I had an old mechanic friend who claimed the Japanese put rusty razor blades in various places on their cars to cut American mechanics to ribbons.
Back to the green Mini...... I took it on a 2300 mile roundtrip to Tenn with the Classic Minis United group and it ran flawlessly all week. I towed it behind my blue Clubby, which also ran flawlessly all trip, and got about 27 mpg while dragging the Racing Green Mini behind it - not bad! The trip down was uneventful, I drove from KC to Lexington and found a cheap motel for the night, the next day was only about 220 miles so I just cruised....when I got to the motel I found a couple of friends already there, and one fellow in the parking lot changing his alternator....typical Mini weekend, always some repairs to be made on someone's car. That wouldn't be the end of it either, one late model classic drove up the to campground/headquarters for the event and refused to start again - till the next day when they went to load it on the trailer and it started right up! He drove it for two days and on the third day it died about 60 miles from the hotel.....AAA to the rescue and back on the trailer for home it went. Another car was a little too low and drug it's exhaust off, that one required finding a welder who could weld a flange back on. Another car refused to start one morning - never did find the problem there. Another one came into the lunch stop with a clunk that could be heard all across the parking lot, we decided it must be a rear wheel bearing so about 5 of us swung into action grabbing tools, jacks and some spare wheel bearings, only to find loose lug nuts. A quick tighten and he and his 9 year old daughter were back in business. Another lost the front wheel bearings and another broke an axle......another car lost it's brakes in the middle of the last day's runs and ran the rest of the drive using only the gears and the handbrake! There were about 60 classic Minis at the event so there was plenty to see and lots of interesting and fun folks to meet and make new friends. Lots of interesting cars, everything from stock to ohh so not stock - including a Mini running a turbocharged K20 mounted in the back, and another running supercharged Acura V-6 in the back (detuned from 450hp to 350 for this event), along with several running Honda D series Vtec motors in the front driving the front wheels, and one running a Miata motor driving the rear wheels! I'm working on a couple of short videos, once I get them done I'll upload the YouTube Links. One of the roads we drove was known as the Snake - it had just been repaved and was smooth as glass - a great road if you find yourself in the area....highway 421. The evening activites were just as much fun, with a costume party, hot wheels racing, silent auction, film festival, s'mores around the campfire, a dj spinning tunes and so on! We had one crash this year, first one in the 10 year history of the event. One of the fellows came around a tight corner and slid on some loose sand and salt and went headfirst into a rock wall. He wasn't hurt but the impact literally tore the left door off the right hand drive car. My grandson came up from college in Charlotte NC and joined me for three days - he's a tight fit in the Mini as he's about 6'4" but we still had a great time hanging out....he's in the Motorsports Management program at college so he hoped to write and sell an article on the event. (He recently imported a Honda Beat from Japan and sold it on BaT - interesting kid!) I wish the tow home were as uneventful as the ride down, but it was not to be. I decided to drive to St. Louis and spend the night with my brother and his family so I took a different route than on the trip to Tenn. Going north and west out of Nashville on 24 I had only just cleared town when I hit a long traffic stoppage. I wasn't able to get to the right lane and there was no exit in sight anyway, so I had to just sit like everyone else. When I got to the crash site it was a mess......there had been some heavy T-Storms roll thru and I think what happened was one semi slowed down due to visibility, a tanker semi was following and a third semi hit it, driving it into the first one. The entire front end was gone off the back semi, engine and everything, the tanker had split so there was diesel all over the road that they'd spread kitty litter on, the tanker semi had smashed the trailer on the lead semi and stuff was everywhere. They said they life-flighted one of the drivers out..... About 120 miles from my turn onto 64 into St. Louis we stopped again.....this time it turns out there were two accidents. Further up the road a semi had pulled onto the shoulder due to mechanical problems and another semi hit it, rolling down the embankment. They closed the highway for that one so the helicopter could land and haul off the driver in the second semi.....in the traffic backup a Honda apparently didn't realize traffic had stopped and ran under the back of a flatbed car hauler - he died immediately. They finally got enough of the wreckage cleared so we could get moving and I made it the rest of the way to my brother's without incident. The next morning I was only about 3 miles from my brother's house when I found my self at the back of a 5 lane wide 5 mile long stoppage - this time I was able to get to an exit, but then I found myself slogging thru St. Louis morning street traffic for over an hour till I could hit an on ramp past the incident - it might have been quicker just to wait! After that it was smooth sailing the rest of the way home, where I unhooked the Mini and put it in the garage and called it a day!
@Minidave I read that post holding my breath. I was worried that you may have got involved in an accident. Glade you made it safe. I just got back from the Dragon. I’m to tired to get into it now, I’ll post later, but we need to do something about peoples attitude towards driving. Self driving car are just going to make it worse
Headed out to Arkansas tomorrow for a 3 day run with the Midwest Se7ens group, should be perfect weather!
Hope you had a great time with the Se7ens. We had a successful sojourn the following week in the same area (https://flic.kr/s/aHsmgcgj4m). Appreciated the route guidance offered by you and John. Here are the two routes we used for our two days of dedicated local motoring. The second was a bit shorter since it included the brew pub stop. ;-) Mountain Home SW Route Mountain Home SE-BrewWorks Route Thanks again Dave!
Those look like some fun drives. Wonder if they are already in the routes to drive forum? Edit - just checked, we don't have anything from Arkansas..
I didn't realize we had that option on MA. I have a bunch of other routes collected over the past 11 years in Google Maps form that might be of interest to others.
That would be great - Ditto to comment above. You can create them here: https://www.motoringalliance.com/forums/fun-roads-routes-and-drives.301/ That said, we may need to work through updating the directions for how to embed a "google map".. Take a look and let me know your thoughts and/or suggestions for how to make this area better. Its on my "thinking" list... i.e. how to make this even better.
Met some of the family for a late breakfast this AM. It’s about a 60 mile round trip and a beautiful day for a drive. On the way home I drove down a street that I haven’t been on in 20+ years. Looked at what used to be a car dealership and noticed something unusual in the old showroom. Took these pics through the glass with my phone so the quality leaves something to be desired. Still learning the new format and wasn’t sure where to post this. Feel free to relocate the post Sully.
That person is something less than a biker. Maybe a trike'r or a biker wanna be. I'm in agreement, it's either Hardly-Ableson's who waddle down the road playing road hog or sport bikers trying to put their head into my fender.
Yup, I have spent too much time driving behind them at 15-20 mph as the stroll up and down the Dragon. All of them jamming out to the Allman Brothers Ramblin' Man. Good song, but not over and over again while going so slow is a killer. All bikers like to say “share the road” but they forget that they need to pull off for faster traffic also.
Got the right seat installed today, I could not figure a way to use the sliders as it just raises the seat too high, and it will not go back any further because of the companion bins, but I was able to use the stock seat mounts in the front and it sits well now. the seat feels great, especially compared to my stock seats! The left one will be more of an engineering challenge as it has the height adjuster - which I'm hopeful that I can figure out a way to utilize, it sits lower than the right seat with no brackets so I think I'm up to the challenge and if I can figure out how to make it work it will give a lot more positions for the driver. My back gave out before I could do the left one, and besides I'll need to think on it a bit before I start cutting and welding up brackets. Interestingly, the pump part of the height adjuster only works on the back risers, as it raises it pulls the front up by pivoting the front risers, so I will have to fab up a linkage of some sort. I may also have to come up with some std brackets - the ones that bolt to the cross member. this car has some extra long ones that go all the way from the front to the back of the crossmember, I'll either have to shorten them or trade for a set of stds to someone with long legs. I'm undecided on whether I'll use the headrests or not...... The seats are out of a 2017 Subaru STi ,