[T3] Snow Driving Story - Long

["Carver" <carver@ncwebsurfer.com>]

With Winter having been essentially over for
a few weeks her in the California foothills,
thought I'd toss in a winter driving story.

Eventually I got breaks and would take it to
Lake Tahoe to go skiing. At this time, there
was a brand of 'chains' being sold that were
plastic and nylon webbing with some metal nubs
for grip on the ice. The plastic part wrapped
over the tire and the nylon strap tightened 
the whole arrangement. I liked them a bunch,
for you could drive about 45 mph with them
installed. With regular chains, you are limited
to about 25 before the tire speed forced the 
chains to slap the metal fenders. 

The plastic chains were eventually pulled off
the market as the tended to break and slap the
car fenders. The only time I had a problem was
when I didn't tighten them enough. I still have
a few sets of them.

One of these a weekend drives to Lake Tahoe, 
started out with decent weather, but it got
steadily worse. The windshield washer never
did work very well, and I became well versed
in driving in locations that put me in position
to get splashed by passing vehicles to wet
down the windshield.

The wipers began to fade and not work very well
so I pulled off and checked what I could and
found the motor pretty hot. It cooled off a bit
and I kept going and in a location with no 
pull-offs, and more bad weather, they quit completely.

I ended up driving with the only visibility being
the small patch of glass under the windshield
wiper. It was a bit of a scary drive to say the
least.

Later on, back in sunny weather, I pulled out
the motor to find that although it had been
replaced with one from a wrecking yard with
'67 marked on it, it was a 6v motor, thus the
weird behavior, due to overheating with the
12v. Anyone need a 6v wiper motor, I still
have it. What a pack rat.

Jeff '67 Sqbk purchased in 1978

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