Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From New York
Posted: Thu Sep 03, 2015 8:04 am
Such a little brown cow, this Chloe, bravely fielding the barrage of trucks and wind and rain and hills, mile after mile, I can't even look at the exhaust valves any more. I wouldn't know what to say, "uh thanks?"
But first. I was in Denver just four days ago, it seems like last year already. Darren needed to know if he should keep his '76 Westy that he bought, then sold, then bought again. Clearly, he has attachment like I did when I gratefully bought back the Road Warrior from the guy I sold it to.
But this time, we had to cast an apprising cold unbiased stern eye on the ol' bus. There was this pretty "new" thing sitting next to it, a healthy fine-driving new 1979 bus that went through its paces like a thoroughbred. Then we replaced pushrod tube seals, adjusted the valves, and took out the engine on the old '76. Everything was going fine until we did a splendid end-play adjustment to rope in the .013" down to a tidy .0045". Here's Darren, when we had hope:
Unfortunately, the engine locked up as we tightened the flywheel. Unfortunately, the flywheel moved just like Belle Plaine's and Jivermo's engines. Unfortunately, this old engine with 200,000 miles on the lower end has the ol' wallowed out dowel and loose #1 thrust main bearing. Unfortunately, we were running out of time as we reapplied an additional .002" end play so that the real end play was a minimal .0025" plus .004" bearing movement in the case. We slapped that old engine back into the bus, and Darren gets to figure out the next step from here. I say "fix it, cherish it, don't DISAPPOINT YOUR YOUNG DAUGHTER," but reality has its dictates, too.
Yeah, so then I drove across the country, which I must say, I did not like. I do not like to rush across the country. All of those beautiful explorations, those leisurely little road side projects NO! Drive! and drive and drive. Good-bye, Denver (good-bye, you despicable I-25 corridor):
Good-bye, you lovely western setting sun as I hunker down for a serious night of driving:
Good-bye, Wyoming road:
I had to amuse myself on the interstate with occasional photographs, this one in Kansas:
The dreadful Atlantic moisture found me in a field in eastern Kansas, dew (eww!) was all over everything and had made the front of Chloe a moist mash of bugs, and, as of this writing, has not let up. Drove and drove, Kansas, Missouri (visited my good good friend in Saint Louis for an impromptu breakfast the day after he too became an empty nester), Illinois, Indiana, hour after hour of complaint-free 3,500 rpm.
And here is a lovely Ohio landscape, in the humid morning:
God knows that I am losing my tolerance for civilization scrum, and I-70 is the very picture of civilization scrum, trucks and trucks and trucks and if they ain't semis in a big hurry, they are bellowing Dodge Ram turbo-diesels in a big hurry, and I ask, where are YOU going in such a hurry, I am driving across the country and must be there September 4th. Here is Columbus OH in the rainy morning commute:
Pennsylvania, I chose to bail off the interstate and cross each and every Allegheny continental plate crash, throngs of trucks even on little roads through little burgs:
Up another Pennsylvania Allegheny mountain pass at 35 mph in 3rd, exhaust valves still hanging in there:
Here along a ridge on US 22 into Altoona PA in the afternoon between rain showers:
Explain this town on your every phone order . . .
Poor Chloe, no rest. 22 mpg,1,690 miles, top CHT 385*, brake drums intact, must run, and please you later appointments, get your lists and deposits in.
Colin388MilesToGo
But first. I was in Denver just four days ago, it seems like last year already. Darren needed to know if he should keep his '76 Westy that he bought, then sold, then bought again. Clearly, he has attachment like I did when I gratefully bought back the Road Warrior from the guy I sold it to.
But this time, we had to cast an apprising cold unbiased stern eye on the ol' bus. There was this pretty "new" thing sitting next to it, a healthy fine-driving new 1979 bus that went through its paces like a thoroughbred. Then we replaced pushrod tube seals, adjusted the valves, and took out the engine on the old '76. Everything was going fine until we did a splendid end-play adjustment to rope in the .013" down to a tidy .0045". Here's Darren, when we had hope:
Unfortunately, the engine locked up as we tightened the flywheel. Unfortunately, the flywheel moved just like Belle Plaine's and Jivermo's engines. Unfortunately, this old engine with 200,000 miles on the lower end has the ol' wallowed out dowel and loose #1 thrust main bearing. Unfortunately, we were running out of time as we reapplied an additional .002" end play so that the real end play was a minimal .0025" plus .004" bearing movement in the case. We slapped that old engine back into the bus, and Darren gets to figure out the next step from here. I say "fix it, cherish it, don't DISAPPOINT YOUR YOUNG DAUGHTER," but reality has its dictates, too.
Yeah, so then I drove across the country, which I must say, I did not like. I do not like to rush across the country. All of those beautiful explorations, those leisurely little road side projects NO! Drive! and drive and drive. Good-bye, Denver (good-bye, you despicable I-25 corridor):
Good-bye, you lovely western setting sun as I hunker down for a serious night of driving:
Good-bye, Wyoming road:
I had to amuse myself on the interstate with occasional photographs, this one in Kansas:
The dreadful Atlantic moisture found me in a field in eastern Kansas, dew (eww!) was all over everything and had made the front of Chloe a moist mash of bugs, and, as of this writing, has not let up. Drove and drove, Kansas, Missouri (visited my good good friend in Saint Louis for an impromptu breakfast the day after he too became an empty nester), Illinois, Indiana, hour after hour of complaint-free 3,500 rpm.
And here is a lovely Ohio landscape, in the humid morning:
God knows that I am losing my tolerance for civilization scrum, and I-70 is the very picture of civilization scrum, trucks and trucks and trucks and if they ain't semis in a big hurry, they are bellowing Dodge Ram turbo-diesels in a big hurry, and I ask, where are YOU going in such a hurry, I am driving across the country and must be there September 4th. Here is Columbus OH in the rainy morning commute:
Pennsylvania, I chose to bail off the interstate and cross each and every Allegheny continental plate crash, throngs of trucks even on little roads through little burgs:
Up another Pennsylvania Allegheny mountain pass at 35 mph in 3rd, exhaust valves still hanging in there:
Here along a ridge on US 22 into Altoona PA in the afternoon between rain showers:
Explain this town on your every phone order . . .
Poor Chloe, no rest. 22 mpg,1,690 miles, top CHT 385*, brake drums intact, must run, and please you later appointments, get your lists and deposits in.
Colin388MilesToGo