Re: A quick weekend trip

[Kinkos Whitehall <kinkos-emain@ee.net>]

>So, we pull over under another bridge, unload the back for a 3rd
> time, and I retard the dist a bit.  It starts much easier and no more pinging!!
> Yeah!
 
> Dave

Ya know...I drove my '70 Squareback from Mt. Pleasant MI (my hometown)to
Columbus, OH (where I currently live) last summer, just after spending
almost two weeks gettin' it road worthy (???  ; ).  About an hour into
the trip, which is normally 5.75 hours (at 70mph) I started losing
power...just a little , but it kept gettin' worse.  So I pulled over,
unloaded the ENTIRE interior of my fastback and all the windows out of
the back of the square, along with all the boxes of parts I had stripped
off the donormobile within the previous two weeks,  and checked around. 
I discovered that my distributer had worked loose.   Oops, musta fergot
to tighten it down all the way...reset timing & loaded EVERYTHING back
into the rear of the car and was on my way, no problem.
So I thought...about a half hour later, it started again.  I thought to
myself "Hmmm, bet I know what that is".  Got out, unloaded EVERYTHING
from the back of the car, & sure enough, dist. loose again.  Now I was
wonderin'.  I knew I tightened it THAT time!  Pulled the dist out &
looked at the clamp (after a couple minutes of headscratchin'  ;)to find
that it was bent up a little...just enough to make it so it wouldn't
stay tight, but not really enough to notice when I swapped the dist
earlier in the week.  It was about 10 pm, and I didn't know anyone else
with a type 3 (or any aircooled...at this point I was right around A2,
Greg...wish I knew about this list then : ).  So I sighed, knowing that
trying to straighten this damned thing with the tools I had was futile,
and rearranged EVERYTHING in the back of my square to make it at least
only a five minute job of GETTING to my engine!

To make a long story short, I must have stopped 20 times to reset &
retighten that damned clamp, unloading & reloading EVERYTHING from the
back of the car each time.  For those of you wondering, the old dist.
was just about the only thing I DIDN'T have!!!  I had just about
everything I could fit in my car that I'd stipped from my fastback, just
about everything 'xept the sheet metal & the engine.  My five & a half
hour trip ended up taking twice that.  

Moral o' the story:  You can bet I'll be better prepared next time I
take a trip in a type 3, but I won't have more STUFF!!!

Topher
'70 Squareback
'68 Fastback (organ donor)
kinko-emain@ee.net

ps.  i digress...made the trip home to Mt. Pleasant from Columbus with
my (at the time) dead square on a car dolly behind dads houseonwheels,
with him drivin'...whilst my (at the time  ; ) girlfriend towed me in
the already half stripped fastback by a tow rope hooked to a fyord
ranger pu.  if anyone wishes to age quickly, i highly recommend
this!!!!!!!!!  AAACkkkk!!!! I a'ready yanked the seat belts!!!  Please
feel free to laugh out loud....hehehe