Well, my spitfire/nissan 1600 (www.cruzers.com/~rfm/car) made its
second trip from Santa Cruz, CA to Tucson, AZ for a family
get together.
I'm quite proud of it ;-)
Our route was:
I5 to bakerfield, 58 to barstow, 40 to needles,
95 (i think) to I10, 85 to I8, I8 to tucson. Roughly the
reverse on the way back.
Overall, it went very well. We had feared bad weather, but
managed to avoid it all. My brother and I drove in shifts
without stopping except for gas. The trip out took 14 hours
and around 30 gal of gas. This comes out to about 30 MPG and a total
average speed of 65 MPH. This average speed includes stops, so our
actual speed on the road was quite a bit higher, between 75 and 90 on
interstates and desert highways. This is about 3500 to 4500 rpm with
a .82 overdrive, so mileage would probably be better (and noise would
certainly be less) if I could get a higher gear. One of these days I'll
have a bunch of $ to burn on a 6 speed ;-)
Somewhere in AZ (on the way out) we noticed that the back of the
car was covered with a fine mist of gear oil. I already knew that
the diff leaked, but it was not that bad on the last trip. Since it
wasn't making terrible noises or excessively hot (though definitely
warm) we pressed on and made it into Tucson without mishap. The next
day I took it to one of those drive through lube places, and after a
moment of struggling to get over the grease pit, they added
(without charging us anything) about a pint (the specified capacity
of a spit diff). Ouch.
Also on the outward leg of the trip, we noticed that the car had a
tendency to want to wander suddenly at high speeds (75+) on some
surfaces (especially grooved pavement, but on some others as well).
It kind of like we were being blown around by wind, but it was not
blowing very hard, and the effect was more in the front of the car.
It was very strange in that it tracked perfectly straight on some
surfaces, and pulled alarmingly to a random direction on others.
We speculated that this was caused by castor lost by having larger
tires in the back than front.
After a couple days in AZ, we picked up another passenger, and headed
out to New Mexico in grandma's Toyota Camry. What a gutless wonder. It
weighs as much as my brothers 68 Firebird 400, and has an tiny 4 banger
and an automatic. I've seen it claimed that these new cars are more
comfortable for long trips, but really the only thing that gets
me in the spitfire is the position of the gas pedal. I swear I'm
going to install cruise control before I go on another long trip.
On the way back from AZ (in the spit again) the wandering on one
apperently smooth, flat stretch of I10 was so bad that I felt sure
that something was about to fall off. We pulled into the only service
place in Tonepah AZ, and paid them 20 bucks to put the car up on their
floorjack. After assuring ourselves that nothing was about to fall
of, we moved on. Further down the road, we were inspired to set a bit
more toe-in in the front and that helped quite a bit (alignment on my
car is always wrong because the DPO repaired the chassis and got it
quite crooked. I will be putting it on a fresh chassis, hopefully in
the next few months).
We stopped in Parker AZ, and after visiting just about every garage in
town, found another lube place with the time to top up our diff.
On the trip we paid between 2.09 (in Ludlow between Barstow and
Needles) and 1.35 (somewhere in NM) for regular 87 gas.
The only LBCs sighted on the trip were a Midget in NM and a very
nice red bugeye in tucson. We were in the Camry in both cases, so
they ignored us.
If I'd thought about it sooner, I would have mailed ahead to
try to hook up with some listers in Tucson (Joe ?). Maybe next year.
Best wishes, and keep on spitting ;-)
--
Reed Mideke
email: rfm(at)cruzers.com -If that fails: rfm(at)portalofevil.com
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