PORTLAND, OREGON, TO ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI, IN A STRANGE GT6+
By Larry Snyder, well-known as not real bright
All the times in this article will be Central Standard Time, since this trip
was supposed to be a short one (hold the snickering) and I didn't want to mess
with time zones.
FRIDAY
Left St. Louis at 6:30 pm, arrived Portland 12:30 am. Richard George and
George Emery (the guy I bought the car from) picked me up. Went over and
looked at the car and its bits, went and looked at Richard's GT6+. Very nice.
Went back to George Emery's house and he couldn't locate the title. He finally
found it about 3:30 am. I slept a few hours on the couch.
SATURDAY
Drove the GT6+ and heard a funny noise. I asked George about it, and he said
the diff was on hard mounts and made more noise than usual. OK, I bought that,
and took off for Salt Lake City.
Despite the irritating noise, it was a pleasure to see the smooth curves of a
GT6+ bonnet in front of me again. The car has so much *shape* to it! Don't get
me wrong, the hood of the TR250 is quite a work of art, too, but the curves
are more pronounced on the GT6+. Too bad they sharpened the lines with the MK
IIIs. (all IMHO, of course, for you MKIII owners).
I noticed as I entered Utah that the noise seemed worse. Hmmm. I also noticed
that when I stopped it sounded really grindy. Hmmm. Anyway, I called MJB from
Snowville, Utah. I thought it was funny that it was raining in Snowville.
Little did I know that about 5 miles south it was REALLY snowing. Mark
gave me directions to the Fat Chance Garage, and I hit the road. I got into a
blowing snowstorm and couldn't see 10 feet in front of me. Of course, that's
when the wipers quit working. I pulled over to the side of the road, trying to
figure out what to do. It was too dark and snowy and dangerous to get out
and tinker under the bonnet, so I just sat there, ready to scream or something.
Then, all of a sudden, the wipers started up again. They worked the whole way
down to Salt Lake City.
Mark took me to dinner at Squatters. Really nice. Then we took a peek under
the GT6+. Yup, it was the rear end. We kind of decided it could
probably make it, although be very noisy. We were a bit optimistic....
Anyway, I enjoyed meeting Mark and his wife Karen very much, along with Steve
Bender and another nice guy whose name was Pug, I think. Whenever you meet
Mark's wife, ask her how her basuki is doing. Maybe it's Bazookie. She'll know
what you mean.
SUNDAY (This is the bad one)
Left the Fat Chance early, about 6 am. Headed east on I-80 toward Wyoming.
That noise began getting a little worse. Then, as I cruised through western
Wyoming, the noise got a LOT worse. Like, a 747 would have been an
improvement. The whole car shook and vibrated. I said to myself, "I think
something is wrong."
Finally, as I approached the metropolis of Wamsutter, Wyoming, the rear end
began skipping teeth, causing weird noises and hopping and other awful
effects. I pulled off the exit into Wamsutter. I hobbled to the Conoco
station, but it was closed. I managed to move it to the Texaco, where a
teenage kid named Trey kept me entertained while I tried to figure out what to
do. He said there was a big wrecking yard in Rawlins, probably could get the
part there. I thanked him for the advice, but kind of doubted that there was a
GT6+ sitting in the Rawlins junkyard...
OK, I had managed to get as far from any SOL folks as possible. MJB told me
that Rawlins was my "point of no return" for Salt Lake, and I *was* 40 miles
west of there...so I called, left a message, since he wasn't home. Then I
called Ron Hood, who had offered roadside assistance earlier. Ron is in
Louisville, Colorado, just north of Denver. A mere 280 miles away. Ron offered
to come tow me back to his house. At that point, I would accept about any
offer. As a matter of fact, I almost called MJB back to accept his generous
offer to buy the car for $250.
So while Ron drive the five hours to Wamsutter, I had time to kill. I sat and
talked to Trey for awhile, then went to the local cafe. Watched some football,
at ham and beans, and drank enough coffee to keep all of Wamsutter awake for a
week.
Ron came at about 6:30. We hooked up a towrope, and Ron gave me CB to use so
we could talk as we went. The tow wasn't so bad, except I was freezing to
death. The car didn't have any heat, and with the engine idling I wasn't
getting enough engine heat to make any difference. My feet became numb.
We ended up at his house at about 12:30 am. We got the car in the garage. I
was exhausted, but wide awake from the gallons of coffee I had drunk earlier.
During our perilous journey, Lawrence Buja had located a guy in Broomfield
that raced a GT6+. And he had a spare diff! He would get it and bring it over
Monday sometime.
Ron and his wife Beth are two of the nicest people on this earth. They put me
up in their basement and treated me like family. I hope someday I can do
something for them some day.
I tried to sleep.
MONDAY
Got up about 7 am. Went straight to the garage. I removed all the halfshaft
and driveshaft bolts. I read the manual, but it didn't seem right, so I called
and talked to Clive, the guy with the diff. He told me to remove the shocks
and to unhook the leaf spring from the suspension to relieve the pressure that
kind of holds the halfshafts to the diff. Then remove the spring mounting
plate from inside the car, then remove the mounting bolts on the diff. I did
all that, except I didn't realize that I had to remove all 6 studs from the
top of the diff before I try to remove it, and I had left two in. I had to
push the diff back up to its mounted position to get at the studs and remove
them.
I got under the car and worked at freeing the diff. It seemed very hesitant to
come out. I had the floor jack under it, to catch it, but I moved it out of
the way to try to work it loose. That, of course, is when it came loose.
Although I was trying to hold it up with my right arm, I'm just not that
strong at that angle, and it fell on my right upper arm. Ouch. So, at 12:30
pm, the diff was out of the car.
When I looked at the right rear suspension, I noticed something pretty scary.
The bolt holding the hub to the lower A-arm was sticking out about two inches,
and the nut and washer were long gone. The bushing was sticking out about an
inch on the nut side. I'm not sure what would have happened if that bolt had
come completely out, but it wouldn't have been pleasant.
Clive brought the replacement around about 1:30 or so. He helped get it into
position in the car, but left me to put all the bolts back in. The only really
hard part was connecting the spring back up. Clive had told me to use a
crowbar and force the suspension into alignment with the spring. I didn't have
a crowbar, so I used a couple of ratchet extensions and the floor jack to
compress the spring upward (it was now securely fastened to the diff). That
put it close enough to work in a screwdriver, which could be used to force the
other side into alignment so I could slide the bolt in from the other side.
This was very time consuming, but I had both sides done by about 7 pm.
I had to run to the hardware store to get some nuts and bolts to replace some
older ones, plus to get a new nut and washer for the right lower wishbone. And
I needed to to get some 90 weight for the diff, since it was dry.
Lawrence Buja and his wife invited me over for dinner during that break, and
during that time they could wash my only pair of jeans. I hope they didn't
mess up their washing machine.
Got back to work, and finished bolting everything up and filling the diff with
oil about 1 am. Went for a test drive, but the engine was missing badly. I
figured that a plug got fouled from idling so much on the tow to Louisville,
so I started looking at plugs.
Now, at home, my usual procedure on the TR250 is to look at #6 first, then
forward to #1. For some strange reason, I started with #1 on the GT6+, and
worked my way back. Plug #1 looked fine. Plug #2 looked fine, as did plug #3.
I'll bet by now you've already figured out which plug was bad. That's right,
#6. Cleaned it, replaced it, started the engine. It ran really smooth. I
didn't drive it again, just turned it off and went to bed. It was nearly 2 am.
TUESDAY
Got up at 7 and got going. I was just ahead of the morning rush hour traffic
and was out of Denver before things got too crowded. The car was really quiet
and well behaved. I basked in the glory of Having Done It Myself. Kansas was,
well, *Kansas*. Endless small towns, oil rigs, and flat fields. The sun was
shining and the temperature was in the 50's. It was very pleasant, if a bit
boring.
Got into Kansas City about 5:30 pm, just in time for rush hour. Got caught in
the crawling traffic from downtown KC to Blue Springs, about 17 miles east.
Figured old Arthur Bryant would not have liked the huge billboard with his
likeness that advertised his barbecue place. I spent a lot of evenings in
Arthur Bryants in my youth. Best barbecue in the world.
Cleared the Blue Springs traffic and hit 70 mph again, but I stopped at the
Oak Grove truck stop for dinner. They had a really nice buffet dinner that I
enjoyed while I relaxed and tanked up on some coffee for the last four hours
of the trip.
As I was about to pull onto I-70, I heard something rattle and clank. I drove
on instead of getting on the interstate, and pulled into a McDonalds parking
lot. Couldn't find anything wrong, so I went on. It turned out that I had
lost the chrome trim ring around my right front headlight. Anyone got a spare
out there?
The last four hours were uneventful, and I pulled up to the house at 10:45.
Boy, was it great to be home. I had completely lost my voice, probably from so
much exposure to cold. My wife felt so sorry for me she didn't even tell me
how stupid I was. I really appreciated that, since I already knew it...
I went to bed, and was at work before 9:30 on Wednesday.
CONCLUSION
I owe so much to the folks who helped out on this trip. Anything I can do for
fellow travelers I will do gladly. And I think Ron Hood went above and beyond
any call of duty to drag my little car 280 miles to his house.
Next time, though, I'm going to get a trailer.
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