So, a couple weeks ago everything was going wellish with my 442. Slowly building confidence to take it on its first highway trip to Nationals. A short 45 minute drive, but for a car that hasn't seen the interstate in at least 15 years..definitely nervous.

Then I decide I want to look into the off-idle stumble. Not sure why, but that really got me sideways on a car that was otherwise running pretty good. Once that gets close to where it was to start with, I notice a pretty serious transmission leak. Driveshaft was pulled Friday, reinstalled Saturday. While reinstalling the driveshaft, I noticed the PS rear wheel had something rolling around in it.

Pulled the wheel off to find the self adjuster had fallen out. Pretty sure a spring is on backwards, and is interfering with the self adjuster. As I go to get up (had a late start and the dog was on the verge of waking my daughter up) I notice a nail sticking out of the tire.

So tomorrow the tire is getting plugged, the brakes are being rebuilt (the DS was the last time it was in the shop even though at the time he told me he'd do both sides) and THEN I'm going to start show prep.

I'd always heard the horror stories of the last minute crap people faced before major events. I didnt really expect to be experiencing them.

 

Now imagine prepping a car for a multi-day trip to Nationals and stuff goes wrong hours from home!

The 95 Greensboro NC Nats was an hour's drive from home. I had driven my Pontiac Catalina wagon to Greensboro Sunday to get the show up and running. Came home Tuesday to get the 69 Toronado for the show.

I had gotten on US29 and the car just didn't feel right. Pulled off the highway and the smoke rolled off the left front brake. It was all but locked up. Wheel cylinder was frozen.

Toronasaurus Rex had to ride a rollback to the National Meet. It also had to ride one home, and then get its brakes fixed. I lucked up and found two NOS GM wheel cylinders at the swap meet (didja know 1st gen Toronado drum brakes use the same wheel cylinders as a toad Nova?) but they're a pain in the *** to replace. Have to take steering knuckles loose at the upper ball joint to get them out.

So yes, we've all been there. OCA used to have a hard luck trophy for people who had trouble on the way to Nationals. My brakes got trumped by a 68 Ninety Eight from New Jersey who had a rear end failure 4 miles from the 1995 show.

 

oh, sooner or later most of us have that wondrous experience.. I just got new tires to replace my 20+ yo tiger paws- got em mounted last week,aligned wednesday- forgot to check bushings... luckily i had one to replace the bad one they found..expensive lesson..
but still better than trying a 8+ hr drive on old rubber...
the little oil leak can wait..

 

yeah, I always knew it was a thing. I'd just never really experienced it first hand.

Hopefully I can get everything back together this evening and try to clean these rear belts as best I can. Gonna probably fuel up tomorrow and just clean it really well at this point, then make sure I've got all the extra items accounted for (spare/jack/spirit items/fire extinguisher/etc).

The win will be driving there and back at this point, ha!

 

When I bought my 75 Hurst in October 2021, we went to the Veterans Day Show in Bastrop, Texas which is about 235 miles each way. The car was surging at idle so two days before we left, I decided to rebuild the quadrojet. Of course, I am in a hurry. I did not get the linkage on the carb right and it would not come off fast idle. In Waco we got in several miles of bumper-to-bumper traffic that was crawling. I am riding the brake hard in that traffic. All weekend it would diesel when I turned it off which was embarrassing. All weekend I am asking myself, what was I thinking.

 

The very first Power Tour I did was the Route 66 cruise, I think that was in 01? we took my buddies 98 Camaro. It was a modern car at that time, and yet my buddy still went over the car and replaced some questionable items.

I think it was the stop In Oklahoma where we were parked next to a guy and his son with a 70 big block Monte Carlo. They told us they heard about power tour about a month before and decided to take their grandfathers car (the Monte Carlo) that had been stored in a barn for 20 years. They pulled it out, replaced the tires, belts, hoses, and other wear items and hit the road. They made it all the way to California. I assume they made it back.

While older stuff isn’t as maintenance free, unless it’s a major failure you can usually MacGuyver a fix to get it going.

 

I was Covid away from taking the crapbox Dodge I had (crapbox in the fact it was far from safe on the street) to the Dayton stop on the Power Tour in 2020. It would've made the drive no problems as Dad had been borrowing it to drive back and forth to Franklin (between Dayton and Cincinnati-further than Dayton from where we live).

Looking back, it's probably a good thing I didn't take that car though. Ujoints were bad, pinion angle was bad, needed a converter, the firewall had massive holes due to the heaterbox being removed, brakes were sketchy..ya know-Roadkill.

 

38 days until Hot Rod Drag Week, and my new, untested transmission is still on the bench. That's all I got.

 

Aw, c'mon. The heroic repairs on the road are the stories you keep telling. My u-joint replacement on the '19 Power Tour (photo below) has been retold dozens of times. Today I had to replace my brand new Pertronix coil in The Middle of Nowhere, WV, on the way to Nationals. Fortunately, I had another brand new spare with me. Yeah, I should have known better than to use Pertronix crap.

 

Joe is that you under the wagon or a dummy? Lol Asking for a friend. 😏

 

Both.

 

Lmao kinda expected that answer. 🤣

 

Welcome to owning Classic cars. I find these old transmissions leak/weap somewhere, even with new seals and bushings. I carry a trunk full of extra parts, just in case. Your car has been a struggle, my rebuild has been similar. I hoping to pick up my 358 in pieces, not even assembled as I asked on Friday.

 

I thought of driving my 67 wagon to Lansing and lately the nationals. Rebuilt rear, rebuilt trans, rebuilt 330, rebuilt carb, new brakes, new tires, runs like a top. Then I thought what would I need to "bring" just in case, The list grew very long from ignition stuff like distributer, cap, points, wires, condenser, water pump, fuel pump, belts, tire patch kit, can of fix a flat, a starter, alternator, lots of fluids, many tools, good jack.... Then I decided if I made either trip a trailer might be a better choice.

 

Roadkill garage does a lot of parking lot repairs, usually their own faults too.

 

I have all that in my 62 F85 wagon with plenty of room to spare.