MY EXPERIENCES ON THE ROAD TO BOWLING GREEN
June 17 - July 7, 2001

Well, it was down to the wire, but everything came together and I was able to leave on Sunday morning, June 17, as planned. The overdrive appeared to have been functioning properly when I finally did have the opportunity to drive it -- it went straight from Guldstrand’s shop, back to Jimmy at A1 so he could finish the paint work he started. I had to pull the car out of Jimmy's shop to get it to Guldstrand's for the overdrive install, therefore, I didn't have the car long enough to actually use the overdrive; I mean, this is Los Angeles after all, and you don't use overdrive much.

The stripes still weren’t finished completely (they still have to be "buried" when I have the Z51 lettering painted on the hood sides), but it looked good enough for a road trip.

I was finally on the road!

I got on the Artesia Freeway (91) heading east past Compton when the overdrive disengaged, and I could not get it to engage again; oh well, it just came from the shop, so the fluid level should be ok, and I had not seen any indication of fluid leaks under the car. I figured that maybe it was an electrical connection after all, and that I would only suffer from poor gas mileage if I continued with the trip, so I proceeded to drive on, with the intention of maybe swinging through Urbana, IL, the location of the vendor used by Mid America for remanufactured overdrive units. I was heading in that direction anyhow to visit my mother before I went to Bowling Green.

Things went as well as could be expected for the next 200 miles or so; uphill, hot and crowded with traffic. At one time, cruising through the desert at about 65 mph, I looked to see that my temperature gauge was hovering around 240° F+ degrees, with the oil temp at 271° F! That was the highest it reached the entire journey, although coming back through some of the Nevada desert I saw 230°+ once or twice. It cooled down before long and I spent the night in Flagstaff, AZ.

The next day, as I approached cruising speed, the overdrive kicked-in and began functioning again. Cool! 80 mph at 2400 rpm, albeit with a noticeable vibration; it was more “harmonic” vibration than a “metallic” vibration, or an out-of-balance type of vibration. What could I do?

The overdrive continued to work for a while, but when I was east of Albuquerque, NM about 23 miles, the Vette stumbled, coughed once or twice, and died. It would crank, but it would not fire. I had noticed a gasoline smell for a little while before that, so I thought that maybe my charcoal canister might be plugged, or that my fuel pump may have given up the ghost. I later determined that the altitude, and the heat, were having a combined effect on the tank pressure, and that was all the smell was.

I called AAA from my cell phone and gave them what description I could of my location; there was a sign to the west of me, facing westbound traffic, indicating that Albuquerque was 23 miles ahead, which is what I told the person at AAA dispatch – I was 23 miles EAST of Albuquerque. When no one had arrived in an hour-and-a-half or so, I called them back to check -- they couldn’t find me -- they’ll try again! One hour later I called and they said that the driver was WEST of Albuquerque!! Meanwhile nobody, and I mean NOBODY stopped to even ask if I had problems; no cars, no trucks, no Corvettes (I saw a few – and they were probably going to the NCM for the NCCC Convention as I was!), not even the New Mexico State Police! And this was on Interstate 40; literally hundreds upon hundreds of vehicles simply passed me by.

To make a long story short, six hours later, after my flashers had drained the battery completely, the tow truck showed up. Of course it was too late to have anything done that night, so we dropped the car off in the lot at Galles Chevrolet and I spent the night in Albuquerque.

The problem was the coil, as per the technician at Galles. We replaced the coil and ignition module and I was on my way again, my wallet about $300 lighter. Time required to solve problem = about one-hour. Oh well, at least I’m on the road again.

Just east of Oklahoma City, OK, I started to get a very loud gear whine coming from the transmission area. Luckily there was an exit readily available so I pulled off. The engine sounded fine, the transmission was shifting alright; it has to be the overdrive. What to do? There was a Chevy dealer at the next exit about five miles up the road, so I thought I’d limp it to them at about 25-30 mph.

When I got back on the highway, there was a sound of something breaking free and suddenly the whine stopped. it became apparent that I had lost the overdrive unit. This was immediately confirmed when I had to decelerate and found that I was free-wheeling (no compression braking), later verified by the fact that I had no reverse gear. When I stopped and looked under, there was oil (what was left of it) pouring from the overdrive unit. What to do? Fuck it! DRIVE ON, ‘til I get there!! Next stop: Urbana, Illinois!

Actually, I was afraid to stop for the night because I didn’t know what was going to happen if I let the transmission cool down too much; I didn’t want it to seize, then where would I be?

I got into Urbana around midnight Wednesday and got a room for the night (or so I thought). It turned out that Bloomington Gold was happening that weekend and the vendor (Charlie Smith) was giving a seminar that same Thursday on what else - the Doug Nash 4+3!! Gee, at least he’s an "expert", eh?

Well once again, to make a long story (and stay-over) short, I got the car back Monday evening and was back on the road Tuesday morning at around nine o'clock. Of course, ten miles down the road, the overdrive quit working again. I turned right around and headed back to Charlie’s shop. Fluid level was ok, but it turns out the transmission wasn’t getting a signal to engage the overdrive. Well I figured that since there was no mechanical concern, and I once again only had to give up some gas mileage, I hit the road.

I look back on the stay in Urbana as six days in jail with a five-hundred dollar fine.

I had no other problems getting to Bowling Green except for an annoying squeal from the smog pump. I replaced that with a unit from NAPA, in about an hour while at the NCCC Drags at Beech Bend Raceway, in Bowling Green. That was the only thing on this journey that went as planned – I had the correct tools for the job, the old unit came off, and the new one went on, with no problem.

I should mention here that I not only took all the usual precautions before a long road trip, such as new radiator hoses, new belt and tensioner, oil change/lube, etc. Hell, I even went so far as to carry a spare alternator with me in case the one I had failed (C4s are notorious for eating alternators; it has to do with the underhood temperatures and weak bearings).

I washed the car in Bowling Green, and everything was well again except that one of my “Borbet” center caps for a wheel came off as I was washing it. It appears as though it may have been defective initially, because three of the four retaining tabs were broken off. Sheesh! This car is a rolling "Murphy's Law"

These are "Three Blind Mice". From left to right, 1987 Z51 (myself), (Steve), Rare81 (Bud), and BlackDoG (Jeff), at Steve's shop, SS Autosports in Hallsville, MO. Bud and DoG are both from northern CA.

We left Kentucky on a Sunday morning. along with Hava89 (Mike and his son Bob), who are each from Arizona and Washington respectively, and DDL81 (Dale) who's from Maine, after a picture shoot with our cars at the Corvette Assembly Plant. We had a beautiful drive through some Kentucky countryside that day.

Dale left us around Paducah, and Mike left us at Columbia, Missouri, where we (myself, Bud and DoG) headed north for a few miles to meet Steve, that's him "ssvett" between Bud and myself in the picture above. Steve and his son Sam are both very nice people; I hope to see them again.

We spent the night in Columbia, leaving early the next morning westbound on I-70, heading for Denver, Colorado. We got into Denver that afternoon (DoG almost threw in the towel at that point; the roads were so bad and his Vette sits so low!) where we visited with my dear old friend Bill Toy. Toy and I go back more than 30 years -- there are a lot of memories we share.

We spent that night in Denver eating pizza and watching television, and left early the next morning heading south for Colorado Springs where we would pick up Highway 50 west for the rest of the journey. We drove that day to Grand Junction where we pulled into a motel lot looking to spend the night. As we pulled up and got out of the cars, suddenly a guy pulls up on a Harley next to us! Turns out that he saw us, and seeing as how he has a Pewter 2001 Corvette as well as the Hog, he decided to see what we were up to. His handle is “Stylephile” and he is now a registered member of the Corvette Action Center Community. : Cool guy.

The next day I was feeling edgy again. (You gotta remember that I’ve been driving on the edge of my seat because I never knew what was going to go wrong next.) Well it didn’t take long to find out; the first thing to start acting up was when we stopped for gas in Delta, UT, and the car wouldn’t start. I’ve had this intermittent no-start condition for some time, and no one has been able to track it down. I’ve replaced the ignition key, and the VATS is bypassed; however, it starts if you push it!?!? Well, we push-started it and drove on.

Four miles west of the Utah/Nevada border the Vette died again, on US Highway 50 - “The Loneliest Road In America”. The first few calls to AAA had me wondering if I was going to go through the same experience here as I went through in New Mexico, but we had a tow truck there in about an hour-and-a half. Sixty miles to Ely, NV, but at least in was in the right direction.

Denny (I can’t remember his last name), a professional drag racer from the area (Denny’s Performance) was the tow truck operator; a very nice guy. He took us to Precision Automotive where I met Andre and Pam, more nice people. It turns out that Andre and Pam were from Hollister, CA before they moved to Ely, and since he’s been there in Ely, he’s had many Vettes come in with breakdowns -- encountered from running the “Silver State Classic”, an open road racing event held semi-annually in the area. That was comforting to know at the time, I mean, at least he’s had experience working on Corvettes.

I forgot to mention that the no-start problem decided to rear it’s ugly head again at this time, so we couldn’t even check to see if I had spark. We left it at the shop (it was getting late) and when I returned the next morning, Andre had determined that the starter was bad, along with the coil again. Why on earth would the coil go bad so soon after replacing it? We decided that it must have been a defective coil that was installed in Albuquerque; with my luck so far, I figured it was “Murphy’s Law” again, and it was at that point I began considering naming the Corvette “Murphy”.

We replaced the coil and starter (The starter twice actually, because the first one he installed wasn’t acting right!), and then I was on the road again. Or so I thought…

About 60-70 miles down the road, the Vette started missing pretty badly, and I didn’t want to break down again too far from where I was, so I pulled off the road. We had just passed a Goodyear store (Out here in the middle of nowhere – of all things!), so I turned it back in that direction. It was immediately apparent as to what was wrong when I opened the hood; the #2 and #4 spark plug wires had somehow worked their way too close to the EGR pipe from the exhaust manifold (close hell, they were touching it!) and were shorting-out. Luckily, Johnny Jepperson, the wrench at the Goodyear shop, had a couple of (used) resistor core wires that fit and I was on my way in a matter of minutes – for a few miles at least.

A little farther up the road, the Vette died again! It seemed to me that it was acting the same as the first two times it quit when they replaced the coils!?!!??

Well, it was raining again, so we just sat for a few minutes while it passed over us, then I got under the hood to see what I could see. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary, and I didn’t know what else to do, so I just started touching things, braille-like, things like wires and where they made their connections. Nothing seemed to be loose or anything, so I decided to try it once more and guess what? It fired right up!

The connections at the distributor cap (tach and ignition) were loose. Bud had some electrical tape so we did a “Bubba” on it by wrapping the tape around the entire connection and tying it tight. Worked like a charm and I never did have that problem re-occur. The starter is a different story; I still have the intermittent no-start condition!

The rest of the trip proved uneventful and the machine finally delivered me home again without problem. We had dinner in Gardnerville, NV Friday evening (a place called "Sharky's - I don't recommend it), then DoG left us for home. I guess he could smell where he marked his territory. I did manage to get some footage with the in-car camcorder as Bud and I cruised the twisties up north (CA Highways 89 & 88). Beautiful scenery, and roads built for the Corvette!

I left Bud at his home in Modesto, and headed for home myself, after a glass of iced tea (peach, if I recall correctly). You see, I too could smell home; I was very tired of the heat and just wanted to get back to the beach and the comfort of home again.

Corvettes, especially old Corvettes; ya gotta love em.