<VV> Lonzo and Convention observations

[Tony Underwood]

At 08:12 hours 06/18/2004 -0400, CorsaVair@aol.com wrote:
>One day to go at Lexington, had the opportunity to meet Lon Anderson for the 
>first time.  He is still on crutches from his unfortunate fall and multiple 
>leg fracture at his home.  What a gentle giant.  For those who have not
had the 
>opportunity to meet him, he is 6' 6" tall and quite stocky.  You will not
meet 
>a more positive, upbeat person.  For all he has been through, he is still 
>helping his home chapter put on one of the best conventions we have ever 
>attended.  Ken Hand was seen working on the clutch of Lonzo's van after
several men 
>went north and brought it to the convention.  (You remember his van was
broken 
>and Lon was unable to work on it because of his accident).    


Chuckster and Terry Kalb and myself crawled into Buttercup with Darth's
trailer attached.    Darth was left basking in the sun at the hotel parking
lot.    To Lonzo's house we went, with myself in the back seat being told
to keep quiet whenever I talked too much which was constantly.
Buttercup's A/C worked nicely.    Smooth ride.   Good trip.   No injuries.   

Arrived at Lons place and:  

Unloaded most of Lons stuff from the Brier    
Pumped up the tires with my handy-dandy Wal-Mart portable pump   
We all groaned and griped as we shoved the Brier onto the trailer    
Chucksters portable winch did an admirable job assisting us as we shoved    

We then departed after hanging out in Lons kitchen drinking ice water and
BS'ing.     

Only got lost once on the way back.    

Arrived at the Hyatt parking lot and rolled the Brier off the trailer and
it promptly experienced a brake line failure (squish noise, pedal drops to
the floor) which prompted me to grab the e-brake and yank it... I was the
wheel man as the van was rolled off the trailer since they didn't trust me
not to get run over if I was stumbling around behind the FC as it was
unloaded.    Fortunately the e-brake functioned well enough to stop the
Greenbrier before it took off for parts unknown.   

More on this e-brake thingy in a moment...    

Nothing much done that evening (we got back at around eight-ish) but the
next morning Ken Hand was rolling out his big aluminum jack and borrowing
Rob Landers' jack stands (I learned later after we were all done and
finished that the jack stands weren't Kens).     Thanks, Rob.    If I'd
known they were yours I'd have brought them back to you instead of leaving
them by Kens trailer.   

Unbolt everything and out comes the engine in the Death Valley heat.
Black parking lot absorbed the sun and radiated like a pizza oven.   It was
a sobering experience.   I stayed out of Kens way as he did the clutch
(it's basically a one-man job once the engine is out) and served as one of
the gofers, chasing down stuff like pilot bushing, throwout bearing etc.
A used but good condition Dale flywheel was located by someone nice enough
to go chase it down,  and it was inspected and installed by Ken since the
riveted flywheel was suspicious... thunk noise etc.   Also a fresh pressure
plate was installed.   I wandered around looking at vendors' stuff and
offered moral support.    Everything finally went back together, and we put
the engine back into the Greenbrier... or rather Ken did.   I worked the
jack a bit once or twice and gofered a few parts but Ken did 98% of the
clutch job.    Gotta credit the guy in the hot sun and that blistering
black parking lot heat doing all that hustling.    He did have a straw hat
with him...  I left mine at home so no good there for me.    

After the engine was back in the Brier we all got a wild hair and decided
to see if it would fire up.    Now, this Brier hadn't run in several years
and it had been sitting with a full tank of fuel for those years.   Lonzo
did say he'd added Sta-Bil to the tank to help keep the fuel from turning
into skunkjuice but we were skeptical as to whether the gas would even
burn, much less not stink to high heaven or at the least clog up the tank
sock etc.    

Lo and behold, after Ken did the Watusi dance of priming the fuel  pump and
filling the carbs up, the accelerator pumps came to life and actually
squirted clear clean fuel.   After chasing down another ignition switch to
plug into the wire harness (Lonzo couldn't find the keys) and Ken's
clearing up a points problem in the distributor we twisted the key and it
started immediately.    A large moth flew out of one of the Harley-Davidson
style oval/teardrop shaped tail pipes and a teardrop-shaped wasp nest shot
out of the other one.    Revving the engine a bit too clear it up and a mud
daubers nest shot out next whereupon the engine settled down to a fairly
smooth idle.   Ken assaulted the carbs with  a screwdriver and all was
well.     


Ladies and gentlemen:    

Fuel stabilizers do work.    Almost three years and the gas burned fine, no
smells and no fumes and no running problems.   

Everyone called it a day...    Ken said "OK, you guys do the rest, I'm
tired already".   Next day I put the rest back together and I replaced the
4' long failed/rusty brake line (the one running alongside the gas tank)
and bled the brakes and it had brakes again.   Only now the clutch wouldn't
release...  stuck to the flywheel overnight or something etc.    

Before, it wouldn't engage, just slipped.    Now it wouldn't release.   The
disk was fresh and "fuzzy" so it was likely just hung from sitting
overnight clamped against the flywheel etc, so I adjusted the clutch
linkage a bit, still stuck...  started the engine in 4th gear, revved it a
bit, stepped on the clutch and then jerked the e-brake to unstick the
disk... killed the engine.    I did it again, revved the engine up
aggressively and watched the speedometer run up to 80 mph, stepped on the
clutch and jerked the Hell out of the e-brake handle and SNAP.   


Not only had I earlier busted Lonzo's brake line, I also snapped his
e-brake cable.     

I figgered that this just wasn't my day.   Anyway, it had juice brakes
again and after another clutch adjustment and some wrestling around with
the shifter, the clutch unstuck and began working.   

Test drive!     I ran it down the parking lot briskly and it chirped tires
in 2nd gear.   Sweet...!    Brought it back and parked it beside Lonzo's
'64 sedan and then the Chuckster came along, more photos were taken, and he
pro ceded to climb into the drivers seat after making a few smart-ass
comments on needing some padding or something to fill the depression in the
seat from Lonzo's considerable ass, and off he went in Lonzo's FC, down the
lot and through the access roads and out of sight...  


Lonzo came back looking around, saw us all standing there but no Van.    I
told him we sold it...    


Eventually Chuck Armer came back from the joy ride and saw fit to return
the Greenbrier to its rightful owner and we all stood around doing mutual
admiration society stuff.   I then went and ate Chinese food and enjoyed
it.   

Some credit should go to The Chuckster for taking off in his tow vehicle
and trailer to go 75 miles up and ~100 miles on the return leg, through
some really nice looking countryside with the FC on back so as to get all
this done.   


To everyone who lent a hand, ya done good.   And, another Greenbrier is now
on the roads again.   


I left the repair of the e-brake cable to Lonzo after telling him that I
hadn't intended to snap the cable... I was just doing what I usually do...
the wrong thing.   It shouldn't be a hard fix, easy enough when Lon is
unfettered by that cast and back in shape again.    

Just don't park it on a steep slope, Lon...    (and I'll get your AM/FM
checked out in a day or so)      


Hopefully other comments regarding the parking lot tech sessions will be
forthcoming, including additional details of the really nice blue 8-door
Greenbrier parked beside Lonzo's Brier with a burned up Powerglide which
got swapped out for another, bought from a vendor and changed on-site,
which also seemed to work out nicely, blue Brier drove off smoothly
afterwards.    This fellow said he'd driven the last 300 miles with his PG
stuck in LOW in order to get to the show... took 11 hours.   After pulling
the pan on the dead PG (after draining coffee colored fluid) there were
numerous bits and pieces evident in the screen, including chunks and chips
and fragments of what appeared to have been an e-clip.    Replacement PG
did good.     

So...   who got the Hard Luck award?     


>The raffle car (a 66 Monza convertible, Aztec Bronze) is one of the most 
>beautiful restorations I have ever seen.  

It sure is.   The photos on the web site do NOT do this car justice.
Cheers to whoever bought it "at auction" following the enormously generous
donation of the car back to the KY chapters by the raffle winner, and
credit again to the KY gang for donating the auction proceeds to charity.    


>The Concours, Car Display, Swap meet and Autocross were well organized, well 
>attended and with plenty of space.
>The parade on Monday night was well attended by local people, we took over 
>Main street for several blocks in the downtown area with upwards of 100 cars.
>Future Convention planners will do well to study what the local clubs did to 
>put on such an enjoyable convention.  Wish you were here - - -Dick Shank


I had a good time.   


However...  I should have brought that straw hat.     It may have rained
overnight too often, but the days were bright and sunny.    Stylish job,
tech sessions were informative, a good time was had, glad I went.    And of
course the '67 coupe once again returned home with a trunk full of stuff,
after having run to and from Lexington with nary as much as a burp or a
stumble, ran perfectly the whole trip.    


tony..