[Spridgets] Damp or cold driving stories (some LBC)

[David Booker]

From: Allen Hefner lbc77mg at gmail.com: I thought we should try to get our bad
weather driving experiences out in the open.

 
I was driving my '67 Mustang
along I-40 from Nashville to my college in Cookeville TN one wintery Sunday
afternoon in maybe '77 or '78. It had been snowing hard for a couple of
days. Tennessee is notoriously ill-prepared to deal with this, so the road was
probably 6 inches deep in the stuff. There were ruts to drive in so really no
big deal, but the little bit of traffic out and about was moving very slowly -
probably 25 or 30 mph. Shortly after successfully making it up the long climb
onto the Cumberland Plateau, the engine developed a miss and started running
worse and worse. "Crap - why here, why today?" was my thought. I had passed
the last exit for maybe 5 miles a few minutes before. 
 
I found a place where
the snow was a little less deep and pulled it over onto the shoulder. After
bundling up against the cold, I went around front and opened the hood... There
I found a perfect negative impression of the underside of my hood - including
the cross-braces and the twin rear-facing hood scoops. What the hell? Turns
out the cross member under the engine (especially on a Mustang that sits a tad
lower than stock) makes a really efficient scoop that forces snow up into the
engine compartment with some authority. It took a while, but I dug it all out
and found that the distributor - up front of course like all Fords of the time
- was thoroughly soaked inside.
 
I found some fast food napkins, dried it all
out, put it back together and made it the final 15 or 20 miles back to Tech.
Wish I had a camera with me though, because that solid white engine
compartment of packed snow was really quite a sight.
 
David Booker
 - Long
Island


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