<VV> A Rampside Trip

[J R Read_HML]

Yes, I know, I still owe you VV folks the final installments on the Route 66 
trip.  With any luck, I'll get to that later this week.

This story is fairly short - about the utility of a Rampside.

Saturday it was all cleaned up and participated in the first LSD (Lake Shore 
Drive) Kruze in Chicago.  It was a good turnout - estimated 600 or more cars 
on display at Soldier Field parking lot.  Probably over 1,000 that cruised 
the drive.  Six cars from CCE were in the cruise portion and four (parked 
together) stayed for the show portion.  There was another seven Corvairs 
scattered thru ought the shown - all cars that no one from CCE had 
previously seen.  Obviously, we did our best to talk those folks into coming 
to our meetings.  We'll see what happens on that.

It rained like H on the way home.  Several traffic lights are still out on 
some of the main routes near my home and many businesses were without power 
for 8 hours or more.  We sent that stuff over to Indiana, right Warren?

Anyway, Sunday morn was an "up early" day and a quick trip over to Elmhurst, 
IL where I (and helpers) loaded a piano - probably around 550 pounds into 
the Rampside.  Staying on local roads and not traveling over 50 mph, I 
arrived at my daughter's place in New Berlin, WI.  Technically this was not 
quite legal since I have AV plates (not truck plates) on the vehicle.  I DID 
plan the route through Wheeling, IL where a relative happens to be a police 
officer.  Hey, it couldn't hurt to mention his name if I should happen to 
get stopped for having a load on the truck.  Other than one wrong turn and a 
stop to air up the tires (steering was much improved by that), the trip went 
smoothly.  Perhaps these things were built for piano moving?

After the unload and a quick bite to eat, the trip back was down the express 
and toll ways.  I found that there was a fairly stiff wind.  Flags were 
standing straight out on about a 45 degree angle to my direction of travel - 
so I figure that (subtracting the cross wind factor) I was probably driving 
into a 20 to 25 mph head wind.  The ambient temp was in the upper 80s and 
fairly humid.  There is an air dam on the front so the cross wind factor did 
not affect me very much at all.

The Rampside has a Spider dash and I found that the head temp was right at 
400 so long as I kept the speed below 60 mph.  I had done an oil change the 
night before (Mobil 1), so I was not all that concerned even though it 
typically runs at about 375 head temp on cooler days and higher (like 65 - 
70) speeds.  I got a spike or two into the 425 range when I tried going over 
60 or up long gradual hills or bridges, so I just kept it over in the right 
lane and stayed between 55 and 58 mph.  In a total of 220 miles, it has 
fallen just below the full mark on the dipstick.  So it used a "measurable" 
amount of oil during the trip, but not terribly much.  If it continues to 
spike temps above 400, I'll probably remove the lower shrouds.

So, anyone else move a piano in a (nearly) 45 year old Rampside recently?

Attachments (if any) are scanned with anti-virus software.

Later, JR
'61 Rampside Standard 4/110
'65 Monza Convertible 4/140  (temporarily X 2)
'66 beater Coupe - icemobile 4/140 (1/2 ownership)