"No matter where you go, there you are!" - Buckaroo Banzai
==================================================================
to: [email protected] subject: The Trip From Hell (very long) Pt 1What a long, strange trip it's been...
Back about ten years ago I bought an ex-phone-company F100 from a coworker for $150. The 240 six was blown up, but it was a very straight, though plain, stepside pickup. Pickup trucks go for premium prices around here, and it was a steal.
I installed the 12.5:1 302 and toploader from my old autocross car
into the truck (I've mentioned that as the swap from hell...), had
some 2-1/2" pipes and glasspacks put on, with both pipes exiting
under the passenger side step, and drove it to college for a while
before the AutoZone "rebuilt" starter locked up in mid-start and
ripped the teeth off the flywheel. I managed to get the ring gear
replaced, but about that time I got run over by a DWI while on my
way home from work one evening. By the time I got off crutches I
wasn't interested in the truck any more, and wound up selling the
driveline to a guy in England (air freight to London, yeah!) and
swapped the body to my friend Doug, who lives in Colorado Springs,
a thousand miles away. AB and I delivered the body with a one-way
U-Haul and returned with a truck full of Carver and Fisher audio
equipment, which was a hell of a deal.
It had taken me several weeks to replace the 240 with the 302.
The two main factors were that I had expected it to bolt up, and
kept hunting rare factory parts instead of just treating it as a
swap, and I was doing it in a gravel driveway in midwinter. The
day we delivered the truck to Doug we dropped a freebie 350
Olds/T350 combo he'd acquired into the hole, where it sat as if it
was originally intended to. It fit better than the 302, anyway.
To add insult to injury, we found a driveshaft of the correct
length and with the proper yoke at a junkyard for $10. The next
day, after having two small steel plates welded onto the engine
stands to attach the Olds mounts, a little wiring, and a new lower
radiator hose, Doug was driving the truck down to have the
tailpipes hooked up.
Over the intervening years the "Fordsmobile" provided primary or backup transportation while Doug added power front discs, power steering, a bed cover, sliding rear window, brush bar, auxiliary fuel tank, auxiliary lighting, and a host of other upgrades. Then he acquired a cherry '67 El Camino. I built a nice little 383 stroker for it. Doug decided he didn't need two trucks, and I bought the F100 back for $500 in December 1995. However, it wasn't until last week that I was able to get back to Colorado to pick it up.
A few years ago Doug found me a great deal on a vertical mill, so
I went to Colorado Springs, bought a dual axle trailer, and hauled
it back.
Earlier this year Doug found another deal, a beautiful
Brown & Sharpe horizontal mill with power everything for only
$1250.
We had also talked about having him sell my '60 Chevy for me, so the logical plan was to haul the empty trailer up with the '60, load up the mill, and pull the loaded trailer back with the F100. No problem. Uh.
Prepping the '60 for a thousand mile trip consisted of topping off fluids, replacing the rather worn front tires, and filling it up with gas. Uh, and getting some keys made. I had lost the keys one rainy night a few weeks before. No problem, I'll get copies made of AB's keys. Unfortunately, AB had hidden them in some "safe place", possibly in company with various other small items, cash, and firearms she's squirrelled away and been unable to relocate. The locksmith couldn't get the trunk lock to cooperate, so I had to unbolt the striker with six feet of 3/8 extensions taped together, reaching in from behind the back seat...
The trailer was another story. One of the hubs was badly worn, and nothing I could find would match. The trailer is certainly older than the Chevy. I didn't want to use my new car trailer because it might take a few months to make room for the mill in the shop, and I didn't want the big trailer tied up. I wound up ordering a pair of spindles and hubs from Northern Hydraulic, picked up some square tubing for the axle, and began to make up the new front axle. The Northern Hydraulic spindles well and truly suck - not quite enough threads, the cotter pin hole was too far back to allow a pin to go through the castellations in the nut, and there is no keyed washer - the inner race rides directly against the nut. I didn't like it at all, but time was running short, so I began welding the thing up.
Around this time - three weeks ago, about - someone broke into the house by kicking the back door out of the wall. Didn't hurt the steel door, just shattered the frame, bent out the piece of 5/8" water pipe which bridged between a big shelf and the sink cabinet, and bent the forked stick doorknob prop almost in half. Took all the handguns and all the CDs from the stereo cabinet. Left a bunch of easily portable and disposable items. Our theory is the guy got spooked by an incoming call to Chaos. The modem is set with the speaker on until a connect is established, and we figure maybe the guy thought it was an alarm system dialing out.
As you can imagine this crimped the schedule slightly. I took two days off work to get down to the steelyard and buy a bunch of expanded wire mesh, angle iron, and plate. The door jambs and doors are now reinforced with steel and dead bolts, the rear windows have wire mesh over them, hinged angle iron bars latch onto pegs over the back door, the shop door has an angle and wire mesh "screen door". It feels sort of like living in a liquor store now.
The trailer needed tires, so I had to take care of that. I bought a receiver hitch by mail order and had it drop shipped to Doug so he could install it. Doug decided he'd buy my brother's 350 Chevy which had been in his '52 pickup. Aluminum rods, gear drive, rollers, dual quads, etc. This would finance Kevin's 4.6. I pulled the heads off to make it easier to handle, then cut two pieces of 1" square tubing four feet long and drilled holes so I could bolt them to the block so it could be carried like a litter. Took another couple of days off work. Gathered other stuff to take to Doug, then began packing the trailer and the Bel Air. The plan was to leave Thursday morning, arrive Friday morning, load the mill, sleep, leave Saturday morning, get back home Sunday morning. I've done that before, when I picked up my XJ900. I'm out of time on my house armoring project, but it'll have to do. The damned trailer lights don't want to work. Piss on it.
7 AM Thursday morning we roll out in a light drizzle. We stop by
a U-Haul place which rips me for $15 to hook up four wires to the
trailer lights. I grit my teeth. Wiring stuff drives me nuts; I'm
color blind. Dammit, wires should all be like the ones on my old
VW Beetle. All the VW wires were white; each was numbered every
few mm "56, 56, 56" or "22, 22, 22." No problem there. AB is
behind the wheel, points the nose full of chrome north on I-30, and
we're off. Trip itinerary is simple - ten minutes on I-30, right
on I-40, eight hours to OKC, right on I-135 until Salina, left on
70 to Limon, left on CO 24 to Colorado Springs, follow it until it
turns into Platte Avenue, jog right onto Doug's street, and we're
there. Of course, that's 20 to 24 hours of solid driving until you
feel like you're in a remake of Vanishing Point.
Voooommmm. The Chevy has a 235 six and three on the tree. It's a
*big* car - it can take six of those cheesy K-Mart parking places,
which are too short and too narrow for anything larger than a
Festiva. The trailer is a converted boat trailer, easily 25 feet
long, though much of it is tongue. We're talking about 45 feet or
so of rig, trailer and car both loaded. The long stroke, low tech,
single barrel six doesn't care - the speed limit is 65, AB is
cruising 75 to 80 in the Ozark foothills, blasting past traffic on
the long grades.
Chevy rated the 235 at 100 horsepower and 125
foot-pounds of torque; these, my friends, are an entirely different
species of horsepower than SAE net, French cheval-vapeur, or metric
KW. The hours pass as AB listens to her Walkman, I knock off three
of the SF novels I brought, and we make inroads on our supply of
munchies.
Voooommmm. We're past Salina, KS, heading west on I-70 as it
begins to get dark. A Kansas state trooper pulls AB over. The
trailer lights aren't working. Not only that, when she turned the
headlights on, the U-Haul expert's wiring had popped the fuse for
the car's running lights, tail lights, and turn signals too. I
replaced the fuse, disconnected the trailer lights, and the trooper
let us off with a warning. We stopped at the next town, but it was
after 10 PM, no place was open to get the wiring fixed. I managed
to cobble the trailer's running lights up. No brake or turn
lights, but hell, it's freeway. Back on the road.
Voooommmm. I'm in the back seat catching some z's. BLAMMM!! The whole car lurches to the side. I thought we'd been sideswiped by a semi. "WAAAA!!" I yelled. Yeah, so I'm startled. She rolls to an eventual halt. She's been driving for seventeen or eighteen hours and 'stop' is an alien concept. I climb out and check the car. The left rear tire has peeled the entire tread off - there's nothing but cord and pieces of sidewall. I get the floor jack and the spare. The floor jack lifts the car about an inch. What the _)#)*?? It has decided to drool all its hydraulic fluid into the trunk. Some extra 30-wt persuades it to lift the car. I swap the old American Racing slot mag for the steelie spare. We not only have an inflated spare, we have a full 3 gal air tank, a little compressor, fix-a-flat, and a plug kit. We also have 10 gallons of gas in DOT approved containers on the trailer, oil, brake fluid, and various spares. Paranoia is good, particularly in the wilds of the American Midwest, where there are hundred mile stretches where you can't buy gas after dark. AB holds the light and passes tools, and we're back on the road in fifteen minutes.
(continued on next rock)
to: [email protected] subject: The Trip From Hell (very long) Pt 2Voooommmm. I'm just nodding off. BLAMMM!! The whole car lurches to the side. I thought we'd been sideswiped by a semi. I managed not to shout in surprise this time. AB pulls off onto the shoulder. Left rear again. Blew a hunk of tread completely off, and a big hunk of sidewall. It's dark, windy, and cold. We're also out of spare tires. We're sitting in the car debating our options when another Kansas state trooper pulls up. Do we want a wrecker? Um. It's 1 AM; my buddy Tommy runs a wrecker service and he won't get out of bed for less than $75. Plus nothing's open anyway. I decide to wait until morning and get the number for a local wrecker service from the trooper.
It gets f***ing *cold* out there. AB and I are huddled together for warmth (she's cuddly anyway) and finally have to start the car and run the heater to stop our teeth from chattering. Time crawls by. Dawn. 7:30 AM. I try the number the trooper gave me. Cellphone says "number not in service." Try *55, like the signs by the highway say. Nothing. Kansas Cellular and my Arkansas Alltel phone don't like each other. I fire up the car and we thump-thump- thump up a hill and over. A sign! An exit to nowhere, but at least we know where we are. I try Doug's number. We can't call the next town, but we can call Colorado. Wierd. Doug calls the wrecker place in Kansas, gets a price for a used 14 inch tire mounted on a Chevy wheel. We call him back. They wanted $40. Okay. Doug calls them back. We call Doug back. Roundabout communications, but it works. Half an hour later a blue Pontiac pulls up and a man jumps out, opens the trunk, and hauls out a wheel. He wants $25, plus something for delivery. I hand over two twenties. We're all happy. It's even a decent looking tire and wheel. AB fires it up and we're rolling again.
We make Colorado Springs in the early morning, unload the trailer
and car, and head over to pick the mill up. We had actually
planned to be in Springs around 5 AM and take a nap, but all we've
done is lose some slack in the schedule. We get to the machinery
place, admire the machinery, and the proprietor uses his forklift
to set the mill on the trailer. The trailer sinks under the
weight. And sinks. And sinks. Mission Control, we have a
problem. There's about 3/4" left of the 6" of suspension travel we
started with, and we have a bunch of other stuff that's supposed to
go on there for the trip back. Hmm. Haw. Er. The owner of the
tool place offers to refund my money. That's a decent offer. I
make a call to Doug at work. If I order some overload springs,
could he tow the thing back to Arkansas next time he comes out?
Sure. We anchor the mill to the trailer with chains and straps and
creep carefully across town to Doug's. We see a really neat
wheelchair/sidecar rig on the way, but that's another story.
Next morning, Saturday. Load the F-100, fill 20-gallon tank in cab, 25-gallon tank in bed. We don't get out of town until 12:30 because we had to wait until an electric place opened so we could pick up a big 3 phase motor to make a phase convertor for the mill. Colorado prices run about 1/3 Arkansas prices. AB is driving on the way out. The temp guage reads hot. I had noticed it when driving around the night before. Doug said it had been reading hot for some time now, but he figured it was just the guage being funky since there had been no problems. We stopped in Limon and the truck wouldn't start. The engine was sizzling hot and the radiator was full of foam. Sounds like trouble, kemosabe. Roadside diagnosis: blown head gasket(s) if we're lucky, cracked block or head(s) if not. We limp back to Colorado Springs, make it in around 7 PM. I call my supervisor at work and tell him we're having a little problem. Furor ensues, as the other Unix geek is scheduled for vacation starting Monday. We pile into the El Camino and go to Senor Manuel's, a nondescript cinderblock building in an out-of-the-way part of town. A Senor Manuel's mondongo burrito is a cosmic experience; a huge beef burrito floating in a turkey platter of beef stew, called mondongo sauce. An experience to bring tears of joy to your eyes, and less desirable things to other parts of your anatomy, which is why we'd decided not to eat there the night before. We pick up a gasket set on the way back.
Sunday morning we're up bright and early to rip the motor apart. It takes all day to change the head gaskets, partly due to my fetish for cleaning, partly due to intermittent rainfall. Late in the evening we've got it back together and fired up. No bubbles in the radiator. We've been working on it for eighteen hours and we're both tired enough to drop. Doug chooses that moment to perform Stupid People Trick #52: he reaches into the engine compartment to check a suspected leak at a fuel pump fitting. The idling engine grabbed his hand, wrapped it around the alternator, and chopped it with the big fan. Clang! I shut the truck off and prepare to crawl under the truck to retreive the severed fingers. Fortunately they're still attached, but it looks very bad. Oh, shit. Doug hands me the keys and I get to drive the El Camino. With the high compression and short cam it runs *good* at 6200 feet. We make the run to the hospital in record time. By one in the morning we're on our way back. He won't lose any fingers, but lots of stuff was severed and there's some question of his regaining full use of two of the fingers. This has not been a good weekend.
We get back. AB and Doug's new cat haven't been getting along. AB is violently allergic to cats. The whites of her eyes have turned red, and the right eye has swollen up around the cornea like it's ready to explode. I think of stories of burst veins inside the eyeball causing people to go blind, so it's back to the emergency room, where they prescribe vasoconstrictors and antihistamines. It's near dawn before we get back again. Monday morning has started off with a bang and it's not even daylight yet. To top it off, I'm stuck in Colorado when I should be holding down the fort singlehandedly back at work. I make another phone call...
Doug's splinted up and zonked, but goes in to work anyway. I take the truck for a test drive. Still overheats. The radiator looks okay, but what the hell, I'm out of ideas. AB starts calling on radiators. She finds a place that can get a new Modine three-row big block radiator out of Denver by three in the afternoon. We order it and take a nap until it arrives. Then we play games with mounting and hoses until after dark, making many runs to the parts store. Nobody makes a hose set for an Olds engine in a Ford for some reason. To top it off, the big block radiator uses a 2" bottom outlet, which is huge, and the Olds water pump is 1-7/8", which is also huge. Most hoses nowadays are 1-1/4 or 1-3/8". I finally matched up pieces of elbow hose and 2" muffler pipe couplers to make a lower hose. The new radiator's upper outlet and the engine fan were positioned so as to make running a hose impossible without hitting the fan; I removed it and installed a 16" electric fan. Also installed a 2-5/8" mechanical temp guage. I finish the job by flashlight.
Tuesday morning. Truck is running 140 to 150 in town, 160 on the highway. Fill it back up with gas, load it back up, call work to tell them we're leaving, leave a note for Doug, and we're rolling out around noon. Early in the afternoon we stop in Burlington CO to top off on gas and take a break. The truck doesn't want to start. I crank it until the battery goes flat, then start walking to a tire store visible down the street, maybe I can get a jump. About the time I'm walking onto their parking lot AB roars up. It started for her. We get back on the freeway, make it a few miles, and it bucks, quacks, and shudders to a halt on the shoulder. I have no idea what the problem is. It starts, we make it a few more miles, it quits. I have a bright idea and pour some water on the fuel pump and intake. Starts, makes it a few miles, quits. We soon have a routine - AB pulls over, I leap out, douse the fuel pump, and we continue. I tried leaving the gas cap off, but we're still getting vapor lock from Hell, probably due to some really crappy high altitude fuel. We finally run it down to half a tank on the main tank, top it off with regular, and the problem abates substantially. The truck balks at speeds over 55 or 60, but we're moving at least. I get to see lots of Kansas up close and personal, but frankly, the shoulder of I-70 in one place looks pretty much like the shoulder of I-70 anywhere else.
By evening it has cooled off and we're a couple thousand feet
lower. The truck is still very hard to start and wants to die
instead of idle, but at least it doesn't quit on the road. We
emptied the auxiliary tank's load of crappy gas late at night when
it was cool, switching to the main tank when we had to stop. And
finally, 21-1/2 hours later, we rolled into our back yard.
Hallelujah. We unload rapidly and crash.
At least we're not in Kansas any more...
[email protected]========================DoD#978======= can you help me...help me get out of this place?...slow sedation... ain't my style, ain't my pace...giving me a number...NINE, SEVEN, EIGHT ==5.0 RX7 -> Tyrannosaurus RX! == SAE '82 == Denizens of Doom M/C '92==Return to top