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Route 66 Adventure - Please join me

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BoyRacer

BoyRacer

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I drove my Healey from Portland to Conclave and now I’m heading down to Chicago on Friday, Sept 20th, to find the beginning of Route 66. Over the next 2 weeks I’ll be driving over what I can find of Route 66 all the way to Santa Monica.

Please join me for a few miles if you can. I have a GPS tracker in my car that shows where I am in real time and where I have been. Just click on the link below.

 

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Very cool and nice of you to offer up. I won't be able to join you on the road but will certainly keep tabs. I'd not seen the application before. Can you post messages like asking for a spare part you elected to not carry in the boot? Healey owners on your route could get you out of a bind with what is likley in storage along your way west. The car looks great.
 
Hey Richard, I hope you will keep notes on your route. Some others of us might like to duplicate your trip at a later date. Back in 2009, I traveled from Rehoboth Beach, Delaware across the country to McKinley, CA and then up the coast to Victoria. We then returned to Virginia. All on state roads - mostly 50 going west. The only interstate was the beltway around St. Louis because we didn’t want to take 50 through the center of the city. 8,000 miles in a Healey is a little confining but it was a life changing trip with four good buddies. We have discussed trying the 66 trip before we get much older.
 
Unless something's changed in the last 15 years or so, the western-most section of R66, starting at Tulsa and going east for 15-20 miles or so is horribly bad road and there isn't much to see except derelict buildings (would make a good setting for an episode of 'Fallout'). The derelict aspect doesn't bother me--scenery is scenery--but last I drove it it really punished my suspension.
 
Richard,
It was good to met you and talk for a bit at the car show at Elkhart Lake. Enjoy the trip home.
 
Hi Richard--

Much of 66 is either subsumed into or runs parallel to I-40 though I did drive some of the loops in AZ and NM on two-lane pavement that ran through some interesting if desolate country.

Two suggestions are

(1) Stand on the "corner" in Winslow, AZ. I stopped there in 2002 (on the way back from Conclave in Lake Tahoe via LA) and I think at the time the corner was occupied by a drug store which burned down a few years later and has since been replaced by a park

(2) Go to the Tinkertown Museum (tinkertown.com) about 25 miles east of Albuquerque--indescribable and not to be missed.

Good luck and keep us posted on your progress.
 
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I missed Tinkertown because of my fuel pump issue and rush to get to Albuquerque. But I will be standing on the corner in Winslow Arizona. But which corner?
 
BoyRacer said:
I drove my Healey from Portland to Conclave and now I’m heading down to Chicago on Friday, Sept 20th, to find the beginning of Route 66. Over the next 2 weeks I’ll be driving over what I can find of Route 66 all the way to Santa Monica.

Please join me for a few miles if you can. I have a GPS tracker in my car that shows where I am in real time and where I have been. Just click on the link below.

Click to expand...
Well I see you drove right by my house just west of Tulsa a few days ago. If I had seen this before we could have had lunch. Enjoy the rest of your drive.
 
BTW if you are in a jam in ALB you might want to contact Dave Porter who did or still does maintain a British Car shop there. As I was heading east from LA back to MD the seal at the bottom end of the tachometer drive cable failed. Engine oil "screwed" its way up the cable, into the tachometer head and eventually dripped onto my right thigh. I knew Dave from the Healey autox list and when I got to ALB he put my car on his lift and replaced the seal--all for the price of a good Mexican breakfast!
 
Actually, I did take my car to Dave Porter’s shop. We checked everything and could not find anything amiss. The only thing I can surmise is that the check valve in the pump is failing which causes the pump to keep pumping to maintain pressure.
Now I have a new problem. I’m in Flagstaff (where it’s relatively cool because it’s at 7000 ft) but there is an extreme heat warning between here and LA. Temps as high as 116 and it’s not going away anytime soon.
 
BoyRacer said:
... an extreme heat warning between here and LA. Temps as high as 116 and it’s not going away anytime soon.
Click to expand...

A tip from someone who drove across Arizona in the summer - before there was a/c in cars: drive during night, sleep during day.
 
That’s good advice. I wish I had hooked up the dash lights. But I have a plan. Called a friend in Portland that has a house in Phoenix. I’m spending one more night in Flagstaff and heading out tomorrow morning around 5:00 AM for a 2-1/2 hour drive to Phoenix. I can leave the Healey there and I’ll catch a flight home tomorrow. I’ll come back in a week or two when things cool down.

So it’s cool this morning and the fuel pump is acting perfectly normal. No clicking at all as I drove to and from McDonalds. Heat seems to cause it to pump away. Which makes no sense. And it’s not vapor lock……that would stall the engine. The engine runs fine.

My diagnosis at this point is: an intermittent failure of the check valve in the pump. Has anyone heard of this before?
 
BoyRacer said:
That’s good advice. I wish I had hooked up the dash lights. But I have a plan. Called a friend in Portland that has a house in Phoenix. I’m spending one more night in Flagstaff and heading out tomorrow morning around 5:00 AM for a 2-1/2 hour drive to Phoenix. I can leave the Healey there and I’ll catch a flight home tomorrow. I’ll come back in a week or two when things cool down.

So it’s cool this morning and the fuel pump is acting perfectly normal. No clicking at all as I drove to and from McDonalds. Heat seems to cause it to pump away. Which makes no sense. And it’s not vapor lock……that would stall the engine. The engine runs fine.

My diagnosis at this point is: an intermittent failure of the check valve in the pump. Has anyone heard of this before?
Click to expand...
A piece of grit in the check valve that got washed away?
 
Constant running (if you have fuel and no leaks) is usually caused by a tear in the diaphragm or one of the check valves which is then intermittently stuck open as you say.

The check valves in a S.U. fuel pump are made made from thin plastic. When they tear the fuel pump will run as described, as the valves become stuck and then un-stuck periodically, causing major frustration. In an emergency the torn plastic cross check valves can be replaced with a triangle-shaped piece of thin stainless steel shim stock (inserting it into the valve body) This can work well and
BoyRacer said:
That’s good advice. I wish I had hooked up the dash lights. But I have a plan. Called a friend in Portland that has a house in Phoenix. I’m spending one more night in Flagstaff and heading out tomorrow morning around 5:00 AM for a 2-1/2 hour drive to Phoenix. I can leave the Healey there and I’ll catch a flight home tomorrow. I’ll come back in a week or two when things cool down.

So it’s cool this morning and the fuel pump is acting perfectly normal. No clicking at all as I drove to and from McDonalds. Heat seems to cause it to pump away. Which makes no sense. And it’s not vapor lock……that would stall the engine. The engine runs fine.

My diagnosis at this point is: an intermittent failure of the check valve in the pump. Has anyone heard of this before?
Click to expand...

Constant running (if you have fuel and no leaks) could be caused by a tear in the diaphragm or one of the check valves which is then intermittently stuck open as you say.

The check valves in a S.U. fuel pump are made made from thin plastic. When they tear the fuel pump will run as described, as the valves become stuck and then un-stuck periodically, causing major frustration. In an emergency the torn plastic check valves can be replaced with a triangle-shaped piece of thin stainless steel shim stock (inserted into the valve body) This can work well and get you home, but Joe Curto has replacement check valves.

Joe can overnight them to you, or you could simply take a few hours and replace the pump?
 
WHT said:
Constant running (if you have fuel and no leaks) is usually caused by a tear in the diaphragm or one of the check valves which is then intermittently stuck open as you say.

The check valves in a S.U. fuel pump are made made from thin plastic. When they tear the fuel pump will run as described, as the valves become stuck and then un-stuck periodically, causing major frustration. In an emergency the torn plastic cross check valves can be replaced with a triangle-shaped piece of thin stainless steel shim stock (inserting it into the valve body) This can work well and


Constant running (if you have fuel and no leaks) could be caused by a tear in the diaphragm or one of the check valves which is then intermittently stuck open as you say.

The check valves in a S.U. fuel pump are made made from thin plastic. When they tear the fuel pump will run as described, as the valves become stuck and then un-stuck periodically, causing major frustration. In an emergency the torn plastic check valves can be replaced with a triangle-shaped piece of thin stainless steel shim stock (inserted into the valve body) This can work well and get you home, but Joe Curto has replacement check valves.

Joe can overnight them to you, or you could simply take a few hours and replace the pump?
Click to expand...
The check valves are plastic for the AUF300/AZX1300 series. They're brass for the earlier pumps fitted to the 100 through 3000 Mk II.
 
Sunday morning, between 4 and 6 AM, I drove from flagstaff to Phoenix and left the Healey at a friend's house and flew home to Portland. The pump worked fine all the way. Heat definitely has an affect on the pump. But even then it's not constantly running.
Once the heat wave ends I'll resume my Route 66 adventure.
 
BTW, I did make it to Winslow, Arizona, and I was standin’ on the corner and met the guy that sculpted the figure with the guitar. He, Ron Adamson, sculpted that figure 25 years ago.
 

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