Hello All,
We'll, Andrew and I made it from Baton Rouge, La to Haddonfield, NJ last
weekend - my first cross country MG attempt. It was great !! We avoided the
heat driving at night from Baton Rouge to Tuscaloosa on Thursday night - I
flew in to BR and Andrew picked me up at the airport and we set off from
there. Slept from about 3 am to 8, then got up and drove to Roanoke, Va. In
the middle of the afternoon in the heat of the day we started to get an
intermittent miss in the engine. Thinking it was fuel, heat related - the
temp gauge was half way between N and H, we pulled over, saw the fuel filter
was empty, turned up the idle speed a bit, put in about 5 gallons of gas, and
set off again thinking I had a vapor lock problem and when it got cooler the
problem would go away. At that point I was within 100 miles of Dan Masters
house south of Knoxville, and was comforted knowing that if it quit
altogether, AAA would tow me 100 miles for free.
The hesitation continued intermittently for the next tank of gas, and then
when we filled up again it got really bad. Pulled off into a small town in
Virginia, bought a new fuel filter and clamps at an ACME grocery store,
changed it in the parking lot, inslulated the fuel line from the filter to
the carburetor with a towel, and set off again, thinking we'd fixed it. We
didn't, but the miss stayed intermittent the rest of the day. We stopped at
Roanoke, Va, and I talked to Jim Stuart to see if he was available on
Saturday to stop by if we needed to, and he gave me the phone number and
address where he would be working on his car, so I felt comforted again.
Talked about the miss problem, but really didn't figure it out.
Sunday was a gorgeous cool morning in the mountains from Roanoke to Front
Royal. A cold front had just gone through, so it was cool and cloudy all day
- Friday had been pretty hot until we hit the cold front at about the
Tennessee / Va border. We would have taken the Sky Line Drive, but it was
foggy - maybe next time. Had a few hesitations on the way to DC, but got
there and figured we could make the last 120 miles to Philly, so we opted not
to stop to see Jim - thanks for the invite though, it was nice to know we
could stop if we needed to.
Pulled into the new house in Haddonfield about 3 pm Saturday a little wind
blown and beaten from the rough roads, but immensely proud of our
accomplishment - building a car together and then driving it across country -
I'm sure the same feeling many of you have had.
It's amazing that in the 1300 miles we didn't see one other LBC - maybe the
MG owners were all at the Summer Party. Of all the convertible cars we saw,
only 2 others had the top down - what a waste. We got a little sprinkle on
Saturday morning, but our top never went up - another great accomplishment.
A few things to work on now that we've got our car to the new home, but wow,
what a thrill to have made the journey together - Andrew, me, and Super B.
Thanks to Jim and Dan for the phone numbers and comfort of knowing we could
stop if we had trouble. You guys are a great bunch. Hopefully I'll get to
meet some of you guys at future events now that I'm in the northeast.
Safety Faster,
Rick Huber
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