20-24 July 2020

Small Town Texas, Fedex, and Calamity Jane: So I'll start off by saying sorry for not posting an update in a while. The 20th through the 23th, while great, have been relatively uneventful for me. Buuuuut, stuff did just get pretty interesting yesterday, so here we go!

The Cougar meeting her Hero!

(Backtracking here; on the 19th, I once again ended up on the side of the road. I was driving fine, and then all of the sudden my ignition cut out. When I opened up the hood on the side of the road, I immediately found that the wire between the coil and the distributor had come off of the coil, and that the coil 'tower' that the wire snapped onto was broken in half. I had a spare coil, but since I didn't want to change it on the road, I wrapped the tower in electrical tape and smashed the wire onto it. I realized that I forget to include this on the 19th update, probably because I was so tired as I was writing it!)

20 July 2020: I woke up pretty early on the 20th to make sure that I would be able to give the car a good once-over since my Death Valley trip almost shook her to death on those dirt roads. I replaced the coil preemptively, even though my electrical tape repair was holding surprisingly well, and went around tightening some bolts. I went around and check all the water pump and timing cover bolts, of which a surprising amount were looser than I would have liked, so they all got snugged. I also checked all the intake and header bolts, but none of them budged, which was comforting. There was also a hose clamp on my fuel filter that took a worrying large amount of turns before I was satisfied with its tightness; that explained the occasional gas smell I was getting, but couldn't locate. Once all my snugging was complete, I waved goodbye to my friends and turned the key... and cranked. And kept cranking. And, after a few more pumps of the gas pedal, it kept cranking. 

    Sidenote: Doesn't that always happen? When no one is looking, you car starts every time, but the second someone comes over and starts asking questions, or you want to show it off to your friends, it's like trying to start an old barn-find that hasn't turned over in years? 

    Anyway, time to pop the hood again. The fuel bowls were full, and I had not managed to restrict all air going from going into the carburetor (although my absolutely filthy K&N probably isn't doing me any favors), so spark was the last possibility. With key on, I realized that I wasn't getting any power to the coil. Since I have an MSD box, and I had my friend check for power at the coil while it was cranking; no power. Well what the heck, all I did was replace the coil with a coil I knew was good, and now the coil wasn't getting power?? So I checked all the connections regarding the MSD box, but they all seemed fine, and when I pressed them together I didn't get any movement. But when I cranked again, I had spark!! After reconnecting the coil wire, the car fired right up! I'm sure officially it was just a loose connection somewhere that I had distributed as I changed the coil, but I'm going to blame this one on the Cougar getting stage-fright. She talks a big game, but she's a little scaredy cat sometimes. 

    Either way, off we went to fly across west Texas! Unfortunately, the west Texas drive was just not that interesting. It's kinda just... flat and desert-y. I did see these all over the place, because I wasn't sure that this kind of oil pump was still used!

    But otherwise, it was pretty much just 700 miles of this.

    Despite the lack of interesting landscape feature or corners, the ride was still enjoyable, and I got a lot of things done! As anyone who has spent several thousand miles driving in less than a month can tell you, you get tired of pretty much all of your music eventually, so you need to find interesting new ways to fill your time. Well one of my interesting ways was to stare at the temp gauge as it hovered around 215F at highway speeds, when neither fan nor shroud should have any effect on cooling performance. Depending on the grade of the road, it would fluctuate between 210F and 225F. At this point, I had to admit that I had a cooling problem. So I spent some time thinking, and realized it is likely one of three things. Either a.) my block was partially clogged and restricting coolant flow, b.) I had a minor head gasket leak, or c.) my radiator, though sized well enough for use in New York before air conditioning was added, was insufficient for a now AC equipped car in the South West. Seeing as the only one of those I could do anything about was the latter, I placed two quick phone calls. The first was placed to West Coast Classic Cougar asking for all the brackets and hardware required to install a 24" radiator in the car with a 20". Although there phone lines were all busy when I called, I left a message and they got back to me minutes later with everything I needed ready to go! I have to give a huge shout-out to Darrell, who I had met only a few days before, who helped me out any got the box out the door same-day! Darrell, and all the guys at WCCC really are top-notch!

    The next call, what I cryptically referred to as 'the nuclear option' on a forum post, was a full Be Cool 24" radiator kit with dual electric fans. That call to Jegs smashed a whole lot of the emergency budget, but was guaranteed to let me run the AC while idling for hours at the bottom of Death Valley if I ever made my way back there. After being assured a thousand times by the customer service rep I was talking to that it would make it to my friends house before I left on the 24th, I placed my order with express shipping and hung up. I spent the rest of the night talking to different friends on the phone and discovery some new music with Spotify's 'Song Radio' option. When I finally showed up at my Texas friend's house at 8:25pm, I was greeted by some fantastic enchiladas and tamales that made me question every time in my life I've ever eaten at Taco Bell.

    21 July 2020: The 21st was an easy day for the Cougar, she just got to rest. After everything she's accomplished so far, I figured she deserved a day off. So we took my friends F-150 to Enchanted Rock State Park and climbed everything we could find!

 

We even got dive-bombed by a buzzard on the aptly named 'Buzzard Peak.'

    That park was beautiful, but also seemed very small and crowed compared to all the national parks I've been gallivanting around recently. I guess I'm just getting spoiled! We stopped by a staple of Texas living, a Whataburger, for patty melts and ice teas after the hike, then sat around and rested for the rest of the day. I'd been slowly feeling the toll that being on the road and getting questionable sleep takes on your body, so sitting on a couch in an air conditioned house was gratifying. Somehow we still managed to stay up late talking and comparing notes about the last few weeks of both of our lives.

22 July 2020: Sleep in day. After a late wakeup, we meet up with some local friends for lunch at an authentic TexMex taco truck. Apparently, and I still don't entirely trust this advice but I have heard it from all of my Texan friends, all the best tacos are either from trucks or gas stations. It seems like a recipe for disaster to me, but they were adamant. Based on the truck we visited, I can see their point, but I don't think I'll be stopping by any side of the street taco trucks on the rest of the my journey; getting food poisoning would really ruin my vibe. 

    My WCCC order arrived as well, just when UPS said it would and due to Darrell's quick work getting it out the door! 

    Sadly, Fedex would not be so kind...

23 July 2020: The 23rd was supposed to be an exciting day! My shiny new radiator was supposed to arrive, and I was going to install it while my friend packed for an upcoming backpacking trip to the Tetons. But alas, it was not to be. After not updating the tracking information on my package for over 36 hours, I found out that my radiator had spent an extra night at a holding facility in Mississippi, and was not going to arrive that day, despite Fedex still promising that it would on their website. Even more annoyingly, I was not going to be able to have them hold it at several of the distribution hubs that I was going to be driving right by the next day so I could pick it up. Despite 4 calls to numerous departments and an uncountable amount of transfers, nothing would work for me. Furthermore, I couldn't just stay at his house one more night without throwing the rest of my trip into absolute disarray. 

    So I contented myself with installing the door weatherstripping that I had picked up at WCCC, and spent the rest of the night helping my friend plan and pack for his trip while I ate some more outstanding TexMex food. I was also introduced to what is seemingly a staple of Texan hydration, the Topo-Chico. It's just slightly-flavored sparkling mineral water, but they are ridiculously good. When you find yourself reaching for your third bottle of the day, you'll understand. 

24 July 2020: Time to exercise the Cougar again! I can't have her getting lazy, after all. This time, the destination was Little Rock, AR. But before we left Texas, there was a stop I absolutely had to make: Kelly and Calamity Jane!

    Meeting the Kelly and talking about her trips was awesome! There are so many peculiarities and experiences that are specific only to driving one of these classics across the US, and it was great to talk to someone who was very (very very) familiar with them. From talking about the difficulty adjusting from a tough three-finger clutch to a featherweight modern one, to the interesting repair choices that previous owners had made to our cars (booger-welded brake pushrod on mine, and 3 different brands of pistons for Jane), I certainly enjoyed my visit! 

    It was also nice to get the Cougar up on jackstands and make sure that nothing had gone awry outside of the engine bay. Transmission oil was still full, and my diff fluid was a little low, likely due to a previously undiagnosed weeping rear pinon seal. After topping that off, she came off the stands to do a photoshoot with Jane. 

    Two beautiful cars for sure! After thanking Kelly and say goodbye to Jane (who is in better shape than most cars that never leave the garage!), the Cougar and I headed out!

    About an hour later, my AC went out.

    Sitting in a Starbucks parking lot, I was able to figure out that my Vintage Air ECU was no longer sending power to the compressor trigger wire. I replaced the relay, but still no dice. Well, the sun was setting and I still had a lot of ground to cover before I got to Little Rock, so I rolled the windows down and headed out.

    I think my Cougar got jealous. She heard me talking about how nice Jane's paint and chrome was, and then also overheard the conversation Kelly and I had regarding how you don't really need air conditioning. "Oh really," my Cougar must have thought, "let's test that one out, smarty pants." I should have known she would get jealous!

    Even without air conditioning, the rest of the drive wasn't that bad. I started listening to the audiobook version of the Illiad, which I have always wanted to read but just never got around to, so that kept me entertained as I, and everyone else on the road ignored the change from the 80mph Texas speed limit to the 65pmh Arkansas one. 

    I got to see this trifecta of danger making its way down the road.

Poison, Corrosive, and Radioactive. The complete package.

    I also got to see one of my now arch-nemesis's.

I was half tempted to hop on and check for my radiator, Fast and Furious style.

    As the sun set, I didn't get any fantastic images of the sunset since I am now heading East, but I did get some nice orange clouds for scenery as I made my way along the pavement. 

    I arrived at my hotel pretty late, and did some research on what could cause the lack of activation signal for my compressor. I've got some ideas for a fix, and I'll keep everyone updated on how well they work!

Thanks for following along!

Ken