June 1, 2014: Day 1 to Shamrock, TX

1974 450 SL Mercedes in Albuquerque

 This is one of our longer trips. We are headed to Bar Harbor, ME for the VMCCA Chrome Glidden Tour on June 8-14. It is going to be about 2500 miles each way.  With side trips to relatives, points of interest and the tour, we may rack up 6000 miles before we are done.
We are taking a relatively new car this time.  It is a 1974 Mercedes 450SL which is a mere 40 years old.  It is incredibly modern compared to the usual old cars we drive.  It can easily cruise at 75 mph. It has a marginal air conditioning system.  It handles surprisingly well on curving roads.  It has four wheel disc brakes that are just excellent. In most respects, it is a modern car.  It has a mere 90,000 miles, considered low mileage for these cars.

The bad news is I have only had this car for about 5 months.  I have done a lot of prep work to get it running well, but it still is an unknown quantity to me.  It is a rather complicated machine and there so much I don't understand about it.  I feel much more confident driving one of our prewar cars or our Austin Healey. (these links will take you to some of our earlier old car travelblogs) .  I have driven our older cars thousands of miles and I can usually diagnose and fix their failings simply and quickly.  Not so with the Mercedes:  It has new fangled stuff like transistors, relays, vacuum actuators, and  a very early form of multiport electronic fuel injection (called D-Jetronic by Bosch).  The only good news is there are many of these cars on the road today and very active internet forums devoted to understanding and preserving them.  Hopefully I can learn enough about Mercedes on this trip to keep it moving.  Of course, if it croaks badly, I can always sell it and start a new life in another state.


On the road, first attempt to tighten the belt.

Our plan is to take I40 for 1400 miles all the way to Knoxville where we will visit Nance's sister Holly.  Normally we avoid interstates in our travels.  But considering the distances we have to cover and the capability of the Mercedes, we will taking some interstates on this trip.

Day 1 has been eventful.  Nance had other commitments and decided at the last minute to not leave today.  She will fly instead and join me in Knoxville on Tuesday -- assuming I manage to make it there.  I finally got on the road about 10:30 AM.  The temperature was in the low 90s by noon.  Suddenly, one of the Mercedes fan belts started to howl and slip if the rpm was over 3000 (about 65 MPH).   You would think this is an easy fix, but tightening the double belt on the fan did not solve the problem.  I guess I needed a longer crowbar to stretch those belts, but I feared overloading the water and power steering pumps.  The belts looked rather worn, so I bought new ones in Amarillo.  Naturally, they are a rather unusual size but after some effort Auto Zone came up with two new ones.  I am going to clean to pulleys and install them tomorrow morning.  Hopefully, this will solve the problem.

FYI, the Mercedes has a viscous clutch on its massive shrouded cast aluminum fan.  I found it odd that the fan has two belts to drive it.  I now know that at high speed with the clutch engaged this fan takes a lot of torque.  I guess that's why it has two drive belts. 



Very nice café in Tucumcari.  Unfortunately, most of the
 town is quite depressed since I40 bypassed it.

The car managed to run cool throughout this hot day.  Temps were up to 96F but the water temp never got much over 190F.  That's good news, I didn't have much experience driving the car in hot weather and there is going to be plenty of heat on this trip.  The AC was rather underwhelming.  The air was tepid but it was cool enough to keep the windows up, making the trip more pleasant.  The aftermarket radio was also a disappointment.  It's fancy display must have been designed by a video gamer.  Very slick but impossible to read in direct sunlight.  The tiny buttons have even tinier, cryptic labels.  It was easier to write a text on my phone than fiddle with this radio.  But I did get a good signal for NPR in and around Amarillo.

Hope my repairs go well tomorrow.  See you later....

Bill, from Shamrock TX, 377 miles from home.

 

June 2 Carlisle, Arkansas

Most small towns don't have Auto Zones.
But they do have well stocked NAPA stores.

Today began around 7:30.  I wanted to change the noisy fan drive belts and fix another problem that cropped up late yesterday.  The latter problem seemed serious:  the engine would barely idle and could hardly generate enough power to get the car rolling.  Fortunately, I had experienced this phenom during my previous testing at home.  It turned out to be a loss of gap in the ignition points leading to grossly retarded timing.  When this happened before, I thought the points had slipped.  A quick look at the distributor showed it had happened again.  Apparently, the relatively new points in this car have a very soft cam follower that was quickly wearing down. This squeaky wheel just needs grease but I forgot to pack any.  I would look for an auto parts store to get some high temperature grease. I hope this works because I don't have a spare set of points and they may be hard to find on the road.

Restored tile Conoco station
in Shamrock is worth seeing

FYI this car has a hybrid electronic ignition system.  It uses regular ignition points and a transistorized ignition module that generates the primary ignition pulse to a conventional coil.  Theoretically, the points are only switching a low current signal and should last forever -- as long as the cam follower doesn't wear out.

My belt replacement project ran into snags right away.  The car has four belts and all of them must be removed to replace the fan drive pair.  The AC belt has an idler clamped with a 19mm bolt.   I had a 19mm wrench but the bolt was tightened by a gorilla and I could not budge it.  I would need to rig up some sort of cheater to get enough torque on the nut.  The limited space around the front of the engine didn't help. I decided to take another crack at tightening the fan belts.  I used a longer lever to add just a bit more tension.  If that didn't work, I would take a deep breath and attack that idler later.

Shamrock had a well equipped NAPA parts store.  I got the grease for the distributor and also found aerosol belt dressing NAPA claimed would stop belts from slipping.  A dab of grease on the distributor and a shot of belt dressing worked perfectly.  The belt was quiet all day and the engine idled perfectly.  I managed to drive 70 mph all day, the speed limit on I 40 around here.  So the engine problems are solved, at least until they act up again.  I do wonder why the viscous fan clutch seems to be engaged all the time. But better that it is stuck engaged rather than free because it has been in the mid 90s around here.

I was on the road by 9 and Oklahoma came quickly.  A lot more green was decorated with blooming wildflowers in the median.  Rolling hills punctuated with lakes made for a very scenic drive.  The car running perfectly helped me relax and enjoy it.  Only the persistent SW winds were bothersome, but the Mercedes handled them easily.

OK City was big and beautiful.  Too much traffic, but the Mercedes could keep up with it.  I had to pay attention carefully to directions.  It is easy to get diverted off of I-40 onto I-44, I-35 or all those other "I's" that strangle this city.

Oklahoma was green but Arkansas looked like a rain forest.  I-40 quickly was enveloped by incredibly dense deciduous forests and major creeks and rivers.  Haze and humidity was palpable.  My glasses would fog up whenever I got out of the car. Occasional rain kept everything thoroughly wet.  I found the feeble air conditioning was actually working better than I thought:  I forgot to turn it on after I gassed up and in five minutes the Mercedes turned into an unbearable mugg box.

I decided to call it a day after 530 miles in little Carlisle, AR.  I had a delicious catfish dinner at Nick's.  Nick's was popular and the food was excellent.

June 3, Knoxville, TN

This beautiful Mississippi bridge welcomes all to Memphis

My stay in Carlisle, Arkansas was restful.  I could have made it closer to Memphis but I thought its congestion would be easier to face during the day.

I checked the oil, Mercedes has used none since we left Albuquerque.  I'm not used to that, all my other old cars use a quart or more every thousand miles.  Today the viscous clutch on the fan was free.  I thought that was odd, it was engaged whenever I checked it on the first two days.  Right away I found the engine was running about 20 degrees warmer (from 175 to 195)  than it did on Monday.  I wondered if the fan clutch was working.  It is supposed to automatically engage when the engine gets hot but it's hard to tell from inside the car.
Gas mileage:  The 450 SL is known to be a guzzler.  From the start of the trip, she has averaged 13.2 MPG. That is pretty awful for a 4.5L two seater.  They say the later models, like the 560SL are much better.

The trip through Tennessee was beautiful.  I have driven a lot of I-40, but not so much east of OK City.  This road does not get much respect.  It should.  As it heads east from Memphis, it becomes more serpentine, winding its way along dense forests, lakes, and rivers.  Every shade of green and blue I could imagine was there.  It was impressive now, I wonder what it would be like in the fall. 

I didn't care for all the trucks, they now dominate the traffic on all interstate highways.  But the Mercedes held its own against these beasts.



Oops, lost my load!

I was planning to meet Nance at 6 PM at the Knoxville airport.  All was going according to schedule until disaster hit at mile marker 340.  A semi rolled on a sharp curve blocking both lanes and the shoulder.  I was caught in a five mile Jersey jam, reduced to a slow crawl.  The poor Mercedes did not like it and seemed to suffer from ethanol fuel boiling.  It was all I could do to keep it running and rolling.  This lasted for 90 minutes.  Finally, I reached the crash scene.  It was a mess.  A guard rail ripped the trailer to shreds and it belched its load of small boxes all over I-40.  I don't think there were any injuries, the tractor was not seriously damaged.

I made it to the airport but the Mercedes had trouble recovering from the jam on I-40.  It now is stalling and misses and stumbles a lot.  I suppose the spark plugs may have fouled.  I never checked them before I left, no telling how old they are.  I think tomorrow I'll pay another visit to AutoZone.

Nance was relaxed after achieving what I took three days to do in a few hours.  Hmm, that's where all the car travelers went -- they fly in airplanes!

Nance's sister Holly looked great and we enjoyed a meal in her apartment.  Tomorrow, I will see if I can get the Mercedes running a bit better and do a little sightseeing in Knoxville.

June 4, Waynesboro, VA

Engine room is rather busy.  But the plugs were easy to change.

Today started with a nice Shoney's breakfast buffet with Holly and Nance in Knoxville.  It was followed by a quick driving tour of the downtown area.  I was drawn by a rather striking gold ball overlooking waterfront along the Tennessee River.  It is the Sunsphere, a remnant of the 1982 World's Fair in Knoxville.  It's just a passive ornament now, what ever happened to those World's Fairs?

Today's tech session started at Auto Zone.  I bought a set of spark plugs and a 13/16 sparkplug wrench (can't believe I didn't  bring one).  I was prepared for a miserable day of finding and changing the plugs on this big V-8 that barely fits under the hood.  It was not to be.  I was shocked, shocked to find all the plugs quite accessible and easy to get a wrench on.  I had them all replaced in about 30 minutes.  The plugs were obviously old but didn't look too bad (can't believe I didn't change them BEFORE leaving home).  But, the new plugs did the trick, the engine roared back to life on all 8 cylinders.  The idle was still a bit flakey.  The engine runs about 2000 rpm when cold complete with disturbing surges.  Once warm, it drops to about 500 rpm and feels like it wants to stall.  But, she doesn't actually stall and runs strong and smooth otherwise.  So we said good bye to Holly, loaded and left Knoxville around noon.

Bristol: a deep aluminum bowl with
cars whirling around the bottom.

We continued E on I-40 until turning NE on I-81.  I-81 headed for Virginia and the beautiful Shenandoah valley, paralleling Lee Highway (US 11) and the Blue Ridge Parkway.  We made great time on I-81, but the heavy truck traffic combined with all the hills and turns made driving rather busy.  We took breaks at the Bristol race track (a NASCAR icon and quite an architectural edifice) and Natural Bridge in VA. From Natural Bridge, we decided to escape the traffic and switched to the Blue Ridge Parkway.  The Mercedes and us enjoyed this twisty ribbon and the views from the ridge were just outstanding.  No traffic here, a welcome relief from the trucks on I-81. Saw a few deer, no bears.

It started to rain a bit and was getting dark.  We decided to stop in Waynesboro at a clean and reasonably priced Super 8.  Managed about 350 miles, not bad considering our late start.  Tomorrow, we will tour Monticello, something I have always wanted to see.  And hopefully we can weather the heat and traffic around DC and  visit some friends there...    .



June 5,6 Thurmont, MD and Hartford, CT

Flash:  The Mercedes has been driven for two days with no major problems.  Sure, the engine still idles rough and guzzles gas, but otherwise she is running smooth and strong. 



This is the rear side of Monticello

We opened the day with a trip to Monticello.  This was way overdue for me.  My family lived in DC in the 60's and I successfully avoided seeing this or any place with historical significance.  Today, it's a short run to Monticello from Waynesboro on a few miles of curvaceous and lovely rural two-lane.  Like Mount Rushmore, Monticello in real life is a bit smaller than I expected (it looks HUGE on those nickels).  But the place is beautifully preserved and presented by the foundation that operates it.  We enjoyed the garden tour.  Thomas Jefferson was presented as being an innovator, always looking for the breakthrough result in agronomy, architecture, and all his pursuits.  He rarely found those breakthroughs, but never stopped trying.  Writing the Declaration of Independence, the Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom and establishing UVA were certainly impressive accomplishments.  He never stopped trying and kept thorough written records of everything he did.

Our next stop would be Arlington VA, home of my high school buddies Joe Thomas and Les


Marion Arkin and Nance in Arlington

Jackson. We fought with our GPS to get us from Monticello to Arlington while avoiding I-95.  We finally convinced the fractious software to route us on US 15 and Lee Highway (US 29) to I-66, a spoke of the DC interstate system that would vector us directly to Arlington.  More cruising through rural Virginia's lush green hills and valleys followed.  Best of all, it was unseasonably  cool. Temperatures managed to stay in the low 80's all day. 

We were trying to beat the rush hour in DC but snippets of time lost here and there delayed us.  There were some rush hour snarls developing on I-66, but nothing too horrible.  We arrived at Joe and Marion's around 4:30 PM.  We had lots of fun telling the usual stories and had a wonderful dinner at a local east Indian restaurant.

Next time, we will stay longer in DC.  On this trip, it was wise to keep moving.  Maine is still a long way off and DC's congestion is not suitable for antique car touring.  Joe gave some good directions to get us out of town to the north, headed toward Harrisburg, PA.  We managed to make it to Thurmont, MD, a rural area in the Catoctin Mountains, home of Camp David.  A Super 8 provided a quiet and comfortable evening.  It was quite a contrast from the hubbub of Washington, just a short distance to the south on US 15.



General Lee on his horse in Gettysburg.  
This battle turned the tide to the north.

On Friday, we visit some of  the Gettysburg, PA civil war points of interest.  A visitor center offered an impressive movie and cyclorama.  The latter is in impressive 360 degree painting of the Gettysburg battlefields.  Although the painting is huge, it is far too small to represent the enormity of the ferocious fighting that enveloped this small town in Pennsylvania.  I found the driving tour of the actual battlefields especially emotional.  The massive memorial statues and the vast expansive areas involved made me think of how the horror and destruction  impacted this quiet, peaceful looking community.

I left thinking that the long and ugly civil war may have resolved very little. Yes, it did the very difficult and important work of ending the institution of slavery in the south and the north.    But having listened to hours of AM radio in formerly confederate states this week, the hostility toward the federal government is alive, well and may be growing.  The government is portrayed as doing nothing right serving only to bring unwanted rules, regulations and taxes upon the people.  This constant din of criticism, cloaked under the guise of patriotism, cannot be healthy.

We moved on to a short and sweet visit to Hershey.  We didn't have time to sample (gorge) on Hershey Bars or Reese's, but we did walk through the beautiful Hershey Hotel.  What gardens and elegance, like the Biltmore, Hotel Del Coronado and those few remaining great American hotels.

I have been to Hershey several times for the big swap meet, though I have gone to the hotel just for the wonderful brunch.  It was strange to see those vast parking lots filled with nothing but nothing.

Getting to Hartford from here had its problems.  We lost an hour or so due to heavy traffic near NYC and made a couple of embarrassing navigation errors.  We ran low on gas and had to pay $4 a gallon at a rural Shell.  This was not entirely our fault, gas stations get scarce whenever you get anywhere the Big Apple.  But all ended well when we arrived late at my brother's lovely home in Burlington, CT.       

June 7-8 Belfast, ME

Nance, Mary, and Rick just before we depart Burlington

After a very restful Saturday in Burlington CT enjoying my brother's hospitality and home, we were back on the road to Maine.  Our antique car tour of Maine was to begin from Belfast, a costal town about 40 miles short of Bar Harbor.

The Mercedes continued to run well with just an occasional glitch to let us know she is a 40 year old car.  Our push stuck mostly to interstate highways, starting with I-84E,  I-475 and I-95 N.  Thanks to it being Sunday, traffic around Boston was minimal.

As we entered New Hampshire and went NE along the coast, changes were evident.  Streams, estuaries, and oceans could be seen and smelt.  Boats and their paraphernalia started to show up on and off the freeways.  We finally made it into Maine after a short traverse of New Hampshire.  I felt the trip was complete.  Even if the Mercedes blew up, we were still in Maine and could coast to wherever we wanted to go.

This is the view from ours and any room in the Fireside Suites

We were in awe of the tour host hotel in Belfast, the Fireside Suites.  The three story hotel forms a gentle arch facing a green canvas of pasture grass.  The grass spills into the vast Atlantic ocean of Belfast Harbor.  Every room in this hotel enjoys this view, not a single room is available without it. 

Many of our friends from years of VMCCA touring have collected here.  No doubt, the blog will be in hiatus for a week or so.  There are too many to meet and reconnect to have time for blogging.  But I will be back, perhaps with some updates of tour highlights.  We will be in this paradise for two days.  Then, we will move on to Bar Harbor, about 40 miles from here for the remainder of the tour.

June 14, Lowell, MA

Hi, bloggerheads, we are back on the road.

We were off the air during the 2014 Chrome Glidden Tour in Maine.  If you were on this tour, you'd understand why.  Costal Maine is such an interesting a special place.  We were taken to one amazing destination after another, guided by our hosts Barbara and Dick Fox.  Adding about a hundred VMCCA tourists sharing the experience invites talk and leaves little time for blogging.  Here is a link for some images from the tour.  You'll have to wait for the full article in The Bulb Horn to find out about it.  Perhaps I can add a few tidbits later on.

2014 Chrome Tour Pictures

Big rain and fog came to Bar Harbor on Friday the 13th, the last day of touring.  It was no bother.   Nance was enjoying the hydration and most of the tour stops were not dampened by the moisture.  We finally said goodbye to our VMCCA friends on Saturday.

Nance and the Birds at their home in Brunswick

We planned a stop in Brunswick, ME to visit with Nance's 2nd cousin Ira Bird,  his wife Joy and son Charlie.  Like most young families, their Saturday was fully scheduled -- so we met them at Charlie's lacrosse game.  This is a very popular sport here and both of their boys are active in it.  We reminisced more than we figured out how the game is played.  Ira explained "it's a combination of soccer and field hockey..." but that wasn't quite enough.  Still, it all worked out well and we had a short but sweet visit, topped with apple pie a la mode in their lovely Brunswick home.  That has been a theme on this trip:  we are visiting quite a few people but have to keep moving.  We just have too much distance to cover to linger as long as we would like.

Brunswick, ME is the home of Bowdoin College, a small highly respected liberal arts institution.  It creates a beautiful green jewel right in the center of town.  What an asset these institutions are to their towns.  I hope they can all find ways to survive and prosper.

We proceeded down the southern Maine and New Hampshire coasts using combinations of I-95 and US 1.  Nance wanted to stick with US 1 to enjoy the Atlantic Ocean for as long as possible.  Unfortunately, only fleeting glimpses of the water could be seen from US 1 and there was plenty of vacation traffic.  Finally, after we passed through Kittery, ME, the Atlantic was gone.  We probably won't see it again for a few years.   We must come back, there is so much more to see.

Tomorrow we will visit Nance's cousin Trudi Bird in Storrs, CT.  We packed it in in Lowell, MA and this will leave just a short drive for tomorrow.

The Mercedes is running rather well right now.  It acted up a bit on the tour.  It was nothing too serious:  it developed a very rough idle and became reluctant to start.  It seemed to be getting worse every day.  I decided to remove the original Mercedes electronic ignition module and convert the system to conventional battery ignition.  Nothing too difficult here, it only took a few minutes under the hood to effect the conversion.  I was surprised to find an immediate improvement in idle and starting.  The only downside to this change is the tachometer is not set up to work with battery ignition.  But we don't really need the tach, so we will stick with this setup for now.