Michigan British Reliability Run

Wish us luck!! We leave for Sarnia, Ontario tomorrow after lunch, the event itself departs The Village Inn in Sarnia on Saturday morning at about 7:15am. Andrew and I have managed to collect $1525, as a group - we're very close to our goal of $25,000. The forecast for the weekend is high 60's and sunny both days, perfect cruising weather. I will check in with a report next week sometime.

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MIBRR Webpage

Best of luck RG. Hope your weekend is very enjoyable.

Best of luck... (and a great cause too!)

Racing Girl, look out for Malcolm Tayloy and wife Brenda (and possibly terrier Buster) in a roughish well-travelled TR3a.
Malcolm is from the Toronto Triumph club of which I used to be president, and does a lot of these events. He did a trip across Canada and back as part of a millenium celebration and with side trips to visit friends covered 18,000 miles!
I think 3 other cars from our club are going too.
Simon.

Well, we made it home - and so did the car!!, although I might add that it was not without incident, less thatn 40 miles from the finish line! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif More about that later though - just to keep you guessing!! We had a fantastic time and the weather was superb. We're a little tired now and we plan to take it easy today, we're both very glad we took today off work...

Later,
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Flat tire?

Not another fire, I hope!
Glad you made the trip, and everything turned out well.
Jeff

More serious than a flat, not as bad as a fire!!

Basically, and to cut a long story short, the bracket holding the alternator fatigued, snapping off a lug on the alternator and ripping out the spade terminals. There is also a pulley on the alternator so the belt was thrown when the bracket broke and the temperature guage shot off the scale! We heard the "clunk" as the alternator hit the water pump, checked the gauges and turned the engine off and coasted to a stop on the grass verge so we avoided engine damage. Miraculously we had a spare alternator with us, the bracket was cobbled together again, Terry (TR250) had the required terminals and a crimping tool, and Andrew and Brian (TVR) made the repair. We were underway again within about a 1/2 an hour!! The support vehicle also spotted us, a Durango with a trailer, and pulled over until we were back on the road again, it was nice to know we weren't on our own!!

As far as I know, all vehicles completed the run. A Triumph had a wheel bearing problem, a Sprite blew a fuse, the 1967 Austin London Taxi had to be jump started on the Sunday morning, our friend Terry in his TR250 had a leaking fuel pump which Andrew was able to repair - I don't remember hearing about much else to be honest. We got back home at 11pm Sunday night and were very thankful we had the Monday off work!

In all, and the donations are still coming in, we have so far raised $29,000 for the American and Canadian Diabetes Associations for their summer camp programs for children with Type 1 juvenile diabetes.

In all we did about 1000 miles from leaving home to returning home again, but the "miles most traveled" award has to go to the couple from Topeka, Kansas, who towed their TR6 1100 miles to the start point, completed the run and then had to trailer their car another 1100 miles back to Kansas!

Plans are already underway for next years event, likely around Lake Michigan, cutting out Chicago via the Luddington ferry. And yes, we're already looking forward to it!!!

Simon - I remember the Taylors, sans Buster... maybe you can join them next year???? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

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Congratulations on making the trip, Racing Girl, and on raising all that money!
I hope I will bew able to come next year, don't know if the TR4a will be ready, but perhaps the Spitfire could do it.
Simon.