Tom,
Tomorrow go out and buy a good set of rubber gloves, then cut off the finger
tips of one and pull your spark plug and coil wire through and then reconnect
them to the distributor, then pull the glove over the distributor.... instant
water proof distributor for about $1.00!
When going into deep puddles-DON'T race into them, this splashes water up
high, better get into first or second with the engine wound up and go through
SLOWLY, making as little splash as you can. You need the engine revs to keep
water out of the exhaust pipe!!! Take this from an old Army officer who has
forded many a creek in waste deep water.
Jan Eyerman
1959 Hillman Minx Series III DeLuxe
1973 Hillman Avenger DL
(retired U.S. Army Captain)
Tom Yang <TYang@compuserve.com> wrote:
Hello All,
I just wanted to share with everyone how happy I am with my Alpine because
only you guys would understand!
I took my Series V Alpine out for the few days surrounding the Fourth of
July to the beach, and didn't have a single problem! It was the first major
road trip away from home where the Alpine would be my only source of
transportation, and I wasn't embarassed!
Five minutes into our journey, a guy pulled up to me and my girlfriend and
said "Nice car! I haven't seen one of those in 10 years!" The rest of the
three days was filled with compliments and waves, mostly from MGBs, but
occasionally other cars. I had to expalin to my significant-other the
reason why certain people, like older convertible owners, wave and newer
cars couldn't care less. It's like a secret brotherhood of suffering, and
elation all mixed into one with the old cars!
On Weds night, a huge thunderstorm rolled in, and I began to quietly worry
about my windshield wipers over dinner. An inch of rain had fallen in a
short period of time, and all the back roads were flooded. I then
remembered all the small holes in the driver's side floor that need to be
patched, not to mention how low the distributor cap is located to the right
wheel where all the water was! I had my friends follow us in their car in
case we stalled, and proceeded to the house. The wipers worked fine, but I
discovered that deep water splashed up from the puddles comes up over the
hood, so I had to go slow for the wipers to catch up with the extra water!
Of course the defroster doesn't work well enough to handle all the fog, so
the inside of the windows began to mist up. Being used to old cars, I had a
towel handy, so an occasional wiping worked good enough to see the huge
puddles forming in the road.
Moving right along, I was confronted with a puddle that could not be
avoided because it spanned the whole road. It had to be six inches deep! I
put the car in gear and plowed through hoping that even if we stalled, I
would have enough momentum to get to the other side, but we made it without
skipping a beat! Man was I relieved! Imagine the disaster of having to get
out of the car with water lapping up against the door sills to push the car
out of the puddle in the dark?
The next day, everything had to be removed to dry the carpets out, but my
little Alpine survived! I love that car!
Tom
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