here: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/...hlight=events+4552+miles+two+weeks+three+days

Mark Cain's a great guy with an important message...congrats on being his choice...

R-

 

Well HRP as the saying goes it's not the destination it's the journey that is most rewarding!

 

So I guess I shouldn't mention the guy next to us at Brad's swap that was selling his collection of alternator bolts and easy-outs ?

Missed you at the swap, but it looks like things worked out pretty well!

 

Funny Mac,,really funny,hope to see you guys next month. HRP

 

Great story and great repair. But who doesn't carry EZ outs, a power drill and a 5/16"x7 bolt in their emergency repair kit? Must not have been a Boy Scout.

Love to read about people driving their cars.

 

Where is the picture of the repair?

 

The reality is that you could have a Snap-On rollaway with every tool imagineable, every spare part you could think of.. and some other ungodly part that would never break around town will go blooey once you get 100 miles out of your garage.

Bob

 

You really don't want to see that do you? HRP

 

It's like I tell my wife when something goes wrong on a trip.

Somehow we will get home and we always do.

 

Absolutely. I have gone on long trips with every tool and part known to man, and some weird little part that I never thought about would fail. OR, I would carry all those parts and tools and never need one at all. (Which I guess is even better though)

Alternator bolts seem to shear off a lot. Maybe the game plan should be to replace them before going on a long trip or at least carry a spare and ez out and cordless drill.

Don

 

Congrats on the trophy. It always help you forget about the trouble you had gettin there I guess. I never car a spare or parts except the AAA card. Pretty much done doing long distance @ 80 so I feel safe to mention it ,85, 000 trouble free miles on the clock of the roadster., Too bad you didn't try (or if you did I apologise & forget I said anything) to contact a HAMBER or FORD BARNER if any are in the area. Just a thought I ,(question),I had.

 

Great story, HRP, glad you two made it back home safely. The wagon looks great.

 

I've only heard of alternator bolts breaking on this forum. I've never had the displeasure myself even though logging many thousands of miles in old cars.

I can't imagine the stress that goes with making such a repair on the road.

Bob

 

I use to break the alternator bolt that went through to the head on my '60, replaced the ones coming with the chrome kit with a factory GM and never had a problem since, but I keep two spares in my toolbox just in case!

Glad to hear you could keep the thing going and enjoy the rest of the trip, I always say I never remember the easy trips, the memorable ones are the ones where you have car trouble, the weather is bad, or something else happens. Eventually you look back at those fondly... "hey remember that time I broke down going to....."

 

You ask for it,,you can probably see the bar code on the angle iron brace.

 

At least you had the knowledge to get it road worthy again! It will also make for a more memorable road trip!

 

HRP thank God you are a true hotrodder and able to improvise a repair on the fly. Think of what would have happened if a (Gold Chainer had the same problem). Thanks for sharing.

 

I don't wish anyone problems but with a cell phone and AAA anyone can find help. HRP

 

If it's goofy and it works, it ceases to be goofy! Good fix!

 

How was the weather?

 

I know that hardware store! Its been there a long time. A friend tore up his vw motor at the show more than 10 years ago, went in there for some metric bolts, no he didn't have any. He did like you did and had to improvise. I need to go again to Pigeon Forge now that its at Dollywood.

 

I just wanted to confirm there wasn't a bra strap or coat hanger involved in the repair!

 

The weather was Nice,,,and HOT! HRP