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.....