The past week has been a bit of a mishmash of experiences.
We went out to the Back to the 50s car show. It’s a massive affair held at the State Fairgrounds, and it was brutally hot and humid. We didn’t see even 5% of the cars, but did spot a cool Travelall.
On the way home we overheated. Maybe. Or maybe I flooded it when we came out of the restaurant after lunch. Maybe. Or maybe the electronic ignition was acting funny. Maybe. I don’t know. Point is, we were stuck in a parking lot for a while, but got things going again after poking and prodding and waiting for the sun to go down a little bit.
This likely won’t be the last pictures of me with my head under the hood in the coming months and years.
Aunt Katy brought the kids a little bit of Americana in the form of a Slip-n-Slide.
I’m currently waiting on many hundreds of dollars worth of parts deliveries. All the hoses have to go, plug wires, belts, alternator, starter, electric ignition, coil—the list goes on. I usually just wait for stuff to fail, but this thing is so easy to work on that I’m just banging out as many things as I can while I’ve got a place to do them and the parts available. The belts and hoses don’t appear to have been changed out in at least 40 years. It’s truly miraculous they haven’t failed on me in these last couple thousand miles.
I talked a bit already about how I love that this truck was owned by the same old man for all these years. He did things to it that you just shake your head at now, but at the time he was probably just thinking, “It’s my truck, I’ll do whatever I want.” All over the truck there are places like the top of the door here where the paint just wore right down to bare metal. His solution? Buy some somewhat similar paint (or possibly nail polish) and slap it on with a small paint brush. Good as new. I look at it now as the truck having “character.”
Remember when you were so young you thought it would be really cool to cut the grass? I do. Then I got old enough to cut it, and realized it wasn’t nearly so cool any more. Not even on a big John Deere.
The Stillwater lift bridge. The river is running high.
Ouest finding the advanced camera “artsy” settings.
Lowe found a piece of square foam at the river, and immediately had an idea for what he wanted to make out of it. A flip phone. I swear, to this day you could count on your fingers how many times he’s even seen us on a phone. It’s June and I could count on one hand how many phone calls I’ve made in 2016. But here he is, with his flip-phone.
Little did he know what we would find in a box in the basement the next day.
Put the original mud flaps back on. Yeah, big job. I’m really knocking off the important projects around here.
Alternator is gone, and soon that funky electronic ignition gold box to the left of it there will be too.
Ali was cleaning out a box, trying to take our remaining possessions down from four boxes to two, when she discovered my trading jacket, and, get this, her first cell phone. The classic Motorola flip-phone. We actually had kept that as a bit of a joke specifically for showing to our kids some day. It’s now being played with constantly. Flip, smack, flip, smack, flip, smack. And hey, Ouest finally learned her phone number. Well, grandma and grandpa’s phone number, anyway.
Oakdale summerfest.
And finally, what we all came back to Minnesota for, the graduation party of our favorite niece. Congratulations to our wonderful, lovable, sweet, smart, Lea Rae.
The bouncy house had predictable results when Lowe banged his mouth into another kid’s knee—his front tooth knocked loose. We thought it was gone at first, as it was bleeding and pointing straight backwards, but I gave it a firm tug and it is mostly back in place. Not a big deal if he does lose it in the end, as it’s a baby tooth and he’d probably be losing it soon anyway, but man, sometimes it seems like these kids just don’t want to lose teeth naturally.
15 Comments on “Cars, Fairs, and Parties”
Hey Pat,
If you have not thrown out that Delta Mark Ten Capacitive Discharge Ignition box yet, you might want to reconsider. It was a very valuable addition on an old ‘points in the distributor’ style of engine. Basically, it converted the old style points/condenser ignition system into a modern HEI ignition that most auto makers incorporated as an industry standard in the late 70s. The Mark Ten really upped the spark in the old engines, thereby extending point life, helping starting, fuel mileage, and overall performance. It was a hot enough spark that they directed the spark plugs to be gapped 5-10 thousands more than normal to get a better/larger spark in the cylinder. You have the Ten C with even more features, but starting with the Mark Ten B, they incorporated an on-off switch, so if it ever went bad on you, you just switched it off and bypassed it until you could get the board fixed (very simple parts inside as they were sold as kits also). You can tell if it is working by turning the ignition switch on and listening for the high pitched hum/squeal before you kick the starter over. I used one for years and they are still popular on the older Porsche, Saab and other old car forums. Anyway, if it’s still working, it could be a valuable performance addition for where you are headed (high altitudes, poor petrol, weak battery, etc.).
Best wishes,
Mike
I’m just switching it out for a Petronix ignition like I’ve put on my other vehicles.
Looking at the picture of the worn door top reminded me of a time when people would buy/have made leather or vinyl flaps that protected the door from scratching and rusting. This was the same time period during which people would order (ORDER!) their cars with clear plastic seat covers. There are not many things worse than getting into a car on a hot summer day and having the back of your thighs weld to plastic seat covers.
It will be fun to see what you do with the Travelall. Suggest you look up “vapor lock” with regard to your starting problem. Cheers!
That was our first thought, but there was definitely fuel shooting into the carb.
The best way to know if it flooded is to sniff the exhaust (if you smell gas, the answer is yes). If the problem persists after you replace the ignition, I would start with a compression test (both hot and cold) and take it from there.
A failing battery cell would give the same symptoms so how about driving to AutoZone and asking them to test the battery? They are allowed to do this in the parking lot here (no need to take the battery out) but they can do a better job if you leave the battery overnight. Best of all, the service is free 🙂
Already replaced the battery. It was old.
Gotta laugh at the kids on the slip n slide ….. undie man returns!!!!
Any thoughts on what type of roof tent yet. I presume you have checked out “800 days around the world” and their roof tent. A simple pop it up and flop into it type. I saw some when I was in Oz that had room for the whole family but they took a fair bit of time to set up n down (OK if its fine, pain if its raining) and folded into a large unaerodynamic cubes on the roof. Those big bench seats would make mighty neat single beds for the kids.
Awe…Stillwater, my home town. This is our 1st year we missed the Back to the Fifties show, they always seem to have it during the hottest weekend of the summer.
Hey. I know you are the least neurotic parents on the face of the earth but you might want to have a dentist check out Loews tooth. Sometimes pushing a knocked out baby tooth back into place can damage the root affecting the adult tooth. Not suggesting you stop letting your kids have the awesome free range life they do but checking it out with the dentist will hardly inhibit anything.
I think it would be worth the time to have the radiator cleaned out and maybe re-cored.
You are truly inspirational. Just wondering if you have some auto mechanics experience growing up or was the first time you really worked on an engine when you set sail on your catamaran?
Growing up at my house we had a hammer, a flathead screwdriver, and a crescent wrench. That was the extent of our tool supply. 🙂 I am strictly an on-the-job mechanic trainee.
I had one of those old IH guess it was from the late 60’s, problem it had was quite often when we drove it and stopped somewhere for 20 or 30 minutes it would start right up but about a mile down the road it would die and not start until it had sat for another 30 minutes with the hood up. Someone told us when we shut it off heat from the engine would boil fuel from the carb over into the intake manifold, suggested we get a spacer to put under the carb but car got traded before that was done.
Good luck
Bill