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Part
1, Background and Prep
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Part
2, Day 1, 2 |
Part
3, Day 3, 4, 5 |
Part
4, Day 6, 7, 8 |
| Part
5, Day 9, 10, 11 |
Part
6, Day 12, 13
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Part
7, Day 14, 15 |
Part
8, Day 16, 17, 18 |
No Excuses!
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Day 3: Stage 1
(Note,
from here, you will get my daily text postings, enhanced with minimal edits
and picture adds. They are written
for Imperial Club members, but I hope all will enjoy them.
There�s a little repetition in this first post from the road).
Well,
we're through two days of running (not counting the 5-hour run from home to
Philly for the start). This is my first access to email. So far,
so good.
We
were up until midnight Tuesday, fixing the backup lights to pass inspection so
we'd be legal to drive to the race, much less IN it. They had blown a
20A fuse in that circuit! The switch and bulbs are fine, and we could
get light at low current when we fed the switch separately, so in the end, we
just made a jumper that bypasses the in-harness lead from fuse to switch - and
all is better.
There's
juice oozing from the rear axle near the left hub, but I'm 99% sure after
three days running that it's not brake fluid, even though those pads do scream
from time to time. The motor seems to be doing well. The idle is
rough, mostly because of the vacuum leak from the booster, I think, but
otherwise, it seems to be taking the load. We set the timing back 2
degrees because it was knocking on the hot run down. It's been fine ever
since in that regard. About 14 MPG at 70 MPH. It burned a quart on
the way down to Philly, but no more in the next two days.
Handling
was awful at first, running on original-spec bias ply tires (Goodrich
Silvertown 8.20 x 15, from Coker Tire-and by the way, Corky Coker and his wife
Teresa are running the Race, too, in their 1930's INDY racer!). Lowering
tire pressure from 30-33 to the spec 24-26 made a BIG difference in that (but
there's still not much cornering ability!)
Our
exhaust pipes are knocking about under there, especially in hard going, due to
some interferences at extreme suspension positions, but I suppose they'll
survive.
Overall,
I'm VERY pleased with the car so far. I begin to think we MIGHT make it
all the way.
We did get our first battle scar - the left front hubcap went loose on a
railroad crossing and I think it clipped the left rear fender on the way by.
There's a little slash behind that wheel well. I guess when we get back,
we'll have to ask for some touch-up. From now on, we're running sans caps -
the gold wheels and stickers make it look like an early Richard Petty Plymouth
racer!
Our
team number is 61, not by coincidence! We've done two park-and-shows
during meal breaks and the Imp draws a good crowd even in this amazing field
of cars! We're racing against everything from brass-era cars (1913 Velie,
a 1920's Rolls-Royce) through Model A's and 40's vintage sports club racers,
to every kind of sedan you can imagine, and some unique sports cars.
None is newer than our '61 and we are the only Imperial!
We even had our first IML'er visit on the starting grid in Philly.
Thanks, Jeff - well met! For those wondering what license plates we
ended with: NO XQS (see title of this BLOG!)
[Here�s a shot of the starting grid on the Boulevard in Philadelphia:
->
TheFredettes
in the yellow Model A pickup will prove to be good teachers]
Today, we got some interesting road grime: It was raining and we were dodging
buggies in Amish country. Those horses have their own kind of emissions
problems, y'know! The tops been up and down. We stuffed shop rags
in the A-pillar tops to minimize the leaks there today and it worked fine,
even in hard rain. No A/C at all, alas. The compressor kicks in,
but we get no cooling. Even ventilation is severely limited and we think
maybe one or more damper doors are not opening, as even with the fan on high,
we can barely feel any airflow.
Unlike
the car, our performance is only so-so. We're in 5th, I think, of 25
rookies, and about 55th overall (midfield of 103). We're getting better,
though! It's LOTS of fun. Although our total score wasn't much
better today, our better segments were better, indeed - we just made a couple
of bad mistakes on other segments. We're off tomorrow from York, PA to
Washington, PA - then on into Ohio Monday.
Day 4: Stage 2
Today,
we crossed the Allegheny Mountains, moving from York, PA to Washington, PA
(almost into Ohio), over the old National Road, pieces of which became US 40,
then I-70. We drove all the twisty, hilly bits that they cut out for the
faster highways - perfect for a challenging road rally! Well, perfect
for more ordinary rally cars - the sheer size of the Imperial makes those
mountain twisty one-and-a-half-lane roads a real challenge, indeed. But
we did OK. It poured rain throughout the morning. At least 4
inches fell in an hour or two at the peak of it. We were reasonably
comfortable, but we found all the leaks in the weather stripping and we also
found that the defogger has its limits. The rain seems to have
contributed to two electrical faults. The driver's window switch won't
connect for 'down,' only 'up.' I can hotwire that to the other window on
the left side (they mostly go up & down together anyway.
Mysteriously, the horn died this evening as we were pulling into town.
The roads are lined with kids and families out to see this amazing collection
of unusual cars go by, so tooting is de rigueur. Every town we have
visited so far (York, Lancaster, and Washington, PA, plus Cumberland, MD) has
closed their main street and let us fill it with a rolling car show for an
hour or two. We stop to eat and un-eat, and the locals enjoy the cars.
It really is a show - part parade, part museum, part car-show, part race.
In Cumberland, they even had the restored theatre on Main Street open to feed
us and they were showing the old Tony Curtis Great Race movie! It's a
real boost at the end of a run to come into a town through the finish arch to
the applause of a crowd! Needless to say, the mighty 61 Imperial
convertible ALWAYS gets a big hand. And in EVERY town so far, at least
one (often two) guys come up to say, 'my uncle X had one JUST like this!'
Already, I think we've accounted for most of the total production (429) of 61
Imperial convertibles ;) !
For
those of you worried about the vacuum leak: it's ONLY during gentle braking.
There is no leak normally, with no brakes, nor with hard application. I
think we can live with that. The risk of running A/C uncharged, well,
that I can't say. Pinkie, the Parts Car Not had uncharged A/C for years
with no ill effects when I finally sprung for a load of R-12. I think
we'll give it a go. And the jumper for the brake lights is NOT a fuse
bypass, just a bypass for a wire that was shorting somewhere - it can say in
forever, as it just replicates the original connection.
When
we left home, this engine had just 80 miles on a total rebuild. It ran
pretty well! It burned a quart in the 350 miles to Philly, so I bought a
case for the long trip. In the three days' running since, it hasn't
burnt a drop that I can measure, and it's still as clear as honey. The
transmission (also freshly rebuilt) is shifting a bit hard, but there's no
slip at all. As we found out in the rain, the wipers work well.
The lights all work still. We have been very pleasantly surprised at the
comfort level of the seats, too. Neither of us has any stiffness (yet).
We did discover that the smooth leather is not ideal for wearing shorts - they
do get sticky in the sun.
Today,
we thought we executed MUCH better than before, with no real major errors.
We were a bit disappointed to see our score did not improve! We're in
46th overall (of 89 still running), and 5th for Rookies (of 26). Well,
tomorrow is another day. There's still room to move up! Check out
the details at www.greatrace.com. Look for National Guard Great
Race 2006 (Nat Guard is the Title Sponsor this year). Pictures are
posted already from yesterday (24th), but none of the Lone Imp yet. They
took a good one of us exiting a covered bridge today - maybe it will make the
postings by tomorrow!
Day 5: Stage 3
Well, it was too late last
night for a report, and it will be quick this AM. We're off at 7:45 this
morning. Yesterday, we did very well in 5 of 6 measured legs, and we
don't know why we scored notably worse on the last one, bringing our daily
score to 1 minute 36 seconds, a bit worse overall than our previous days!
Even though that beat some of our other rookie competitors, we have now
dropped from 5th in rookie to 11th, because of our newer car (older cars get a
multiplier less than one on their actual scores - our factor is 1.00), and
because of our consistency day-to-day (lowest of three scores was dropped
today, some others had worse days to drop). Oh well - more days to go!
Weather
was nice yesterday, cool and not too wet. We had some terrific welcomes
as we crossed Ohio, stopping in Wheeling, WV, then Cambridge, Zanesville, and
Dublin. Local car clubs had lots of their cars on display, bands played,
closed streets were lined with crowds - quite the parties! Some teams
have hand-out cards with pictures and descriptions of their cars, to give the
kids, who go around collecting them. So last night, I made up some of
ours and sized them 4 to the page and found a 24 hr Kinko's to print and cut a
hundred of them for us. [you can see ours at the top of this blog.
Click HERE to go there]
Mechanically,
we're OK I think. The engine is sweet. The horn has returned all
on its own. When I tied together the up contact of the driver's window (dead)
with the same contact pin for the left rear window, I got a surprise: using
the left rear switch for both makes them go in OPPOSITE directions! Its
OK, because I can hold both momentarily and get the effect I need. Weird and I
can't even imagine how that happened! We have an annoying squeak in the
rear whenever we're on power. I'll get under this AM (hence the short
note). I hope it's just rubbing exhaust pipes or something.
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