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.