Post- Open Roads 2002: Tahoe to MD the long way

Wow, it would have been pretty special to get hit by a Grosser, the dictators’ favourite car, they are rare things.

Im enjoying reading the blogs Michael.

Monday, July 1: San Simeon to Agoura Hills, CA

We spent last night in San Simeon and this morning we did the 9:00 AM tour of the Hearst Castle—Outstanding to say the least. We had planned on going to Solvang to see the Danish Village but I remember from a previous visit that it was rather corny and so we changed our destination to Santa Barbara.

Heading south on route 1 we got off the highway near Morro Bay to get some gasoline. After filling up we returned to the service road to access the highway, and as I upshifted from first gear into second I heard a very loud ratcheting sound from the transmission. I knew from general reputation that the 2nd gear cluster of the BN1’s 3 speed transmission was challenged and though first and third gears as well as overdrive seemed fine I realized that I was almost 3000 miles from home with a semi-broken gearbox. What to do???

I had attended 2001's Conclave at Grand Rapids, Minnesota and heard Smith (Smitty) Brodie's seminar on his five speed Toyota transmission conversion and came away with the feeling that it would be a worthwhile project if I ever had the need. Well, this morning I certainly had the need and to make a long story short I decided it was time to call Smitty. It just so happened that Smitty's buddy Jim Albrecht, who I had met at Tahoe, answered the phone and after listening to my story he suggested that I continue on to Smitty's shop right away to see what could be done. Since third gear and overdrive were working fine we felt we could do the 150 mile trip to Thousand Oaks without a problem and after a couple of hours we pulled up to Smitty's shop in a small industrial park not far from the highway. As it turns out Smitty has both a conversion kit and a recently rebuilt Toyota five-speed on hand and we quickly came to terms on the purchase!

I am writing this post from a motel nearby the shop and tomorrow with Jim's help and the use of Smitty's lift and tools I will begin to remove the broken transmission and start installing the new five-speed. I'll have to have a driveshaft fabricated and hopefully get some small parts from the local Toyota dealer or auto store, but I'll worry about that tomorrow. Jim and his wife Shirley are coming by in about 30 minutes to pick Mary and I up for dinner and what might have been a terrible day has so far become a rather soft landing into the hands of some new Healey friends.

That's all the news I have.

Nice articles Mike :
we were there , too bad I did not meet U.
U were in Tahoe Healeys neighbor hood at that time 2

"too bad I did not meet U'
---------------------------
Yes, and there is always next year at Big Bear,

Tahoe and Woodland Hills, CA which is the next to Agoura Hills. And I will be in Big Bear next year, too. GGAHC should have a significant showing.

All--

Sorry but I cannot find my days' notes immediately following the visit to Smitty's shop and installation of the Toyota box. I remember that I got a lot of help from Smitty, Jim and a couple of local Healey guys who had apparently been down the road before. I do know that all went well and a couple of days later we drove down to visit my children in LA before I set out east for home in Maryland. So, unless I find the missing days' entries I will give things a short rest and then pick things up again at my point of departure from LA east.

My wife and I were having breakfast in Ludlow on our honeymoon in 1981 (in my 67 Alfa GTV), when a Cessna 180 tail dragger, which had been parked in a gas station across the highway, taxied out and westward on old Route 66, taking off down a ways.

Pretty cool memory of Ludlow.

Monday, July 8, 2002--Kingman AZ to Albuquerque, NM:


Planning to get on the road early, last night I set the alarm for 4:00 AM. However no alarm was needed and I was awoken at 2:45 AM--Apparently the Mr. and Mrs. Eveready Energizer Bunny were staying in the adjacent room and the loud and continuous thumping on the wall was just too much to sleep through. After (I am not making this up) about 25 minutes of listening to various interesting rhythms I took it as a sign to get underway, and they were still going at it when I vacated the room. I did put the alarm clock on loud buzz and placed it against the common wall before departing.


I drove across Western Arizona with the sky slowly lightening ahead of me and was in Flagstaff before 6:00 AM. About an hour later I got off the interstate and onto 66 to check out "The Corner" made famous in "Take It Easy" by The Eagles. It was in front of a drugstore that had not yet opened--a "Seattle's Best" coffee sign hung in the window so I guess fame has brought with it progress of a sort. Through town and back onto the "I"--My destination was Albuquerque, about 475 miles for the day. I had spoken to Dave Porter of "Taos Garage Annex"--a fellow-lister--about the leaking tach drive seal and he believed he had one on hand.* The weather was a lot cooler than in the low desert--it never got over 90--and engine temperature was not a concern today.


Though the old road (66) exists mainly in small towns along the way, lots of the kitchy tourist stuff still stands near the Interstate interchanges: The "Two Arrows Cafe", the "Jackrabbit Trading Post," many, many Indian Blanket shops and of course the "Astronaut's Hall of Fame" (right near "The Meteor Crater") all called out for my attendance. But I was on a mission and just plugged along, averaging about 65 mph for the day.


The further east I went the more attractive the High Desert became. In places I drove through thick Evergreen and was warned that Elk might share the road with me for the next 50 miles--a sobering thought indeed. The last 30 or so miles west of Albuquerque looked like the beginning of range land, and the desert began to give way to cultivation even if the grass was a uniform brown color.


I rolled into Dave's shop about 12:30 PM (time zone change) and by 2:00 PM I was in good shape. The old tach seal at the angle-drive had completely disappeared, which accounted for the healthy amount of oil that had been augering up the tach drive cable and dripping onto my right knee. Dave informed me that tonight the local Austin-Healey Club was having a dinner meeting and asked me to be his guest. Over a good Mexican dinner I met four or five fellows who had also been at Tahoe, saw some great photos and heard some good stories from the road. Apparently all had made it without too much difficulty--right Dave??


It's been a long day for me and I'm turning in. I have some old friends from my Bahamas days who live not too far north of here in Questa and I'll be driving that way tomorrow to see them.




*Some time before reaching Tahoe an oil leak began to appear on my right knee--at first just a few drops and by the time I reached ALB about 1/2 quart of engine oil per day was coming up the tach driveshaft, into the bottom of the tach head and onto my knee. The fiber seal at the base of the shaft where it attaches to the block had gone south."

Tuesday, July 8, 2002: Albuquerque to Taos, NM

After having a goodbye breakfast with Dave I started out for Santa Fe New Mexico but I had a definite must-see stop to make at the Tinkertown Museum, about 25 miles NE of ALB (go to www.tinkertown.com) which was conveniently located on Highway 14, the scenic route.

I've seen some bizarre stuff on this trip and have reported on some of it, but this place just takes the cake. Briefly it is the work of one Ross Ward who started carving figures in 1952 and has not stopped yet. There are probably 15 to 20 dioramas scattered around the terminally funky premises most with moving figures that swing, jump, etc. when you hold in a momentary contact button. The circus scene is just unbelievable and if you sit on the bench opposite it is set at eye-level, and things appeared much like they did when I attended circuses as a child, from the swinging aerial trapeze artists to the elephants and other animals in the three rings. Add to this a truly enormous collection of the arcane weird.

Highway 14 provides a spectacular ride both to the museum and on up to Santa Fe. After being a tourist there, getting a hair cut and doing a bit of shopping I started off for Questa via the high road to Taos. The weather forecast was for scattered showers and it had already rained while I was parked in SF so for only the second time since I left home on June 12 I put the top up, and it is a good thing that I did: I have never driven in such heavy rain and as I approached Truchas it got even worse. Water was pouring down the arroyas and in three places the culverts were unable to handle the flow, and heavy mud ran across the road. Pero sigo trabajar--I slowly kept on going and eventually it stopped (as it always does), and the descent out of the Kit Carson Forest into Taos was beautiful.

I continued north up the high desert toward Questa, NM where my old friends from the Bahamas days, Mike and Michelle, live. We sat around looking at photos from the fine times we spent in the early 1980's cruising in Little Harbour, Abacos, and "took some years off" as Mike likes to say. Afterwards Michelle made some Elk Tacos that couldn't be beat and I eventually called it a night.

Wednesday, July 9 2002: Questa, NM to Pratt, KS

After breakfast with Mike and Michelle I headed east on SR 38 up through Eagle's Nest and Red River, then dropped down to pick up 58/412--at one time called the Cimarron Branch of the Santa Fe Trail--heading for Clayton, NM, then crossed the border into Texas and angled across the northwest corner of Oklahoma's panhandle and into Kansas.

Things were quite green in this part of the state with lots of grazing cattle and horses. As the elevation gradually decreased agriculture took over with substantial crops of corn, sorghum and soybeans. Rain is scarce in these parts and everything depends upon irrigation. It's interesting to see that most of the crops are grown in circular fields with pumps powering long spray booms on wheels which slowly advance in a clocklike fashion. BTW the corn is doing quite well: "High As Your Eye By the Fourth of July" seems to be the case, the dry weather notwithstanding.

As I neared Pratt I saw some unusual attractions that lay ahead: "The Dalton Gang Hideout" in Meade and "The World's Largest Hand-dug Well" in Greensburg. But at that point I was pretty tired from a long day on the road so made Pratt my flop for the night.

Thursday, July 10 2002--Pratt, KS to Jefferson City, MO

Yesterday while nearing Pratt I realized that if I continued on Highway 56 I would pass through Dodge City and "close the loop" and start retracing the route of the outbound trip on Route 50. So I decided to plow new ground instead and worked across to US 54 which parallels 50 about 20 miles to the south. This turned out to be an absolutely wonderful two-laner with wide shoulders and not a lot of truck traffic.

This morning I continued east on 54 rnning through central and eastern Kansas. Passing threough the pretty town of El Dorado (here pronounced do-RAY-do) I took a wrong turn and wound up running about twenty miles north on US 77 before realizing my mistake. No probelm, however, as I got good directions in the "Burns Bakery", staffed by Mennonite women in traditional garb, and they forced an outstanding sweet roll into my hand as I went out the door. After knocking that down I ran east for about twenty miles on some small, sweet roads, then south on SR 177 where I ran parallel to the railroad tracks and got a loud diesel horn toot and thumb's up from the engineer of a northbound Burlington Northern freight train, and so back onto 54. The further east I drove the more the ccountry softened, the "levelness" giving way to gently undulating country. The Flint Hills area was particularly pretty and William Least-Heat Moon's seminal book PrairyErth describes this small section of Kansas in microcosm--well worth the read whether or not one plans to travel the area.

Once into Missouri I stayed on 54 and ran through Lake of the Ozarks where there must have been a bad-driver's convention going on, and up to Jefferson City, the State Capital, where we in the Highway 50 group stopped on our first day out of St. Louis. Faithful followers of this chronicle will recall that the Governor proclaimed that day as "Austin-Healey Day" in Missouri and I have a picture of Gary Palsgrove sitting in the chief executive's chair to prove it!

I have closed the loop.

The local topic of conversation in these parts seems to be rain, and lack of it. So in support of the farmers' prayers and in deference to the weather gods I ran all of today with top up, but the powers that be did not seem to know or care and no rain resulted. I will revert to normal top-down trim tomorrow.

That's it for the day!

Friday, July 11, 2002--Jefferson City, MO to Shelbyville, IN

The weather gods must have read yesterday's post regarding my plans to take down the top as shortly after I got on the road it rained off and on as I took 50/70 through St. Louis. After crossing the Mississippi the sky grew darker and where 50 split off I made the decision, in light of the forecast for a day of rain, to stay on the Interstate, and so ended my travels on 50 for the balance of the return journey home.

I don't know if I mentioned it but shortly after leaving LA the speedometer cable sheared and I have been driving by the tach and checking speeds with my watch. The Toyota 5-speed is a perfect match for the 3.5 Lempert differential I installed last year, and I ran between 70-80 mph all day, averaging about 24 mpg. The car is a pleasure at speed! I have been tempted to see if there is enough power to pull much above 100 mph but there is too much rain and truck traffic amidst a visible police presence.

I'm running out of descriptive statements and pithy observations, and I know I have more than taken up my share of band width so I am going to cease these daily posts for a few days unless something interesting arises in the interim. Tomorrow morning I plan to cruise by the start of the "London to Brighton Run" road rallye put on by the Indiana British Car Union and then end my day in Cincinnati, OH where I will attend a popular car show on Sunday. From there I'll travel to Garretsville, OH to visit an old friend for a few days, then head to Pittsburgh where I plan to attend the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix and spend the weekend entered in Saturday's car show and then watch the great racing in Schenley Park on Sunday. Jim (Bluechip Racing) Smith is planning on racing his 100 and I certainly want to cheer him on.

I'll probably put something up from Pittsburgh and hope I see some of you in the meantime.,

Monday, July 13, 2002: Shelbyville, IN to Garrettsville, OH

I got out of Greater Cincinnati early this morning headed for Garrettsville, OH to visit my old friend Jim Vincent who lives in this small East Ohio town when he is not teaching at Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh. I wound up sticking to the interstate and arrived by noon. As Jim and I headed out for a drive and lunch I remarked to him that there probably was not another Healey within 50 miles, but when we came back to the car a fellow with a nicely restored 190 SL parked alongside to give my car the eyeball. Turns out he has two nice 3000's parked in his garage--go figure!

We drove down to Nelson Ledges, the site of a venerable but pretty-much abandoned sports car track. It was closed to the public but that did not keep us from doing a couple of fast laps before security chased us off. I'm headed to Pittsburgh tomorrow to spend a few days in the runup of events leading into the weekend PVGP festivities: a couple of smaller car shows around town during the week, then the big show on Saturday and racing all weekend at Schenley Park. I'm excited!

Tuesday, July 14 2002--Garrettsville, OH to Pittsburgh, PA

I left Garrettsville early and was in Pittsburgh by noon. My friend Ji is coming into town tomorrow for a couple of meetings at Robert Morris U. where he teaches literature.

I'm staying downtown and spent the day being a tourist, first taking a tour of the "Cathedral of Learning", a magnificent building on the University of Pittsburgh's downtown campus. It is hard to do justice to the building in words but the second floor houses about 15-20 "Nationality Rooms", actively used classrooms thare each constructed and decorated in keeping with the architecture and design of each of the countries represented, reflecting the cultural diversity of Pittsburgh and its diverse ethnic roots. I then spent a couple of hours walking around Schenley Park, a magnificent facility in the Oakland section of town, and site of the coming weekend's enormous car show and races.

Once Jim finishes his meetings tomorrow we're going to do a bit of touring for a day or two, then come back for the weekend events.

To be continued....

Wednesday, July 15, 2002: Pittsburgh PA to Indiana, PA. via Punxsutawny


We decided to head up to Punxsutawny, PA which bills itself as "The Weather Capital of the World" to check out the home of Phil, the eponymous prognosticating groundhog. Phol's home is "The Groundhog Zoo" which in reality is little more than an eight foot by ten foot area adjacent to the Municipal Library and Police complex, within which Phil lives along with his two cousins Phyllis and another family member whose name now eludes me. Phil seemed rather lethargic and did not respond to my taps on the glass wall of his den, so after a fruitless visit we drove to "Gobbler's Knob", the site of the town's annual "Groundhog Day" festivities. To my great surprise and disappointment I learned that the wonderful movie "Groundhog Day" was in fact not filmed in Punxsutawny, and what passes for the town's square was not much than a straggly park just outside of town.

From Punxsutawny we drove to nearby Indiana, PA--home of "IUP" (Indiana University of Pa. and sacked out for the night. We'll get an early start and enjoy the local environs before returning to Pittsburgh tomorrow afternoon.

Saturday, July 18, 2002--Pittsburgh (Trouble in Three-Rivers City)


(Note--I don't see that I wrote any posts for Thursday and Friday following my last. Twenty years later I don't now remember what I did beyond returning to Pittsburgh, so let's just assume nothing noteworthy happened.)

This morning I headed down through town to Schenley Park, the site of the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix (Car Show and vintage racing practice/qualifiers today and feature races tomorrow). About fifty feet from the entrance to the show field the car suddenly died and would not restart. All signs point to an ignition problem. Though the show rules clearly state that cars must enter onto the show field under their own power after a fair amount of whining on my part I was able to gain permission to be towed to the Austin-Healey 100/100-6 section.

Having planned to enjoy the day and being ever the optimist (or is it really a case of denial?) I decided to leave the car alone for a while and simply enjoy the show and qualifying races. After all this time on the road how big a deal could it be? Perhaps the car will heal itself.... So I walked over to the pits and said hello to Healey racers Fred Crowley and Jim Smith, then wandered around the pits and show field before returning to the car around noon. It had not healed and while it cranked over very nicely it did not fire and there was no spark whatsoever at the plugs.

There is certainly no better place to break down than at a car show where there are 20+ other Healey owners present and ready to do an impromptu tech session, including Ed Zetler and Terry McCool who were parked on either sides of me. And as we began to get into diagnosing the issue Dean Turner, a fellow member of the Capital Area AHC and all-around smart guy showed up and offered to pitch in, so I knew I was in good hands.

We quickly determined that the Mallory Unilite distributor was not functioning and though I was carrying a spare electronic module I thought it more expeditious to simply pull the Mallory and install the spare Lucas disty I had stowed in the boot, complete with drive dog attached. It took only a few minutes to do the switch and after setting initial spark advance by eye I manned the starter and throttle while Dean manipulated the distributor to give a smooth idle, then locked it down. Crisis averted!

I'm only 300 miles from home and am getting on the road early tomorrow. Fingers crossed for an uneventful last day on the road. Oh yes, I got a 2nd place in the car show.

SUNDAY, JULY 18, 2002: PITTSBURGH, PA TO ST. LEONARD, MD (HOME)

Prior to getting onto the PA Turnpike I warmed the car up and, using the vernier adjustment on the Lucas distributor, dialed back the advance by two degrees (five clicks per degree, right?). I don't have a timing gun with me but I think we put in a bit too much advance during yesterday's field repair and the car now runs a bit smoother. BTW I neglected to say in yesterday's post that before switching over to the Lucas distributor I attempted to get the Mallory unit to run, first by putting in a new module and then by switching over to a different cap. Neither scheme produced a spark at the plugs and since the coil checks out there must be some internal short in the distributor housing which will require my sending it back to the Mallory folks.

I took I-76 to Breezewood, PA, then dropped down into Maryland (crossing the Mason-Dixon Line) and picked up I-70 eastbound. I looped aropund Baltimore, then took I-97 to Annapolis and surface roads from there. I was home without event by noon.

So, in 7700 miles of driving I had three issues that required my taking out a tool:

1. Defective ignition switch in Dodge City, KS (Actually nothing more than a loose connection at the switch which created enough resistance to melt the insulation on the hot lead)
2. Failure of 2nd gear in Lompoc, CA, leading to replacement of original 3-speed unit with Toyota five-speed.
3. Distributor failure in Pittsburgh requiring installation of spare unit.

I'll let you, dear reader, comment on what this says about the car's reliability. My feeling is that the partnership between m,an and car went well and we're both the better for the experience. In any case thanks for your attention and tolerance.

Michael, thanks so much for sharing the trip home. We only did 5,500 miles, we came home by way of Yellowstone and Mt Rushmore. Our only problems were the starter on daughters BJ8 that Jean drove to Salt Lake where Linda met us and a loose wire on the BT7 fuel pump outside of Kansas City on the way home. So, two problems in 11,000 miles, not bad.
I also had a FB memory reminder today that 6 years ago we drove from the Hot Springs, VA Conclave to Ponca City, OK in 18 ½ hours for a grand nieces wedding. 1037 miles :joyous:. I loved driving that car.