THE STEERING COLUMN

O.K., just two more weird questions and then we will move on to something else.

    After explaining to a lady that when we are traveling we don't drive at night, she 
    asked, "If you don't drive at night, where do you sleep"?

    The following question was just received this afternoon.  A man looking at the 
     wheels said, " I'm assuming those are solid tires, are those metal spokes just 
     stuck in the tires"?

Folks, these people are voting for our next President.  Enough questions, let's move
on to something else.

I know many of you are interested in any mechanical issues that we have faced along the way.  I'll recap what has been going on on the whole trip.  We haven't had any breakdowns, however, there have been a few mechanical things we have had to work on.

About 4,000 miles into the trip, the engine started running rough and valves were clicking more than normal.  We found that 2 of the valve tappets were way out of adjustment because the soft cushioning compound on the top used to deaden the sound had fallen out.  I was at club member, Mike Yeakle's place at the time, who has a machine shop and we elected to eliminate this problem entirely by replacing the tappet adjusting screws with solid ones.  While we were at it, we removed the valves and thoroughly lapped them in, replaced them and readjusted them.

In Albuquerque, it was necessary to remove the radiator and resolder the neck, a fairly simple job.

For the past month and a half, I have been plagued with excessive oil leakage/consumption.  At first, I thought it was loss of vacuum in the oil reserve tank allowing too much oil to enter the crankcase and causing oil to be pushed out around the tappets, main bearings and breather pipes.  I tested this theory by emptying the reserve tank completely and simply not using it for awhile.  I kept tabs on the proper oil level in the crankcase with a dip stick.  Oil was still being lost.  A lot of oil was being blown out the rear breather pipe.  To try to curb this, I extended the breather pipe 12 inches and then with a 180 degree bend, returned the pipe down to about a foot off the ground.  It hasn't helped.  At this point, I have a hunch that pressure is building up in the crankcase, possibly by compression leaking past the piston rings. 

Another issue that is not serious, but has been with us for some time is that the timing gears are rattling.  It seems to be too much back lash in the gears.  Even though they are making a racket, they are not really hurting anything.

Today, the latest issue is a complete mystery.  While going down the road, suddenly the engine developed a fairly loud hammering sound.  It was loud enough that I was thinking we were finished.  I pulled off the road right away and let it idle for about another minute to try to determine where the sound was coming from.  After about 30 seconds, the sound stopped as quickly as it started.  I shut off the engine, crawled under the car and checked things thoroughly.  I couldn't find anything in the drive chain loose or rattling, everything on the engine seemed tight.  I restarted it, let it idle for a few minutes.  The hammering was gone.  It idled smoothly and accelerated like it should.  I am confident that the babbits are O.K., otherwise the hammering wouldn't come and go and when I am out on the road and pouring on the coal, hammering does not get worse, so I don't think it is connecting rod issue.  

We drove another 50 miles.  During that time, the hammering came back twice, just for a few seconds each time.  In the meantime, we are going to keep going.  My plan is to take the engine apart when I get home and see what is going on.

Tomorrow we will be in Fayettville, GA and will have covered approximately 9,800 miles.     


...........AND THAT'S ALL PART OF MOTORING ............