<VV> Trailering fun - long

[BBRT]

Way to go! Nice story.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Craig Nicol" <nicolcs at aol.com>
To: <virtualvairs at corvair.org>; <fastvair at yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, November 10, 2007 12:42 PM
Subject: <VV> Trailering fun - long


>I spent the last week on a 2200 mile round trip from Coeur d'Alene to 
>Denver
> and back to pick up the late Herb Berkman's Stinger. The trip went well 
> and
> I spent four days there just helping his wife Jonni unpack boxes, 
> organize,
> and move in (Herb and Jonni hadn't really moved into their home).  I also
> played the "what's this Craig" game about 1000 times. So much of what we
> have for our car hobby is hard to ID if you aren't into it.
>
> To transport the car and parts I borrowed a 28' (you read it right) 
> enclosed
> car trailer and towed it behind my 1-ton spec pickup.  There were two 
> goofy
> parts to the package: 1) With the parts loaded to the front of this long
> trailer, tongue weight was off the charts so I had to load the car way to
> the back of the trailer to reduce the tongue weight. Having the weight at
> the ends rather than over the axle made it sensitive to abrupt steering
> correction so I really had to be smooth.  2) A throttle-body 350 with 210 
> hp
> isn't the best choice for a 15,000# truck/trailer/cargo combination.  0-60
> times were measured in minutes (hours?) and the steepest grades (like the
> 8600' continental divide pass) reduced my speed to 25 mph. There are a lot
> of passes between North Idaho and Denver; I started to count but ran out 
> of
> fingers...
>
> The only mishap was kinda funny:  Things were going along hummingly until 
> at
> about noon on Thursday, while I was trying to find a radio station in the
> static, I heard an unusual humming noise. Since I was stepping through 
> radio
> frequencies I didn't think much of it until I noticed that it seemed to be
> on every frequency, so I turned off the radio.  The noise continued even
> with the radio off. Hmm. A quick check of the gauges revealed nothing but 
> as
> I watched the panel, the alternator light came on.  With that answered, I
> pulled over just as the engine quit.  Smoke was coming out the seams of 
> the
> hood. Upon opening the hood, the smoke was clearly coming from the
> alternator; The engine wouldn't crank or even rotate. When I took the belt
> off, the engine started right up and I found that the alternator was 
> locked
> solid.
>
> Surveying the scene, things could have been worse.  It was about 
> 60-degrees
> and sunny.  I was safely to the side on a level straight road, and there
> were dwellings in sight. I took the too hot to handle alternator off the
> truck, unloaded the Stinger from the trailer. Pulling down the trailer 
> door
> to reveal a spare car felt really good ;-). I drove to the nearest 
> farmhouse
> where I learned that a little town with an auto parts store was only 14
> miles away. About 40 minutes later I was back at the truck and installing
> the replacement alternator.  Total elapsed time: About an hour and 15
> minutes!  It doesn't get much better than that. It always pays to have a
> spare car with you :-)
>
> The Stinger is safe and sound in my garage but I still have to unload the
> truck and trailer. Where am I going to put all this stuff?!
> I'm happy to be home and I didn't even have to use the wipers, let alone
> deal with any snow - amazing for this region in November! Yeah!
> Craig Nicol
>
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