Yes, Old Joe did me in last night.
Prologue: Due mostly to my own laziness, the Alpine had been off the
road for quite a long time. However, my car club had a tour a couple
of weeks back, and this gave me the impetus to get it running again
(Thursday night before the Saturday tour!). Feeling brave, I drove it
to work that Friday, and everything was fine. It did great on the
tour Saturday, too, and I've been driving it quite a bit these last 2
weeks. The weather here has been great, not too hot during the day,
cool at night, overcast a lot of the time; in short, perfect roadster
weather. So I've been in LBC heaven lately.
Main Story: Scott Paisley is working here in Huntsville this week, so
we made arrangements for me to pick him up in the Alpine at his hotel
one evening and head off to a nearby pub. Unlike the previous couple
of weeks, the weather wasn't very cooperative; it had been raining off
and on for a few hours before the appointed time. But I was
determined, and it wasn't raining when time came to leave. However,
the humidity was quite high. Plus, I hadn't driven the Alpine that
day, and when it sits for more than a day or so, the float bowls dry
up, and it takes a while to get started. So I start cranking, knowing
it's going to take a while. Crank, crank, crank,..., it almost
caught a couple of times, but no go. I can smell the gas, so, break
out the starting fluid and I'll be on my way, right? Think again.
Even with the starting fluid, that sucker just wouldn't catch. I ran
the battery down, and even hooked up the charger and cranked it some
more, to no avail. By this time I was late for picking up Scott, so,
fuming and completely frustrated, I give up and take the pickup.
Sigh. Upon reaching the hotel and finding Scott out front, I
identify myself and a look of great confusion crosses his face. But
he is very understanding when I explain, and even goes so far as to
state that "whenever you drive a British car somewhere, you always
end up with a story." In my case I didn't even drive the car, and
still ended up with a story!
It was very enjoyable meeting Scott, swilling beer and shooting the
breeze. We were joined by Kevin Riggs, another local SOLer. We got
to hear firsthand Scott's famous story of dropping his TR6 engine on
his foot. Kevin is in the midst of his own TR6 engine rebuild, so he
and Scott had a lot in common.
After a couple of brews, we decided it was time to go kick tires, and
we piled in to Kevin's Trooper. A park-and-sell lot near the pub has
a beautiful Datsun 1600 roadster, so that was our first stop. Of
course it was pouring rain. The car looks very nice, recent paint,
new top. There wasn't a price, just a sign that said "moving, must
sell, no reasonable offer refused." I stood in the rain with a
flashlight for a few minutes looking at the interior, it looks quite
good. [If anyone is interested, e-mail me and I'll get the phone
number for you.]
Our next stop was Kevin's garage to see the TR6. I won't steal
Kevin's thunder, as he plans to post a long story about his rebuild.
Scott kiddingly suggested that we could finish things up and have it
started by midnight, but I had sworn when we got there that I wasn't
picking up the first tool. Scott couldn't resist crawling underneath
to look at the frame, and of course got grease on his t-shirt.
Our next planned stop was my garage to see the Alpine. By now it was
getting kind of late, so Kevin bailed out. There's a Stag with weeds
growing up around it in a storage area near my house, so Scott and I
stopped there for a couple of minutes, but it's raining so we don't
get out. After a quick look at the Alpine, I ran Scott back to his
hotel. I had a great time, and if I'm ever travelling to the D.C.
area, Scott, I'll definitely get in touch.
Epilogue: I knew I had some carburetion/timing/ignition problems on
the Alpine, so I guess I'll have to take a look at things sooner than
I'd planned. Ah, the joys of owning an LBC.
L U C A S S T I L L R U L E S ! ! !
--
T.J. Higgins | tj@alpine.b17a.ingr.com | Intergraph Mapping | Huntsville, AL
"Bam-a-lam Way down in Alabam" -- Ram Jam
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