Step 2: Gimme Shelter
Friday, after giving Anne the proper amount of grief for breaking the
Daimler ("Ya send a woman out with a perfectly good car and the next
thing you know you're calling around for a trailer to haul the carcass
home."), it was time to decide how far I was going to rip into the
engine. Bob Grossman, a member of the local Jag club was kind enough to
offer me some space in the shop that he uses to work on their vintage
racing Jags. Tristan (my 6yr old son) and I had done some light crew
work with them this summer at the Steamboat Springs vintage races, so I
didn't feel too guilty about taking them up on their offer. With a well
equipped shop available and the net.consensus of the high probability of
a valve strike, that head was definitely coming off. The decision to
drop the suspension to lower the oil pan to get to the lower chain would
be made once things were opened up. I ordered a set up upper and lower
gaskets ($96 at SICP) and picked up the chains, master-links and other
assorted stuff from my parts guy.
The first item of business was to use Scotty's Jeep to trailer the
Daimler over to the Grossman's shop. We drove down to pick up the
trailer and it turned out to be a 3600lb fully enclosed racing tailer.
That was out; in Scotty's words, "We wouldn't be driving it, that sucker
would be driving us." So we went to plan two and drove over to the
Grossman's house to pick up their little open trailer. We pushed the VW
that was on it off and drove over to get the Daimler. By this time it
was dark and we didn't have an adaptor to fit the trailer lights. We
hand winched the Daimler up onto the trailer, it was a close fit, with
just an inch to spare. We tried to convince Peg, Scott's wife, that she
should ride in the Daimler and press the brakes whenever she saw the
Jeep`s brake lights come on ("But you look so good in there"), but she
was too wise to our ways take the bait. So we just turned on the
Daimler's flashers and hit the road.
The drive back was mentally exhausting. Scotty`s Jeep was just strong
enough to do the job. The fishtailing we experienced while gaining
speed to make a hill was quite exciting. But, we made it in one piece,
unloaded the Daimler and then reloaded the VW back onto the little
trailer. It was one of those "easier said than done" things. I was
surprised how exhausted the whole exercise left me. Next time, I`ll
just pay the bucks for a flatbed tow truck so I`m not killing myself
worrying about something going wrong. We headed out to meet some
friends downtown in Denver for beer and pool, only to be too tired to do
much of either.
/\ Lawrence "Wiggle waggle went her tail..." Buja
\_][ southern@ncar.ucar.edu National Center for Atmospheric Research
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