Nice story.
The only excuse to really bring parts along is so you can be guaranteed that
you won't need them. Its always what you didn't plan for! (maybe if you
plan for enough you will never have trouble?)
but where do you put luggage?
-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Wright <TWright669@AOL.COM>
To: L-FORWARDLOOK@LISTS.PSU.EDU <L-FORWARDLOOK@LISTS.PSU.EDU>
Date: Friday, October 29, 1999 10:34 AM
Subject: Re: [FWDLK] Happy motoring
>In a message dated 99-10-28 21:35:32 EDT, you write:
>
><< L-FORWARDLOOK@LISTS.PSU.EDU >>
>I thought I'd throw my $.02 in since I've actually driven my '57 Dodge d500
>cross country. In fact I'm doing it a second time right now!
>I would bring a good supply of tools,water and a case of oil (my car uses a
>quart at every fill-up (250-300 miles)). Maybe some extra wire and duct
>tape. That's about it. You cannot predict what will break, nor can you
>bring a spare for EvERYTHING!
>Most of the time, if something goes wrong, you can limp to the nearest
K-Mart
>and buy something to rig up a fix. That's what I did a few times.
>Here's what happened (is happening) on my trip. I drove from Georgia
(where
>I bought the car after it had sat for at least a decade!) to Grand Teton
>National Park, WY.
>About 350 miles from GA the transmission gave out. THere was nothing I
could
>do about it but to have it rebuilt. This cost an arm and a leg and a
week.
>After that, things got a little better. The whole trip, my car ran
extremely
>hot. Especially if I drove over 60 MPH or up any hills. Nothing I could
do
>about that either (tried a new thermostat and flushing the radiator, etc.)
I
>just soldiered on.
>THe next thing to happen (around Memphis TN) was my generator stopped
>working. I polorized it a few times and it finally started working again
and
>hasn't quit again since! (knock on wood)
>I made it from there to about the NM border when I did something stupid and
>hit the nuetral button by accident instead of Drive. Although I only hit t
he
>button for an instance the statrter would not disengage after that and it
>fried the starter gear. The next time I stopped for gas, the car wouldn't
>start again. I called AAA and got a push start and drove to Albuquerque
>without shutting off the motor. Luckily my sister lived in Alb. and she
>drove me to a starter/generator shop in town where they had a starter gear
in
>stock.
>On my way north, at about the border between NM and Colorado, My radiator
>blew out. I had enough water to limp to a K-Mart and bought some epoxy for
>the radiator. I let it set up over night, but it really didn't hold very
>well. I drove pretty slow and stopped for water alot, when after Colorado
>Springs, I spotted a hardware store off the highway. I bought a propane
>torch (about 15$) and some solder and soldered the radiator myself. It
>wasn't pretty, but it got me to Wyoming.
>Now I am on my way back and am in Alb. again at my sisters' place. The
only
>problem I've had is that a wire broke off of the starter switch (behind the
>nuetral button). I just went to K-mart last night to buy a soldering iron
so
>I can solder the wire back on. Can you beleive the entire wire harness is
>soldered together WITHOUT any (many) connectors! What a pain in the butt
to
>fix things this way! I can't pull the push button assembly out to fix the
>switch without cutting all the wires and then soldering them back together!
>No parts that I could have reasonably thought to bring would have helped
me.
>You just have to deal with problems as the pop up.
>Anyway, I don't mean to be discouraging, but it was an adventure!
>Have fun,
>Tom
>
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