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Friday, 06/06/03; Watertown, South Dakota
Shade Tree Mechanics 102
Up earlier than usual, Keith was out at the Victoria shortly after 0600. He found Dennis there ready to help in the final reassembly. The first task was the mounting of the turn signal switch on the steering column. Possibly because of haste, one of the attaching screws stripped the threads on the attachment fitting. The solution was to use a larger sized sheet metal screw in place of the machine screw. This required that Dennis break out his electric hand drill and drill one of the parts to accept the larger screw. With baited breath, we assembled the parts – and they tightened up and held! Now, it started to rain! Dennis rigged up a tent from his poncho – draping it over the Victoria’s top and open door to protect Keith as he sat on the running board. Then the left side insulation and panel were replaced. The small instrument panel attached between the side panel and the steering column could not be replace as originally because the blinker module was attached on wires that were too short! As a temporary fix, the blinker module was mounted in front of the instrument panel with a promise to get it right as soon as time permitted. It was time for a final test. The turn signal switch was thrown, but nothing happened! Aaagh! Keith started the engine and reved it up to cut in the alternator. Then, the turn signal worked! However, the purring noise was audible in the CB receiver at low engine RPM! The alternator problem had returned! Aaagh! some more! Accepting the fact that operation of the turn signal and CB required a faster idle, the job was declared done – at least for now! The car was loaded and we were on the road by 0710.
The rain continued as we headed west. The incoming traffic looked like the “405” Freeway going to LAX! We were glad we were outbound. By the time we reached North Dakota, the light rain had stopped and the sun was shining through broken clouds.
Clouds over South Dakota hills.
But this was not to continue. When we were about 75 miles from our destination, we noticed that the road was wet and a dark ominous cloud covered the horizon on our intended path. Soon we were in the worst storm that we have encountered to date. We needed the wipers to help the Rain-X and the insides of the windows were steaming up. In the Victoria, the Smiths were battling the water pouring in the lower portion of the windshield. The weather stripping Keith had installed at Phil’s wasn’t doing the job! The upper portion was OK, but the lower strip didn’t work. Keith and Joann stuffed a couple dozen blue paper shop towels under the dash rail and caught most of the water – but not before their feet and pants legs were soaked!
The deluge; shop towels to the rescue!
Keith was in the lead and had lost sight of the Olson’s car some time back because of the rain and concentration on driving. When the downpour subsided a bit and a good pull over place appeared, Keith pulled the car to a stop and waited for the Olsons. Not long thereafter, the Smiths heard Joanie on the CB saying, “Pull out. We have you in sight!” Keith wasn’t fast enough and the Olsons whizzed by. Joanie transmitted again, saying, “We have to keep going. We have a terrible miss!” The rain must have doused the ignition causing the engine to miss badly. Finally, the engine dried out and began running normally. When we reached Watertown, the rain had ended and we were glad to be snug in our dry motel rooms. By our odometers, we had driven 311 miles today, mostly in the rain.
We only have five more states to capture and we will have done “the 48,” counting those that we did on our 2000 trip to Kansas City. We have logged almost 10,000 miles since our 8 April departure. Will we reach our goals of all 48 and touching the states on the border of the USA? You’ll have to keep checking back to see.
The Soggy Four
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