Wednesday, October 17, Albuquerque, NM

This blog is about another of our cross country trips with old cars.  If you check some of our other blogs, you'll see several of these trips chronicled.  We are just too cheap to attempt these travels in newer conveyances.



Packed and ready to go in Albuquerque.  Lots of tools and spare parts on board.

This trip is a fairly long one for our oldest car:  a 1927 Buick Brougham.  This is a big heavy beauty that I restored almost 10 years ago.  It is not really compatible with modern highways, it has a top speed around 45 mph.  As the sign says, it is old, slow and cranky.  Still, we have enjoyed driving it on long trips, using as many secondary roads as possible.  The latest trip is from Albuquerque, NM to Brenham, TX, the site of the 2012 AAA Glidden tour.  This drive will be about 800 miles, quite a challenge for this old iron and its old humans.  I am traveling with my friend Ken Murphy who is an accomplished old car collector and driver. 

Buick cools off in Moriarty, NM

Day 1 is always a challenge because it involves negotiating the mountains and high altitudes of New Mexico.  These are always hard on our old cars.  Today, we had lots of trouble:

1. We started east driving uphill through Tijeras canyon to Moriarty, NM.  This drive is tough, but today it was worse because we had severe tailwinds the whole way.  A tailwind is very hard on old cars, their huge radiators are starved for air and the engine overheats and the carburetor vapor locks.  This is what Buick did.  Fortunately, we only had to stop a for a few minutes in Moriarty to cool her down.
2. Going south to Estancia went better because we had a mere 30 mph cross wind.  Buick was heavy enough to resists the gusts and the engine ran better.  We continued south until we turned east on US 60.  Here, the electric fuel pump quit, the winds had blown one of the electrical leads off the pump.  We were able to fix this after just two trips under the car, laying down in a bed of  sharp gravel. 
3. Heading SE from Vaughn on the very lonely US 285, the tail winds got stronger yet.  The engine fought vapor lock for about a hundred miles.  Fortunately, Buick kept running aided by constant manipulation of the choke. 
4. About 100 yards from the first gas station in Roswell, Buick stopped dead, completely out of gas.  We only got 140 miles on this tank, the vapor lock increased the fuel consumption considerably.  There goes our carbon budget, down the drain.  When stopped, I noticed a pretty ugly water leak out of the engine manifold.  Nothing critical, but no doubt this would have to be fixed eventually.
5. We had a spare gallon of gas on the rack, so we topped up and motored towards the gas station.  I noticed a distinct trail of liquid drops on the road in the rear view mirror.  At the gas station, a huge puddle of gasoline appeared under the engine.  We shut down all systems and opened the hood.  The main needle valve in the carburetor was gone, apparently it had fallen out somewhere.  Ken and I walked down the road for a mile or so, no luck with finding the disappearing needle valve.  This would normally the the end of the story -- a 1927 Buick will not run properly without that needle valve in place.  Guess what, the night before we left I casually tossed in a spare carburetor under the front seat. It had a needle, we stuck it in and we were on the road again.
6. We found an auto parts store to get gasket material, sealant, and fiberglass resin that may be needed to repair the water leak.  This went well, but by then it was dark and we could go no farther.  We only went about 230 miles on day one.  Not bad, but we will need to do better in the next few days.

The good news is the car is running OK now, we found a nice Days Inn in Roswell, and had a great dinner in a sports bar.  Hopefully, tomorrow will be better and we'll find some chance to fix the water leak.  See you down the road! (I hope).

Thursday, October 18, Sweetwater, TX

Hi bloggoheads, I'll bet you thought we croaked somewhere back in New Mexico.  Not so, today was a much better day.  We managed to make a full 289 miles in spite of a fairly late start at(10 AM) -- and the loss of an hour due to time change in TX.  That included a slow and strenuous 2nd gear climb out of the Pecos valley east of Roswell.

Our leaky leak is on the vertical section on the left end of that manifold.  Streaks on engine are from blown coolant.

We did a little work on the leaking manifold in Roswell first thing.  A little patch of JB weld around the manifold did no good, the leak continues unabated.  It's not all that bad, we lose a quart or two of water every 100 miles.  But it's making our lovely engine look pretty ratty.  The water hits the manifold, and is blown back against the firewall. So far it's just a cosmetic problem, my only concern is if it gets worse, we may have to stop on the side of the road and fix it while being checked over by coyotes, javilinas, bobcats, and armadillos.

We didn't run out of gas or lose a needle valve today.  No tail winds either, winds were very calm all day.  No vapor lock. So that's real progress.   Running out of gas yesterday got our attention.  We now stop about every 100 miles or less for fuel.  Gas is a bit cheaper here.  Good thing, because the best we do is 10 MPG.  The car ran great.  Ken drove it for quite a few miles, Buick was not fussy at all today.

THE ECONOMY IS COLLAPSING!!  This is obvious, everyone is fleeing the country to find jobs and filling up all the luxury hotels in TX.  We were shocked to find that with about 5 big box hotels in Sweetwater, we could find only two rooms in separate hotels.  Not cheap either, these rooms are $122 each.  Them's real dollars too, not those lousy, devalued New Mexican dollars....Seriously, we have had problems finding rooms on this trip, Roswell was crowded too.  I really didn't think this would be an issue in October, not exactly peak season for vacationers. 

Anyway, all is well in Sweetwater.  Got great service and delicious meal at a local cafe.  Tomorow morning we will  take another crack and fixing the crack in the water manifold.  And then we will tackle a tough 50 miles of I-20 to take us around and through Abeline, TX.

See you all down the road.  Now check out this actual unretouched movie of some of our trip...

Friday, October 19

My fellow Americans, and furriners too:

Today was another good day for Ken, Buick and me.  We covered about 240 miles and made it to congested Temple TX well before dark. 

I started with another attempt to JB Weld the leaking water manifold.  It didn't work but the leak rate was still very low.  So off we went with our freshly filled plastic Prestone bottles of extra water.  The morning was very cool and that took more pressure off Buick's wounded cooling system.

Morning started with about 20 miles on I-20 headed east towards Abilene.  This was dreadful, with heavy trucks, Suburbans, and the ever present duellys carrying gooseneck trailers whizzing by at 80 mph.  We eeked up to about 45 to avoid getting crushed.  We survived, but were delighted to get off and transition to TX 36.

This antique shop on TX 36 looked interesting but it was closed and the owner was nowhere.

TX 36 is a SE diagonal road that took us many miles.  We rode it from Abilene all the way to Temple, a busy Walmartian enclave in the I-35 corridor north of Austin.  We didn't like the congestion here, Buick was miserable trying to find the right lanes and keep up with the folks impatiently dealing with rush hour.  We did like the fancy Fairfield Inn box hotel that had only two rooms left -- or so they said, the parking lot had plenty of vacant spaces.

TX 36 overall was an outstanding road.  Gentle curves, rolling hills, and frequent passing lanes made it a pleasure to navigate in Buick.  We cruised through many picturesque small town America small towns with Subways and Family Dollar stores.  Trucks and those loooooong Texas goooooseneck trailers were able to pass us with little hassle or delay.  Friendly honks and waves were plentiful.  Folks were curious, many asked great questions and enjoyed seeing the car. 

Buick ran great and something interesting happened:  The water leak suddenly stopped or slowed to practically nothing.  We were loosing about a quart every 50 miles and the engine was covered with evaporation stains from the water.  But now it is all dry.  Did is rust shut?  You know it will come back, but for now I am delighted.  (no, it did not run out of water, there is still plenty in the radiator).  Buick has picked up some exhaust noise, perhaps from the muffler or manifold leaking.  It makes a bit of a sour sound when the engine is working hard, but it shouldn't be too threatening.  So I have not spent a lot of time trying to track that problem down.  The engine has picked up a bit more pep now that we are near sea level down here.

Good night, tomorrow we hope to make it to Brenham.....

Saturday, October 20

We made it!

Arriving at last at the Hampton Inn in Brenham, TX.  We were one day early and they had no room for us.  No problem, we can sleep in the car....

Our last day was a breeze, easy driving with no problems.  We only drove about 120 miles.  Our total trip mileage is 820 by Buick's odometer. 

The water leak resumed, so we will probably work on that tomorrow.  Ken and I spent an hour or two cleaning up the car and meeting friends who were arriving.  We aren't going to win the distance driven award:  A beautiful Packard Convertible Coupe drove from Denver (1100 miles), a Model A sedan from Maryland (1500 miles), and a '39 Ford came from Buffalo (1800 miles).  Maybe this is a trend, I think it's great when more cars drive to these events.

From Post, TX on, all of this route was new to Ken and I.  The roads were well maintained and it is far more scenic than I expected.  TX has wide shoulders and we could not adapt to the TX practice of using those shoulders for passing.   Buick is just a tad too squirrely to risk driving on the shoulder:  it's just too easy to drop one of those huge wheels over the edge and ending up upside down.  But quite a few Texans used the shoulders to pass us.  There were also ample passing lanes so we never backed up traffic much.

So now we will meet some old friends (Bill and Joyce Sullivan have already arrived with their '31 Buick) and make some new ones.  If you've been following this blog, it's time for you to find something else to do.  I will be less regular with these posts once the tour starts.

See you down the road, thanks for joining us...

Just kidding, we got a room at the nearby Comfort Inn and parked Buick next to this lovely Packard.  I think Buick may be in love....

Saturday, October 27

Buick meets new friends (1933 Packard from Denver) in Brenham

Howdy Bloggeroos! 

We are back and speaking Texan since we've completed the Great Texas Trailride AAA Glidden Tour in Brenham. I can't do this tour justice right now -- except to say that it was one of the best Glidden tours ever.  About 180 prewar cars enjoyed wonderful roads, food, scenery, music, and points of interest around Brenham.  Check out some of my pictures, I do have a web album.  All the cars on tour were pre-war and there were even some brass (pre 1915) beauties to enjoy.  Buick felt rather young and vigorous in this crowd.  The tour organization was outstanding, imagine providing sit down lunches and dinners for this crowd of 350+ fussy geezers and geezerettes.  Lots of horses joined the horseless carriages on this tour -- lovely wranglerettes and their powerful steeds provided waving flags to direct all the critical turns.  And we all got genuine fitted cowboy hats to take home.  Bravo!
Buick ran great for the 450 miles of touring around Brenham.  The weather was warm at first, but cooled considerably toward the end of the tour.  I never fixed Buick's water leak.  There was not a lot of time to work on it and the leak wasn't growing.  There is always a risk of stripping a bolt or snapping off a stud with any repair -- I decided it was best to leave the car alone unless the leak amps up.

We had fun carrying passengers on this tour:  Rich and Charlotte Blake, Denny and Sue Holland and Jock and Sabina Finley joined us on different tour days. We also carried two AAA staffers Steve and Pat who had never ridden in a car like Buick. 

Saying goodbye to all the folks we meet and know from these tours is always difficult.  Finally, Ken and I got the car all loaded and cast off for the trip home at about 9 AM this morning. 

Then we had our first problem:  it was quite cold (about 45F) and Buick's battery only managed a few turns of the engine before groaning to a stop.  Hmm, no problem, we have a 12V starter pack.  Better yet, I came up with Buick's hand crank and proceeded to crank her huge engine to life.  Buick came to life after about ten strokes but left me nearly dead.  My arms burned and chest heaved with exhaustion.

I caught my breath and we motored out of town.  Then more trouble.  Buick started to stumble on hills and finally croaked with a gasp about 10 miles NW of Brenham.  After recovering from a fit of catastrophizing over our silent engine, we determined Buick was merely out of gas -- in spite of the gauge telling us four gallons remained.  A couple of cowboys stopped to help, but it was not necessary.  We do carry a gallon of extra gas.  We deployed our reserve and U-turned back to town.  She took 18 gallons.  We vowed to fill up more often, but that's been said before.

From that point on, all was well except for one loose wire incident with the electric fuel pump.  One more crawl under the car, one more encounter with sharp Texas gravel.

Ken shows his elation in finding this nice motel.

We rolled smoothly on beautiful TX 36 through lots of small towns with little traffic or delay.  This is a great drive for an old car.  We deviated near I-20, bending north toward Cisco, TX to avoid the congestion of Abilene and I-20.  We found the cheapest hotel on the tour, a $45 Executive Inn just off I-20 in Cisco.  It is small but very clean and comfortable and lots of rooms were available.  Dinner at Linda's corner cafe was top-notch, we both had a very tasty chicken friend steak.  The folks at the cafe were delighted with seeing Buick and treated us like visiting Martians. We should have worn the cowboy hats....  

Total mileage today, about 250.  We hope things keep rolling, see you tomorrow.    

Sunday, October 28: Bad day at Brownfield

Hey ho, bloggerheads:

Today started out great except the morning was cold and Buick's battery thoroughly dead.  Not sure what was going on here, but read below, there are dots to connect.  We cranked Buick over with the booster battery after my attempts with the hand crank were too feeble.  It was very cold and Buick was just plain old and stiff.  She roared to life with that gulp of that 12V booster energy.

This was the Hilton in downtown Cisco.  It is abandoned now

We left Cisco to follow back roads (TX 6, US 84, and US380) to Albany, Post and points beyond.  Linda's Corner Cafe was sadly closed on Sunday or we would have tried her breakfast.  As we passed through Cisco, we noted we were driving on Conrad Hilton Blvd.  You could see on this road the fading remnants of a large old hotel.  Google determined it was indeed a Hilton, some claim it was the first Hilton Hotel.  It aimed to serve railroad workers and passengers during the early 1900's.  Not much happening in Cisco now, but we liked the town and wished her well and we lumbered to the NW.  Cisco looks a bit like the town in "The Last Picture Show",  but there was a lively Halloween parade last night.  Lots of kids fully costumed (including an amazing tin man) and enjoying their floats on Conrad Hilton Blvd.

Sinclair station colors matched the Buick. 

Albany proved an interesting town.  The entire main street was preserved with signs explaining the history and architectural significance of many buildings.  We couldn't find a restaurant, but a small donut shop was well equipped with breakfast fare.  We enjoyed two old gas stations, one fully restored in Sinclair livery.

We went along the very smooth and mostly four lane US 84.  Ken drove for a few hours.  Buick was doing fine except the ammeter was showing the generator putting out about 15 amps into the battery most of the time.  This was much more than it usually produces and we wondered what had changed.  Then a strange odor wafted out of the engine.  We stopped and the generator was smoking a bit, definitely overheating.  I tried to clean up one of the brushes on the generator, it seemed to improve it a bit.  But after Post, the current and the odor got definitely stronger.  I suggested we disconnect the generator, we could motor fairly well without it during the day. 

Then came the stupid move than only a mechanical engineer could make:  I disconnected the output lead of the generator and off we went.  Electrical engineers know that doing this will cause the voltage on the generator to skyrocket, leading to shorts, sparks, smoke and flame.  Well, after we stopped and put out the shorts, sparks, smoke, and flame, we had a molten blob that used to be a generator. 

We motored on, starting the car with our booster.  Somehow, we managed to drive (coast?) 50 miles to Brownfield with no generator and a dead battery.  We found a nice Best Western for $85.  There we hooked up our battery charger and had a cheezy dinner at Pizza Hut.

Now what?  Well, we think we can make quite a distance without the generator if we start with a charged battery and turn off the electric fuel pump.  I did bring a vacuum fuel pump that should fuel to the car reasonably well.  Ken and I spent most of the evening installing the vacuum pump and removing the electric one.  The latter resulted in a massive gasoline bath for me, but we finally got that done.

In spite of these problems, we managed to eek out a bit over 200 miles today.  We are about 350 to Albuquerque now.  Not sure how tomorrow will go, but I think our fix will keep us rolling for a while. 

See you down the road, I hope.....
          

Monday, October 29

We are home!  But not exactly according to schedule....

Buick's battery gets a lift from our charger in Brownfield, TX

Our problems from Sunday continued with our departure from Brownfield.  If you recall, Buick limped in here with no generator and a dead battery. We left her battery on the charger all night but it was still dead in the morning. Not a good sign.  We started her with the booster and proceeded to a nearby O'Reilly auto parts store.  They had one 6V battery that we installed with their help -- it is not easy wrestling one of these heavy batteries in and out of the pit underneath the floorboards.

Buick fired up readily on the new battery and we headed toward New Mexico running on our vacuum tank fuel pump.  The lack of a generator was no problem with the electric fuel pump removed.  The car only drew about 1 or two amps from the battery for its ignition.  All went well for almost 130 smooth miles through Texas flatlands.  We stopped in Roswell for lunch at Farley's.  They graciously offered an electrical outlet to charge our battery while we ate.

We decided to aim for Vaughn, NM for the night, about 100 miles to the NW.  All was well until high headwinds and a very steady 2500 ft climb from Roswell to Vaughn was too much work for the vacuum tank and it went dry.  I added gas to the tank from our reserve gallon and we managed another 10 or 15 miles before the pattern repeated.  On the third refill, the high winds blew away an important gasket that seals the fuel line to the tank.  As we looked for the gasket, a good Samaritan Joe Aronda stopped to help.  Joe had a big, empty trailer he was hauling to Santa Fe.  He offered to carry us to Albuquerque.  With the missing gasket likely to degrade the performance of the vacuum tank even more, we decided to accept his generous offer.

Buick settles in on Joe's trailer

Loading Buick was tricky, keeping the engine running with a fractious fuel pump didn't help.  But eventually she mounted the stout trailer and off we went at 70 MPH in a very smooth and powerful Ford F150 with a crew cab.  We were home in about an hour while enjoying our conversation with Joe. 

Our last effort involved getting Buick off the trailer and in her garage.  I primed the tank once again to give us enough oomph to get the car moving.

Buick didn't quite complete this event.  But she did take us about 2200 miles, most of it in smooth comfort. She needs a few repairs, but nothing really major.  I am ready to try it again soon.  I think Ken would agree.

Check out our epiblog, I'll try to write it tomorrow....

Epiblog, Tuesday October 30

Ken, Buick and I in the dark at home with our Glidden Tour hats

It felt good to be secure and at home today -- especially after watching video of hurricane Sandy's beating of the east coast.  I wish a quick recovery to all those affected, especially our relatives and friends in that area.

This is the third major cross country trip taken in our Buick.  She took Nance and me to Flint, MI in 2003 (3900 miles), Wendy Walker and me to Plano, TX in 2004 (1800 miles), and Ken Murphy and me to Brenham, TX in 2012 (2200 miles).  Each trip provided unique adventures for Buick and her passengers. 

This latest trip may have been the most interesting.  We had more problems for sure, the other trips were less eventful.  Two miracles helped make this trip special and successful:  My last minute tossing of a spare carburetor under the seat before we left kept us rolling when Buick ejected her main needle valve somewhere on the highway near Roswell;  A Good Samaritan we met with a huge trailer near Vaughn, NM who offered to carry limping Buick about 50 miles out of his way to our home in Albuquerque.  "You would have done the same", he said.  Perhaps, but I sure don't frequent lonely New Mexico roads carrying a trailer with room for a 5000 pound old car. Thank you Joe, I hope to meet you again someday.

What else went wrong?  The water manifold leak turned out to be mostly cosmetic.  I found if we left the water level a few inches lower than normal, the leak stopped.  Because the weather was cool, this worked fine for most of the trip.  The loss of the generator proved to be a real problem. We managed driving Buick for 300 miles plus without the generator, but we didn't have enough power to use our electric fuel pump.  The loss of the electric pump lead to trouble on our drive from Roswell to Vaughn -- a 100 mile uphill slog with headwinds to boot.  Our four year old battery also croaked on the last driving day.  Fortunately, we could still find a 6V battery and that kept us going.  I wonder now if the bad battery caused the generator to overwork and overheat.  Could be.  Then again, the 85 year old generator may have just plain worn out.

Just a few of the 190 tour cars gather somewhere near Brenham

The 2012 AAA Glidden Tour was a triple A destination more than worthy of all the effort and expense to get there.  It is hard to describe the fun of spending five days on the road with hundreds of interesting old cars, old and new friends, and visiting one fascinating destination after another.  Every stop is a car show and convention.  There are cars to be gawked, people to hug, mechanical problems to solve, food to eat, scenery to enjoy, and history to learn. This tour was replete with local flavor, featuring wonderful coffee breaks and lovely wranglerettes on horseback leading the way.  Check out these pictures, it will give you a flavor of what it was like.  Look carefully and you'll see a few pix of Buick.

I removed Buick's fried generator today and it's heading to the generator shop.  We'll clean Buick up, fix a few other little things, and should be ready for the next road trip to who knows where.  See you down the road....