The Ford Barn

daveymc29 · 01-16-2017, 11:25 PM

In June of 2008, there was a joint meet of the two National Model A Clubs. I decided to go and set about making plans and reservations followed by putting our Roadster in condition for such a trip. This is a trip of over 1700 miles, if you include a few little side trips along the way. I checked everything I could think of and put together a bunch of spare parts to take with me, just in case. Then I took off all the wheels and drums, checked and adjusted the brake linings and bubble balanced my wheels, greased the entire car and topped up everything. I put it all back together and was ready to go. Full of anticipation for a great ride I left at 5:00 AM to drive to Barstow, CA, where I would meet up with a group that would travel together to Addison.
I drove off merrily on my way and at about ten miles down the road the car began to shake violently as I topped the crossover from I-680 to I-580. This is quite a tall overcrossing and as I slowed, trying to picture what was going on, the left front wheel rolled off, passing me and jumped the guardrail and disappeared down to the freeway lanes below me. I have hydraulic brakes on the roadster and hadn’t been alert enough to notice if the tire and wheel still had the drum attached or not so I was afraid to step on the brakes. I just pointed the car to the side of the overpass and let it roll to a stop. As that happened the left front corner of the car settled gently to the ground and there was no scraping sound, so I knew the drum was still on the hub. Just a shower of sparks as the drum skimmed over the rough pavement.
After it stopped I put on my hazard lights and got out to examine the situation. The left front was setting on the pavement, (see the picture above,) and everything appeared fine, except there was no tire or wheel to be seen and I couldn’t see any lug nuts. My car is a six- wheeled roadster, so that meant I had two spare tires, held on with three lug nuts each. Simple enough; take a spare and put it on the car using the three lug nuts that hold it in place and steal two more from the remaining spare mount. There you go, the problem is solved, so drive on.
Well it seemed simple enough, but I found that I couldn’t get my jack under the axle to raise the car. I could lift it a bit, but alone there was no way I could get the jack in place. I had a cell phone and woke my lovely bride up to tell her where a shorter jack was and why I needed it. She was there shortly, as was the California Highway Patrol. The CHP went looking for my errant tire and wheel, with the promise that when they found it they would chase me down and return it to me. To this day, no one admits to knowing where it is.
With the shorter jack, and Nelda’s help, I got the axle on top of the shorter jack and jacked the car up a bit so I could get the bigger jack in place and install the tire. Then I had a choice, cancel and call it quits, or go for it. I decided to go for it. Nelda agreed that this didn’t have to ruin my plans and wished me well. I checked all the remaining lug nuts and found them to be tight. Why I had tightened only three wheels, I’ll never know, but it is imbedded in my mind to check at least the four on the ground often from now on.
We parted ways and I drove on over the Altamont Pass and into the San Joaquin Valley at Tracy, and took the highway to Modesto, where I joined Hwy 99, then headed toward Bakersfield. By then the sun had come up and the fields and orchards looked lovely in the early light. On my way I passed some guy in a Chevy Camaro that had caught fire and burned right to the roadbed, so I didn’t feel I had the worst of luck. My car had four good tires on the road, was running well and there was a spare on the passenger side in case I needed one, plus I had extra water and oil in a rack on the running board, parts under the seat and …well I just couldn’t remember what I had done with most of the spare parts I had set out to take with be, but I had a nagging ache in my stomach that told me they were still on the bench in my garage, a couple of hundred miles behind me when I finally stopped and checked. Oh well, the show must go on now.
I stopped for breakfast along the way and bought fuel. The price of gasoline had gone from about $1.89 to over four dollars per gallon, from the time I signed up for this trip and the time I got on the road. In Bakersfield, I fueled up again and made sure all the tires were good, water to the top and oil level where it belonged. Then I drove over the Tehachapi’s to Mojave and off across the desert toward Barstow. I had to stop for the light at Kramer Junction and the poor little car began to miss something terrible as I pulled through the intersection, with trucks and cars backed up behind me. I nursed it along and eventually it seemed to be better and gained enough speed that I didn’t feel that I was a hazard to navigation, so I kept going to Barstow, not daring to pull off onto the shoulder and check what may be wrong, as what shoulder there was, looked to be a sand trap. This part of the trip is sagebrush, cactus and desert plants that all are fairly well spaced apart. The soil appears to be mostly pebbles and sand, little dirt.
As I left the highway to enter Barstow the engine died and I couldn’t restart it. I rolled into some shade under an overpass and examined the points. They were almost totally closed so I eyeballed a bit and separated them to what looked to me to be about twenty thousandths and then drove fairly well on into town and found our motel. I had driven 388 miles and I was sort of proud of myself, and my little car. I went into the motel and met some of the other travelers on our trip. Some of them had problems also, so I didn’t feel singled out for misfortune.
We were to be in Barstow two nights to allow us all to gather and get to know each other. There was a tour of the Harvey House, which is the railroad museum in town. It also features a lot of Hwy 66 pictures and history of one of the largest migrations of people in modern times the “Dust Bowl.” Folks from the Dust Bowl came west from their devastated farms and lives to seek a new beginning in California, during the 1930’s and then into the 1940’s, as workers were needed for the war effort. If you wish, read Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, for a colorful picture of that event.
I found that there were about 30 cars of us going on this trip, lead by the publisher of The Model A Times, John La Voy. A couple of the participants were talking about their troubles and one fellow in a pretty little red pickup felt he would have to cancel because he was losing so much water he felt he just couldn’t go on. His wife would be really upset with him, he told me, as she had told him to get his radiator fixed before he left. We found that his trouble was that the water was just being pumped out the overflow and onto the ground. Another fellow, Denny Specker told him he had a cure and he should try it before he gave up. The cure was a device that turned the old radiator system into a somewhat more modern version, in that it provided a way to pressurize his radiator to about 2.5 psi and that would also keep the water in the radiator. We installed it and he never added another drop of water all the way to Addison.
Another fellow was about to drive to Los Angeles to get a generator. I told him I had a spare in my car, under the seat, he was welcome to try it and see if that cured his problem. He installed it and I kept my fingers crossed because I hadn’t tested it. I had won it in a raffle and the member that put it in there had said it was from our clubs spare parts that they used to call their “First Aid Kit.” He started his car and the amps went right up so we knew it to be okay. He bought a replacement in Addison and I still have it. I wasn’t concerned much with my car as I had gapped the points and gone to a parts house and bought another spare set and a condenser, just in case.
After our stay in Barstow, another couple and I decided that we would get under way across the Mojave early in the morning and beat the heat to Needles, and then take Hwy 66 up to Oatman, AZ and explore there, before driving on to Williams, our next nights stop. They had a nice little coupe and were pulling a trailer, so the next morning we had the motel breakfast and headed out just after sunup. The road was fairly good, empty of cars at that hour and somewhat cooler than any other time I had been over that stretch recently. At Golden Shores we pulled into a gas station and filled up.
Then when I tried to leave, the little roadster seemed to be happy to stay by the Colorado River and protested mightily as I herded it up the road to Oatman. We stopped there and did some minor tinkering to see if we could improve the performance. We also watched as we and other tourist fed the wild burros that now make Oatman a feeding stop on their rounds. All the stores sell carrots for that purpose. We got a cold Coke and then left for Kingman, where we planned to have lunch.
The roadster ran pretty darn well all the way to Hwy 40, just a couple of miles from Kingman. When I stopped for the intersection, the engine died and I couldn’t get it started. Help arrived from all sides and all types of tinkering and advice took place, eventually it was determined by someone that the connection tang on my rotor had broken off, so that was replaced and I limped the car into Kingman and we all had lunch while it cooled off. My traveling companion, Alex Jenke, took my carburetor apart and cleaned it and we got under way again. After a few miles of bucking and snorting I called for our tow vehicle to pick me up. We loaded the car onto the trailer and it was towed into Williams, where it started right up and ran quite well around the motel lot and out into the town streets.
The next morning, a new friend, Dave Uhlig, said he would ride with me to the Grand Canyon and between us we should be able to diagnose what was ailing my machine. Another friend, Steve Lewis was following us closely. He was also in a roadster. We drove blissfully along for an hour and a little more and travelled about 55 of the 60 miles to the South Rim with no problems at all. Then troubles started again and the car bucked and protested against my efforts. We made it to the parking lot, barely, and let the car cool down as we toured the canyon overlook and took a few pictures.
After an hour or two, we went back to the cars and we started it up and all three of us listened for a minute or two, and then decided to shut it off and change out the manifold gasket. We put a new one on and it still leaked so we shut it off and doubled up the gaskets, two new ones now made it quiet. Steve rode back with me and we drove back to Williams with no more problems. That evening, Steve rebuilt the carburetor for me with a kit he had and we tightened all the connections to the amp meter. One of the posts on the amp meter was loose and that was fixed.
The following morning I followed Steve and Dave and we drove to Flagstaff up the hill from Williams and the car ran fine. We stopped in Flagstaff and filled the tanks and when I tried to leave, the popping and backfiring commenced with a vengeance. I turned the mixture control out a few turns and danged if it didn’t pick up speed and quit misbehaving. I was happy to have found something that I could do that seemed to work.
We drove to Gallup, after a side trip through the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest. We settled in for the night. Steve and Dave had me come join them for pizza in their room and we discussed the changes in my car. Backing the mixture control out shouldn’t have had that effect on the running, and none of us could explain it, but it worked, so I would do what worked.
The following morning we got under way fine and I followed Steve’s car to just a few miles west of Albuquerque, where all of us waited until all the Model A’s were gathered beside the road, and then we got a police escort to take us into Los Lunas, New Mexico. The escort took us straight to the central park in town. There the Chamber of Commerce and the local club, Poco Quatros, (“slow fours”) hosted a barbeque for us. All kinds of good food and drink, a local gathering of old cars to make a sizable car show, and all our Model A’s lined up for the locals to see what had invaded their town.
We left there after a few hours and I had real fears of pulling the grade east of Albuquerque. It was past 2 PM and quite warm. I found that I did okay, slower than most, and it did seem sadly underpowered. Denny Specker passed me in his Phaeton, like I was parked. His car had a lot more wind drag and was probably a couple of hundred pounds heavier than my car. Also they were two people, while I was alone. There was construction on the highway also, so I really breathed a sigh of relief when I topped the grade and found myself in Moriarty. I knew of no more real steep hills between there and Dallas, TX.
We stopped late in the afternoon for a sandwich and to fill up. A lady cautioned us that there was a tornado warning for the eastern part of the state and she advised us to find a room where we were until that warning was lifted. We looked ahead and there were some clouds, but after a bit we decided none of us Californians had really seen a tornado, so we pushed on to Tucumcari, which was our stop for the night.
The following morning I took off on my own and drove to Amarillo early. I had called Nelda’s cousin, Margaret Miller, and invited her to join me for breakfast. She told me she would, but didn’t quite know where to go, so I should meet her at her house and she would ask her son to join us at some good spot. So I drove to her house and as I parked, I could smell ham and eggs, biscuits and gravy and all of the things she had fixed for breakfast, so I knew we weren’t going anywhere. Her son, Mike came about that moment and I went in and enjoyed a wonderful home cooked meal. My first in a week and it was very welcome.
After that I drove to Quanah, Texas, named for Quanah Parker, the last Comanche Chief. That was our last stop before Addison and it was just 209 miles more to our meeting spot. I bought gasoline at a local station for less than four dollars a gallon, first time in the entire trip. Then I found the motel and awaited the rest of our group to appear. My car was running well and I was happy to report that when I called Nelda that night. I also asked her to call Roger Griffith and have him bring a Carburetor and a Distributor to the club meeting that night and she could UPS it to me at her cousin’s house in Hurst.
The following day I followed Steve and Dave as we got into the outskirts of the Dallas-Fort Worth area. I had seen on a map that Addison is to the North of Dallas. Steve had a GPS and so I decided to follow them and stick close so I didn’t get lost in the maze of roads and crossings. We started to pull into a gas station close to our destination and I saw that their car was having trouble. I parked and we pushed it to a spot where we were out of the way and determined that the float in his carburetor had sunk and so gas was running out all over the ground. He had a spare float and shortly we were under way again and found our motels. I was a block away from the host hotel, but the parking lot was full of Model A’s, so I had plenty of folks to visit with if I got bored.
I enjoyed the meet and explored around the area as well. I took a bus tour to the area where Kennedy was killed and through the Dallas Book Depository, saw the window that Oswald fired his rifle from and heard the lead investigator tell his story again about that whole sad day. He sounded convinced that Oswald acted alone and that there had been no conspiracy and no cover-up. I always suspected that if he wasn’t alone in the assassination, then again, Lady Bird might have had a hand in it. I didn’t bring that to his attention.
After a couple of days, Nelda flew in and her cousin brought her out to the motel, along with the spare parts, and we had a nice dinner at the Claim Jumper, next to the motel. The next morning was a big tour out to the Texas Speedway and we got to take our cars in and drive a lap or two. That was a ball and after as we exited the speedway, my car backfired so loudly, people were seeking cover. I was embarrassed and we hurried out of there and went to her cousin’s for the night.
When the meet was over we drove to Clinton, Oklahoma and spent the night there. Nelda had a cousin from Oklahoma City, who came over and joined us for dinner and a tour of the Hwy 66 Museum in Clinton. That was a great treat for all of us and I was pleased that he could come join us.
The following morning we had a trip to Fairview, Oklahoma where the family of one of our fellow tour members had a place that does some machine work for money and for fun they rebuild racecars, steam tractors, and the wife makes quilts. We were adequately fed also with a huge breakfast and all sorts of goodies that the ladies had cooked up for us. I tried to find someone to give some money to help cover our costs, but they weren’t having it that way.

Fairview, Oklahoma

Fairview, Oklahoma

That afternoon we drove to Garden City, Kansas, having been joined by a man and his daughter from Massachusetts. They joined us for a meal and we found he would be going with us to California. His wife was to join him the following day and the daughter would fly home. They had a very nice station wagon that had a large warning triangle on the rear of it, indicating a slow moving vehicle.
We drove to Canon City, CO and Nelda and I wanted to go onto a high bridge over Royal Gorge, just a bit out of town, so I drove through town and started up a rather steep incline and there was no way the car was going to go up there, so we turned around and went back to our motel. I decided that I would put the parts on that Nelda had provided, so I took off my distributor and carburetor. As I did that the rain began to fall and suddenly I was drenched, but had finished before I quit for the day.
The next morning we left early and followed another fellow in a truck he had made up out of a bunch of spare parts. It was a beautiful little roadster pickup, with a four-cylinder engine from a Chevy II in it. My car now ran fine and pulled the hill that it refused to climb the afternoon before. We passed over the top of Monarch Pass, 11,312 feet. Nelda and I had lunch in a restaurant in Gunnison, CO. Then went through a museum and joined up with the group in the evening in Grand Junction. While there I noticed that my water pump was dripping a bit. I tried to tighten the packing and remembered this was one of the new “leak-less” ones without any packing to tighten. The parts truck was just going somewhere and I got another spare from him and put it on.
The next morning Nelda and I left for Delta, Utah. We hadn’t gone far when the water pump made a loud screeching sound and I pulled over and removed it, putting another spare in its place. The parts guy showed up as I was putting the hood back on and he stopped and within a few minutes we were again on our way. We got to Delta and the pump I had put on was leaking badly so I put on a demonstration of how to change a water pump in 15 minutes, and put my old “leak-less” one back on. It only leaked when the car was sitting without the engine running and I had two gallons of water in jugs on the running board, so I determined that I would add water as needed and forget about the leak.
The next day we drove to Ely, NV and took the train ride out to the huge copper mine at Ruth. We had never seen anything like it before and were well pleased that we had taken the tour. On the ride back the train passed the back of a bordello and one of the girls was out there waving frantically for us to come on down. We didn’t. We went back to our room in the casino and played the slots until we got bored, then went to bed.
The following morning Nelda and I drove over to Fallon, NV. My brother, Perry had spent a few years there and loved the pace of life there. We drove through town a couple of times and found that our motel/casino was about in the center of town. There was a good restaurant not far away and that was where we had our dinner and then went to the casino and spent a bit of time there before getting back to our room. We had decided that the following day we would drive on home so we said our goodbye’s to all of the new friends we could find, and got a good night’s sleep. It was July 4, but no gunfire like in the big cities in California which had become a way of life in Oakland on the 4th and Christmas Eve. This had the Firemen staying inside as much as possible to avoid the bullets raining down outside.
The following morning we were off early, we had breakfast at Heidi’s, a restaurant in Carson City and were home in Danville by early afternoon. It had been a wonderful time and we had met some really nice folks along the way.
Now here’s the real answer to why my car went into such protests, and what I could have done to repair that problem. My car has an alternator on it. The original Model A electrical system was recharged by a generator. I had never thought of anything being wrong at, or near the alternator, and I guess none of my friends did either. I had felt that the problem was heat getting to the condenser and causing it to malfunction, or dirt in the fuel system. Maybe even an electrical leak somewhere in the ignition system.
Not long ago, April of 2014, I began to experience the same problems I had been having on the aforementioned trip. At one point there was a lunch at a restaurant just two blocks from my house. The members met a few miles away and drove here, I didn’t try to take the Model A and they told me to go get it when we got home, surely I could bring it two blocks, so I tried and couldn’t get it to run. While we were doing the tire kicking after lunch, a couple of friends said, “Let’s go fix your car.”
So we three met in my garage and discussed where to begin, as we all looked over the engine, with the hood up. One guy began to wiggle wires and found that the wire to the alternator was very loose at its connection to the alternator. We took it off and crimped it tightly and then put the connection back together. The engine started and ran perfectly.
I have a clear distributor cap on the distributor and when the car was mis-firing, I found that as I revved it up, the first thing to happen was that number two cylinder would quit firing, then if I revved it up a little more number one also quit firing and the engine began to backfire, just as it had all along the trip to Addison. With the wire to the alternator fixed that no longer occurred. I am sure, had I crimped the connector the first time it misfired, my whole trip to Addison would have been much better, than not loading all my spare parts and tightening all of the lug nuts would have made for a much more relaxing trip.

BILL WILLIAMSON · 01-17-2017, 04:39 AM

What a WILD, WILD story !! I've traveled some of the same routes, some, years ago in OLD cars & some in later years, in "modern" cars.
The grades to Oatman Arizona, in the Black Mountains are a CHALLENGE, in themselves !!
Bill W.

JDupuis · 01-17-2017, 08:09 AM

Wow, Great Story!...... Thank you for enlightening all of us. What fantastic memories you've made. Jeff

C26Pinelake · 01-17-2017, 09:15 AM

A great story for sure. Certainly supports rationale for preparation and maintenance prior to a prolonged trip. Wayne

Neil Mylar LakewoodCA · 01-17-2017, 09:55 AM

What a challenge.
Nice to see you never gave up.
Thanks for sharing.

jm29henry · 01-17-2017, 10:01 AM

Sponsored Links (Register now to hide all advertisements)

Great writing enjoyed the story

KGBnut · 01-17-2017, 10:53 AM

I almost never read the long posts, but this one was well worth it. I like that you have a casual writing style, yet still do old-fashioned things like spell correctly... punctuate... you even use paragraphs.

This is the kind of great adventure that I would love to have. The problems are part of what makes the adventure, and I enjoyed reading about how you got through them.

Thanks so much for sharing.

Ken

TerryH · 01-17-2017, 11:13 AM

What a great story, and you persevered.....what memories you have.....thanks for sharing!

BILL WILLIAMSON · 01-17-2017, 11:33 AM

I once read of a couples' trek from S.F. bay area, to Florida & other forgotten places. They were "completely" equipped" except for REALLY OLD inner tubes !---GUESS WHAT??--It was HARD to find some in TUSCON! (sp??) As you can see, the Dog's not up, to help me with my spelin'--
Bill W.

Tom Foster · 01-17-2017, 11:52 AM

I was at Addison for the early days of the meet, and noticed the 'experienced' appearances of some of the California cars. I would encourage you to submit this story, with pictures if you have them, to MAFCA and MARC for publication as an 'if it can happen, it will' tale of perseverance.
By the way, tell Alex Janke hello from a fellow member of the Alamo A's.
Fearless

BILL WILLIAMSON · 01-17-2017, 12:41 PM

Reading & RE-READING such a post, helps me put myself in the writers' place & envision what he went through & how he solved his cars' problems.
Bill W.

Dave in Petaluma · 01-17-2017, 01:33 PM

It was a pleasure meeting you and traveling with you on that trip, Dave. It was my first long distance trip in an A, and the start of a passion that time has not diminished.
Dave Uhlig

Barber31 · 01-17-2017, 02:50 PM

My hats off to you and anyone that travels these type of long road trips. I hope to one day make a trip like that. (With out all the mechanical problems of course!)

daveymc29 · 01-17-2017, 03:10 PM

Thanks to all who responded. I had a lot of help along the way. I also had the support of a patient wife for the trip back home. This is what Model Aing is all about.

BILL WILLIAMSON · 01-17-2017, 04:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by daveymc29

Thanks to all who responded. I had a lot of help along the way. I also had the support of a patient wife for the trip back home. This is what Model Aing is all about.

When my Wife, Pat, was deep into Dementia, I'd poke her in the car & she was a different person
Our first trip out of town was an 87 mile round trip into the Sierra Foothills, went without a hitch----I could write PAGES & PAGES about Minervas' Maiden Voyage
Bill W.

Ray in La Mesa · 01-17-2017, 04:37 PM

Great trip & story! I drove my '28 roadster pickup across the U.S in '72. 9.000 miles in 7 weeks. Replaced the valves in Dearborn at the national meet and the water pump in N. Dakota on the way back.

daveymc29 · 01-17-2017, 10:56 PM

Just one of the stories in my book that I wrote when it was too cold in the garage to work on the car. Must have been down to 50 degrees, LOL. Out here in CA that is cold for us old guys, 80 or more. Books on amazon.com if anyone cares, "From the Shadow of Coyote Mountain to the Base of Mount Diablo." Or PM me your email. Whatever?

Brentwood Bob · 01-18-2017, 02:18 AM

So that is how the tire came off the roadster.
Bob

Synchro909 · 01-18-2017, 03:35 AM

As I have posted here before, I have done several looong trips and enjoyed every inch of them. While I haven't had as many troubles as you, I regard the trip as its own destination and I'm sure you will now too. I bet in a year or two, you'll remember the trials and tribulations of the trip better than your destination. Friends made on these trips are a whole degree better than most acquaintances too. Thanks for sharing. It makes me feel like pointing the car out of town again.

Neil Mylar LakewoodCA · 01-18-2017, 01:41 PM

Davey,
I enjoyed your story telling style so much that I ordered your book last night, on Amazon. One of the reviews indicated that you were in your 80's when you wrote this, your first book. I'm impressed.
I'm looking forward to reading the book.

You give me hope that I might still be willing to drive my Model A on long trips and to write a first book when I'm in my 80's.
Thanks again for sharing.

01-16-2017, 11:25 PM	#1
daveymc29 Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2010 Location: Danville, CA Posts: 1,554	CA to TX, long story In June of 2008, there was a joint meet of the two National Model A Clubs. I decided to go and set about making plans and reservations followed by putting our Roadster in condition for such a trip. This is a trip of over 1700 miles, if you include a few little side trips along the way. I checked everything I could think of and put together a bunch of spare parts to take with me, just in case. Then I took off all the wheels and drums, checked and adjusted the brake linings and bubble balanced my wheels, greased the entire car and topped up everything. I put it all back together and was ready to go. Full of anticipation for a great ride I left at 5:00 AM to drive to Barstow, CA, where I would meet up with a group that would travel together to Addison. I drove off merrily on my way and at about ten miles down the road the car began to shake violently as I topped the crossover from I-680 to I-580. This is quite a tall overcrossing and as I slowed, trying to picture what was going on, the left front wheel rolled off, passing me and jumped the guardrail and disappeared down to the freeway lanes below me. I have hydraulic brakes on the roadster and hadn’t been alert enough to notice if the tire and wheel still had the drum attached or not so I was afraid to step on the brakes. I just pointed the car to the side of the overpass and let it roll to a stop. As that happened the left front corner of the car settled gently to the ground and there was no scraping sound, so I knew the drum was still on the hub. Just a shower of sparks as the drum skimmed over the rough pavement. After it stopped I put on my hazard lights and got out to examine the situation. The left front was setting on the pavement, (see the picture above,) and everything appeared fine, except there was no tire or wheel to be seen and I couldn’t see any lug nuts. My car is a six- wheeled roadster, so that meant I had two spare tires, held on with three lug nuts each. Simple enough; take a spare and put it on the car using the three lug nuts that hold it in place and steal two more from the remaining spare mount. There you go, the problem is solved, so drive on. Well it seemed simple enough, but I found that I couldn’t get my jack under the axle to raise the car. I could lift it a bit, but alone there was no way I could get the jack in place. I had a cell phone and woke my lovely bride up to tell her where a shorter jack was and why I needed it. She was there shortly, as was the California Highway Patrol. The CHP went looking for my errant tire and wheel, with the promise that when they found it they would chase me down and return it to me. To this day, no one admits to knowing where it is. With the shorter jack, and Nelda’s help, I got the axle on top of the shorter jack and jacked the car up a bit so I could get the bigger jack in place and install the tire. Then I had a choice, cancel and call it quits, or go for it. I decided to go for it. Nelda agreed that this didn’t have to ruin my plans and wished me well. I checked all the remaining lug nuts and found them to be tight. Why I had tightened only three wheels, I’ll never know, but it is imbedded in my mind to check at least the four on the ground often from now on. We parted ways and I drove on over the Altamont Pass and into the San Joaquin Valley at Tracy, and took the highway to Modesto, where I joined Hwy 99, then headed toward Bakersfield. By then the sun had come up and the fields and orchards looked lovely in the early light. On my way I passed some guy in a Chevy Camaro that had caught fire and burned right to the roadbed, so I didn’t feel I had the worst of luck. My car had four good tires on the road, was running well and there was a spare on the passenger side in case I needed one, plus I had extra water and oil in a rack on the running board, parts under the seat and …well I just couldn’t remember what I had done with most of the spare parts I had set out to take with be, but I had a nagging ache in my stomach that told me they were still on the bench in my garage, a couple of hundred miles behind me when I finally stopped and checked. Oh well, the show must go on now. I stopped for breakfast along the way and bought fuel. The price of gasoline had gone from about $1.89 to over four dollars per gallon, from the time I signed up for this trip and the time I got on the road. In Bakersfield, I fueled up again and made sure all the tires were good, water to the top and oil level where it belonged. Then I drove over the Tehachapi’s to Mojave and off across the desert toward Barstow. I had to stop for the light at Kramer Junction and the poor little car began to miss something terrible as I pulled through the intersection, with trucks and cars backed up behind me. I nursed it along and eventually it seemed to be better and gained enough speed that I didn’t feel that I was a hazard to navigation, so I kept going to Barstow, not daring to pull off onto the shoulder and check what may be wrong, as what shoulder there was, looked to be a sand trap. This part of the trip is sagebrush, cactus and desert plants that all are fairly well spaced apart. The soil appears to be mostly pebbles and sand, little dirt. As I left the highway to enter Barstow the engine died and I couldn’t restart it. I rolled into some shade under an overpass and examined the points. They were almost totally closed so I eyeballed a bit and separated them to what looked to me to be about twenty thousandths and then drove fairly well on into town and found our motel. I had driven 388 miles and I was sort of proud of myself, and my little car. I went into the motel and met some of the other travelers on our trip. Some of them had problems also, so I didn’t feel singled out for misfortune. We were to be in Barstow two nights to allow us all to gather and get to know each other. There was a tour of the Harvey House, which is the railroad museum in town. It also features a lot of Hwy 66 pictures and history of one of the largest migrations of people in modern times the “Dust Bowl.” Folks from the Dust Bowl came west from their devastated farms and lives to seek a new beginning in California, during the 1930’s and then into the 1940’s, as workers were needed for the war effort. If you wish, read Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, for a colorful picture of that event. I found that there were about 30 cars of us going on this trip, lead by the publisher of The Model A Times, John La Voy. A couple of the participants were talking about their troubles and one fellow in a pretty little red pickup felt he would have to cancel because he was losing so much water he felt he just couldn’t go on. His wife would be really upset with him, he told me, as she had told him to get his radiator fixed before he left. We found that his trouble was that the water was just being pumped out the overflow and onto the ground. Another fellow, Denny Specker told him he had a cure and he should try it before he gave up. The cure was a device that turned the old radiator system into a somewhat more modern version, in that it provided a way to pressurize his radiator to about 2.5 psi and that would also keep the water in the radiator. We installed it and he never added another drop of water all the way to Addison. Another fellow was about to drive to Los Angeles to get a generator. I told him I had a spare in my car, under the seat, he was welcome to try it and see if that cured his problem. He installed it and I kept my fingers crossed because I hadn’t tested it. I had won it in a raffle and the member that put it in there had said it was from our clubs spare parts that they used to call their “First Aid Kit.” He started his car and the amps went right up so we knew it to be okay. He bought a replacement in Addison and I still have it. I wasn’t concerned much with my car as I had gapped the points and gone to a parts house and bought another spare set and a condenser, just in case. After our stay in Barstow, another couple and I decided that we would get under way across the Mojave early in the morning and beat the heat to Needles, and then take Hwy 66 up to Oatman, AZ and explore there, before driving on to Williams, our next nights stop. They had a nice little coupe and were pulling a trailer, so the next morning we had the motel breakfast and headed out just after sunup. The road was fairly good, empty of cars at that hour and somewhat cooler than any other time I had been over that stretch recently. At Golden Shores we pulled into a gas station and filled up. Then when I tried to leave, the little roadster seemed to be happy to stay by the Colorado River and protested mightily as I herded it up the road to Oatman. We stopped there and did some minor tinkering to see if we could improve the performance. We also watched as we and other tourist fed the wild burros that now make Oatman a feeding stop on their rounds. All the stores sell carrots for that purpose. We got a cold Coke and then left for Kingman, where we planned to have lunch. The roadster ran pretty darn well all the way to Hwy 40, just a couple of miles from Kingman. When I stopped for the intersection, the engine died and I couldn’t get it started. Help arrived from all sides and all types of tinkering and advice took place, eventually it was determined by someone that the connection tang on my rotor had broken off, so that was replaced and I limped the car into Kingman and we all had lunch while it cooled off. My traveling companion, Alex Jenke, took my carburetor apart and cleaned it and we got under way again. After a few miles of bucking and snorting I called for our tow vehicle to pick me up. We loaded the car onto the trailer and it was towed into Williams, where it started right up and ran quite well around the motel lot and out into the town streets. The next morning, a new friend, Dave Uhlig, said he would ride with me to the Grand Canyon and between us we should be able to diagnose what was ailing my machine. Another friend, Steve Lewis was following us closely. He was also in a roadster. We drove blissfully along for an hour and a little more and travelled about 55 of the 60 miles to the South Rim with no problems at all. Then troubles started again and the car bucked and protested against my efforts. We made it to the parking lot, barely, and let the car cool down as we toured the canyon overlook and took a few pictures. After an hour or two, we went back to the cars and we started it up and all three of us listened for a minute or two, and then decided to shut it off and change out the manifold gasket. We put a new one on and it still leaked so we shut it off and doubled up the gaskets, two new ones now made it quiet. Steve rode back with me and we drove back to Williams with no more problems. That evening, Steve rebuilt the carburetor for me with a kit he had and we tightened all the connections to the amp meter. One of the posts on the amp meter was loose and that was fixed. The following morning I followed Steve and Dave and we drove to Flagstaff up the hill from Williams and the car ran fine. We stopped in Flagstaff and filled the tanks and when I tried to leave, the popping and backfiring commenced with a vengeance. I turned the mixture control out a few turns and danged if it didn’t pick up speed and quit misbehaving. I was happy to have found something that I could do that seemed to work. We drove to Gallup, after a side trip through the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest. We settled in for the night. Steve and Dave had me come join them for pizza in their room and we discussed the changes in my car. Backing the mixture control out shouldn’t have had that effect on the running, and none of us could explain it, but it worked, so I would do what worked. The following morning we got under way fine and I followed Steve’s car to just a few miles west of Albuquerque, where all of us waited until all the Model A’s were gathered beside the road, and then we got a police escort to take us into Los Lunas, New Mexico. The escort took us straight to the central park in town. There the Chamber of Commerce and the local club, Poco Quatros, (“slow fours”) hosted a barbeque for us. All kinds of good food and drink, a local gathering of old cars to make a sizable car show, and all our Model A’s lined up for the locals to see what had invaded their town. We left there after a few hours and I had real fears of pulling the grade east of Albuquerque. It was past 2 PM and quite warm. I found that I did okay, slower than most, and it did seem sadly underpowered. Denny Specker passed me in his Phaeton, like I was parked. His car had a lot more wind drag and was probably a couple of hundred pounds heavier than my car. Also they were two people, while I was alone. There was construction on the highway also, so I really breathed a sigh of relief when I topped the grade and found myself in Moriarty. I knew of no more real steep hills between there and Dallas, TX. We stopped late in the afternoon for a sandwich and to fill up. A lady cautioned us that there was a tornado warning for the eastern part of the state and she advised us to find a room where we were until that warning was lifted. We looked ahead and there were some clouds, but after a bit we decided none of us Californians had really seen a tornado, so we pushed on to Tucumcari, which was our stop for the night. The following morning I took off on my own and drove to Amarillo early. I had called Nelda’s cousin, Margaret Miller, and invited her to join me for breakfast. She told me she would, but didn’t quite know where to go, so I should meet her at her house and she would ask her son to join us at some good spot. So I drove to her house and as I parked, I could smell ham and eggs, biscuits and gravy and all of the things she had fixed for breakfast, so I knew we weren’t going anywhere. Her son, Mike came about that moment and I went in and enjoyed a wonderful home cooked meal. My first in a week and it was very welcome. After that I drove to Quanah, Texas, named for Quanah Parker, the last Comanche Chief. That was our last stop before Addison and it was just 209 miles more to our meeting spot. I bought gasoline at a local station for less than four dollars a gallon, first time in the entire trip. Then I found the motel and awaited the rest of our group to appear. My car was running well and I was happy to report that when I called Nelda that night. I also asked her to call Roger Griffith and have him bring a Carburetor and a Distributor to the club meeting that night and she could UPS it to me at her cousin’s house in Hurst. The following day I followed Steve and Dave as we got into the outskirts of the Dallas-Fort Worth area. I had seen on a map that Addison is to the North of Dallas. Steve had a GPS and so I decided to follow them and stick close so I didn’t get lost in the maze of roads and crossings. We started to pull into a gas station close to our destination and I saw that their car was having trouble. I parked and we pushed it to a spot where we were out of the way and determined that the float in his carburetor had sunk and so gas was running out all over the ground. He had a spare float and shortly we were under way again and found our motels. I was a block away from the host hotel, but the parking lot was full of Model A’s, so I had plenty of folks to visit with if I got bored. I enjoyed the meet and explored around the area as well. I took a bus tour to the area where Kennedy was killed and through the Dallas Book Depository, saw the window that Oswald fired his rifle from and heard the lead investigator tell his story again about that whole sad day. He sounded convinced that Oswald acted alone and that there had been no conspiracy and no cover-up. I always suspected that if he wasn’t alone in the assassination, then again, Lady Bird might have had a hand in it. I didn’t bring that to his attention. After a couple of days, Nelda flew in and her cousin brought her out to the motel, along with the spare parts, and we had a nice dinner at the Claim Jumper, next to the motel. The next morning was a big tour out to the Texas Speedway and we got to take our cars in and drive a lap or two. That was a ball and after as we exited the speedway, my car backfired so loudly, people were seeking cover. I was embarrassed and we hurried out of there and went to her cousin’s for the night. When the meet was over we drove to Clinton, Oklahoma and spent the night there. Nelda had a cousin from Oklahoma City, who came over and joined us for dinner and a tour of the Hwy 66 Museum in Clinton. That was a great treat for all of us and I was pleased that he could come join us. The following morning we had a trip to Fairview, Oklahoma where the family of one of our fellow tour members had a place that does some machine work for money and for fun they rebuild racecars, steam tractors, and the wife makes quilts. We were adequately fed also with a huge breakfast and all sorts of goodies that the ladies had cooked up for us. I tried to find someone to give some money to help cover our costs, but they weren’t having it that way. Fairview, Oklahoma Fairview, Oklahoma That afternoon we drove to Garden City, Kansas, having been joined by a man and his daughter from Massachusetts. They joined us for a meal and we found he would be going with us to California. His wife was to join him the following day and the daughter would fly home. They had a very nice station wagon that had a large warning triangle on the rear of it, indicating a slow moving vehicle. We drove to Canon City, CO and Nelda and I wanted to go onto a high bridge over Royal Gorge, just a bit out of town, so I drove through town and started up a rather steep incline and there was no way the car was going to go up there, so we turned around and went back to our motel. I decided that I would put the parts on that Nelda had provided, so I took off my distributor and carburetor. As I did that the rain began to fall and suddenly I was drenched, but had finished before I quit for the day. The next morning we left early and followed another fellow in a truck he had made up out of a bunch of spare parts. It was a beautiful little roadster pickup, with a four-cylinder engine from a Chevy II in it. My car now ran fine and pulled the hill that it refused to climb the afternoon before. We passed over the top of Monarch Pass, 11,312 feet. Nelda and I had lunch in a restaurant in Gunnison, CO. Then went through a museum and joined up with the group in the evening in Grand Junction. While there I noticed that my water pump was dripping a bit. I tried to tighten the packing and remembered this was one of the new “leak-less” ones without any packing to tighten. The parts truck was just going somewhere and I got another spare from him and put it on. The next morning Nelda and I left for Delta, Utah. We hadn’t gone far when the water pump made a loud screeching sound and I pulled over and removed it, putting another spare in its place. The parts guy showed up as I was putting the hood back on and he stopped and within a few minutes we were again on our way. We got to Delta and the pump I had put on was leaking badly so I put on a demonstration of how to change a water pump in 15 minutes, and put my old “leak-less” one back on. It only leaked when the car was sitting without the engine running and I had two gallons of water in jugs on the running board, so I determined that I would add water as needed and forget about the leak. The next day we drove to Ely, NV and took the train ride out to the huge copper mine at Ruth. We had never seen anything like it before and were well pleased that we had taken the tour. On the ride back the train passed the back of a bordello and one of the girls was out there waving frantically for us to come on down. We didn’t. We went back to our room in the casino and played the slots until we got bored, then went to bed. The following morning Nelda and I drove over to Fallon, NV. My brother, Perry had spent a few years there and loved the pace of life there. We drove through town a couple of times and found that our motel/casino was about in the center of town. There was a good restaurant not far away and that was where we had our dinner and then went to the casino and spent a bit of time there before getting back to our room. We had decided that the following day we would drive on home so we said our goodbye’s to all of the new friends we could find, and got a good night’s sleep. It was July 4, but no gunfire like in the big cities in California which had become a way of life in Oakland on the 4th and Christmas Eve. This had the Firemen staying inside as much as possible to avoid the bullets raining down outside. The following morning we were off early, we had breakfast at Heidi’s, a restaurant in Carson City and were home in Danville by early afternoon. It had been a wonderful time and we had met some really nice folks along the way. Now here’s the real answer to why my car went into such protests, and what I could have done to repair that problem. My car has an alternator on it. The original Model A electrical system was recharged by a generator. I had never thought of anything being wrong at, or near the alternator, and I guess none of my friends did either. I had felt that the problem was heat getting to the condenser and causing it to malfunction, or dirt in the fuel system. Maybe even an electrical leak somewhere in the ignition system. Not long ago, April of 2014, I began to experience the same problems I had been having on the aforementioned trip. At one point there was a lunch at a restaurant just two blocks from my house. The members met a few miles away and drove here, I didn’t try to take the Model A and they told me to go get it when we got home, surely I could bring it two blocks, so I tried and couldn’t get it to run. While we were doing the tire kicking after lunch, a couple of friends said, “Let’s go fix your car.” So we three met in my garage and discussed where to begin, as we all looked over the engine, with the hood up. One guy began to wiggle wires and found that the wire to the alternator was very loose at its connection to the alternator. We took it off and crimped it tightly and then put the connection back together. The engine started and ran perfectly. I have a clear distributor cap on the distributor and when the car was mis-firing, I found that as I revved it up, the first thing to happen was that number two cylinder would quit firing, then if I revved it up a little more number one also quit firing and the engine began to backfire, just as it had all along the trip to Addison. With the wire to the alternator fixed that no longer occurred. I am sure, had I crimped the connector the first time it misfired, my whole trip to Addison would have been much better, than not loading all my spare parts and tightening all of the lug nuts would have made for a much more relaxing trip.

01-17-2017, 04:39 AM	#2
BILL WILLIAMSON Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: FRESNO, CA Posts: 12,560	Re: CA to TX, long story What a WILD, WILD story !! I've traveled some of the same routes, some, years ago in OLD cars & some in later years, in "modern" cars. The grades to Oatman Arizona, in the Black Mountains are a CHALLENGE, in themselves !! Bill W. __________________ "THE ASSISTANT GURU OF STUFF"

01-17-2017, 08:09 AM	#3
JDupuis Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2017 Location: Maryhill Ont Canada Posts: 834	Re: CA to TX, long story Wow, Great Story!...... Thank you for enlightening all of us. What fantastic memories you've made. Jeff __________________ Let's let pylons, be pylons!

01-17-2017, 09:15 AM	#4
C26Pinelake BANNED Join Date: May 2010 Location: Michigan / Ontario border, Sarnia, Ontario. 50 miles from Detroit and 150 from Toronto. Posts: 5,800	Re: CA to TX, long story A great story for sure. Certainly supports rationale for preparation and maintenance prior to a prolonged trip. Wayne

01-17-2017, 09:55 AM	#5
Neil Mylar LakewoodCA Senior Member Join Date: May 2010 Location: Lakewood, CA Posts: 1,346	Re: CA to TX, long story What a challenge. Nice to see you never gave up. Thanks for sharing.

01-17-2017, 10:01 AM	#6
jm29henry Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2010 Location: michigan Posts: 1,126	Re: CA to TX, long story Sponsored Links (Register now to hide all advertisements) Great writing enjoyed the story

01-17-2017, 10:53 AM	#7
KGBnut Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Southwestern Connecticut Posts: 931	Re: CA to TX, long story I almost never read the long posts, but this one was well worth it. I like that you have a casual writing style, yet still do old-fashioned things like spell correctly... punctuate... you even use paragraphs. This is the kind of great adventure that I would love to have. The problems are part of what makes the adventure, and I enjoyed reading about how you got through them. Thanks so much for sharing. Ken __________________ Style beats speed any day, and with a lot fewer tickets.

01-17-2017, 11:13 AM	#8
TerryH Senior Member Join Date: May 2010 Location: Fountain Valley, Calif. Posts: 937	Re: CA to TX, long story What a great story, and you persevered.....what memories you have.....thanks for sharing!

01-17-2017, 11:33 AM	#9
BILL WILLIAMSON Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: FRESNO, CA Posts: 12,560	Re: CA to TX, long story I once read of a couples' trek from S.F. bay area, to Florida & other forgotten places. They were "completely" equipped" except for REALLY OLD inner tubes !---GUESS WHAT??--It was HARD to find some in TUSCON! (sp??) As you can see, the Dog's not up, to help me with my spelin'-- Bill W. __________________ "THE ASSISTANT GURU OF STUFF"

01-17-2017, 11:52 AM	#10
Tom Foster Senior Member Join Date: May 2010 Location: San Antonio, Texas Posts: 160	Re: CA to TX, long story I was at Addison for the early days of the meet, and noticed the 'experienced' appearances of some of the California cars. I would encourage you to submit this story, with pictures if you have them, to MAFCA and MARC for publication as an 'if it can happen, it will' tale of perseverance. By the way, tell Alex Janke hello from a fellow member of the Alamo A's. Fearless

01-17-2017, 12:41 PM	#11
BILL WILLIAMSON Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: FRESNO, CA Posts: 12,560	Re: CA to TX, long story Reading & RE-READING such a post, helps me put myself in the writers' place & envision what he went through & how he solved his cars' problems. Bill W. __________________ "THE ASSISTANT GURU OF STUFF"

01-17-2017, 01:33 PM	#12
Dave in Petaluma Member Join Date: May 2010 Posts: 61	Re: CA to TX, long story It was a pleasure meeting you and traveling with you on that trip, Dave. It was my first long distance trip in an A, and the start of a passion that time has not diminished. Dave Uhlig

01-17-2017, 02:50 PM	#13
Barber31 Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2013 Location: San Antonio, Texas Posts: 687	Re: CA to TX, long story My hats off to you and anyone that travels these type of long road trips. I hope to one day make a trip like that. (With out all the mechanical problems of course!)

01-17-2017, 03:10 PM	#14
daveymc29 Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2010 Location: Danville, CA Posts: 1,554	Re: CA to TX, long story Thanks to all who responded. I had a lot of help along the way. I also had the support of a patient wife for the trip back home. This is what Model Aing is all about.

01-17-2017, 04:37 PM	#16
Ray in La Mesa Senior Member Join Date: May 2010 Location: La Mesa Ca Posts: 1,166	Re: CA to TX, long story Great trip & story! I drove my '28 roadster pickup across the U.S in '72. 9.000 miles in 7 weeks. Replaced the valves in Dearborn at the national meet and the water pump in N. Dakota on the way back.

01-17-2017, 10:56 PM	#17
daveymc29 Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2010 Location: Danville, CA Posts: 1,554	Re: CA to TX, long story Just one of the stories in my book that I wrote when it was too cold in the garage to work on the car. Must have been down to 50 degrees, LOL. Out here in CA that is cold for us old guys, 80 or more. Books on amazon.com if anyone cares, "From the Shadow of Coyote Mountain to the Base of Mount Diablo." Or PM me your email. Whatever?

01-18-2017, 02:18 AM	#18
Brentwood Bob Senior Member Join Date: May 2010 Location: brentwood, ca Posts: 4,241	Re: CA to TX, long story So that is how the tire came off the roadster. Bob

01-18-2017, 03:35 AM	#19
Synchro909 Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2014 Location: Melbourne, Australia Posts: 7,496	Re: CA to TX, long story As I have posted here before, I have done several looong trips and enjoyed every inch of them. While I haven't had as many troubles as you, I regard the trip as its own destination and I'm sure you will now too. I bet in a year or two, you'll remember the trials and tribulations of the trip better than your destination. Friends made on these trips are a whole degree better than most acquaintances too. Thanks for sharing. It makes me feel like pointing the car out of town again. __________________ I'm part of the only ever generation with an analogue childhood and a digital adulthood.

01-18-2017, 01:41 PM	#20
Neil Mylar LakewoodCA Senior Member Join Date: May 2010 Location: Lakewood, CA Posts: 1,346	Re: CA to TX, long story Davey, I enjoyed your story telling style so much that I ordered your book last night, on Amazon. One of the reviews indicated that you were in your 80's when you wrote this, your first book. I'm impressed. I'm looking forward to reading the book. You give me hope that I might still be willing to drive my Model A on long trips and to write a first book when I'm in my 80's. Thanks again for sharing.