The Cross-Country OdysseyPhase 1 "The Dream"
It all started one day in December 2009 while visiting Sarasota / Bradenton Florida. I live in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains in the state of Washington. Sarasota is about as far away from my home as I can travel here in the contiguous 48 states.
While waiting for a flight to return home to Washington my wife and I had some time to kill so we took in some of the local sights. One of the local attractions was the Vintage Car Museum of Bradenton which was right next to the airport. As I looked at these vintage beauties my mind was jumping back to those wonderful days of yester-year. Mind you, I'm a 65 year-old man, and when I talk about "yester-year", I'm talking about my teenage years in the 60's. In those days my good friend Russ, whom you will get to know as this saga continues, was the proud owner of a TR3 which inspired me to buy a GT6 a few years later. I look back with fondness on those years, motoring around in what I considered true sports cars. A lot of years have passed since then and I've often yearned to feel the wind blowing through my hair (while I still have some) while driving a British roadster again. My wife Cindy kept reminding me of all the inconveniences which were inherent to that era of sports car, i.e. poor heating, no air conditioning, rough suspension, water leaking in from all sides, no power steering, and the list goes on. Not to mention the fact that getting in and out of one of these cars was much easier at the age of 17 than at the age of 65. All good points I might add. But for some reason, which is still not clear to me, I chose to ignore all these valid points while I was day-dreaming and drooling at some beautiful roadsters before me. I have to digress at this point. I ask you, have you ever looked at something and have a light go off and some out-of-body experience that has no rhyme, reason, or logic takes over? Well, that is exactly what happened to me. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, I found myself in front of a red 1960 Triumph TR3A roadster. A strange thing happened, I heard it calling me. Very few words were exchanged, it simply said "we belong together." I made some inquiries but didn't pursue it at this point. It was just a dream. However on the flight home the words "we belong together" kept echoing in my mind. By the time I got home my course was clear. I had to have this car. After all, who am I to argue with destiny?
Decisions were made and I purchased the car, a car I had never even started or driven. What was I thinking? Now, reality set in. Does it even run? What is the car's history? What does it need to make it roadworthy? Suddenly another thought entered my mind; How will I get this car to Washington state? I suppose I could ship it via car transporter or ? ... at this precise moment a multi-faceted plan began to formulate in my mind. I remembered that my good friend Russ had just retired to the Hilton Head area in South Carolina. I looked at a map, did some quick calculations, and figured "what the heck", I can drive the car to Hilton Head, leave it there until summer, and then fly out to pick it up and drive it cross-country. I was also hoping that when I revealed this plan to Russ, he being the good friend that he is , wouldn't let me undertake this odyssey alone and would insist on accompanying me. I was not disappointed. No sooner had I disclosed my plan to him when he insisted that he accompany me. We were like two kids planning an adventure.
However, the more I thought about it, I realized that this was no small undertaking. After all, this car is 50 years old and even though it had gone through a restoration some five years ago, there were other factors to consider such as the condition of the drive-train, suspension, tires, tune-up, cooling system, electrical system, etc. The more I dwelled on it, the more I thought my plan was not well thought out and more time was needed just to get the car road-worthy for the 450 mile trek from Sarasota, Florida to Hilton Head, South Carolina.
Before flying out to pick up the car I was very fortunate to have a repair shop referred to me that specializes in vintage British cars. I couldn't believe my luck. I contacted the owner of "Twin Cam Sportscars" in Sarasota to have some of the essential components checked before driving off to Hilton Head. Well, I'm glad I had the car checked out. There were major suspension components that were loose, wheel alignment was way off, wheel bearings in need of grease, valves that needed adjusting, spare tire needed to be mounted, which by the way, is no small undertaking. The "cubby" where the spare tire is stored could only accommodate a 5.90 x15 tire but my choice of tire, even for a spare, was a 165 x15 radial. Since I wanted this tire I had to have some modifications made which consisted of putting a floor jack in the cubby, sandwiched between two pieces of plywood and gingerly raising the top of the cubby opening so that the larger tire would fit in. The best I could do was to enlarge the opening enough so that a deflated 165 x 15 tire could be jammed in the cubby opening. Of course this means I have to carry a couple of cans of compressed air to inflate the spare should I need it. I hope that this is a solution to my spare problem. I suppose I could have opted for a 5.90x15 spare. After some additional maintenance items and minor repairs I got the word that the car was ready. I flew to Sarasota picked up the car and was now ready for the first road trip with my TR3A. I decided to stay off the Interstate highways and use the state and US highways. I needed time to get familiar with the car's handling and general driveability. My First stop was Jacksonville Florida where I had planned to spend a night with my dear friends, Anita and Siggi. I breathed easier as I rolled into town. I was half way to Hilton Head and no incidents. My only complaint was the outside air temperature ( 27 to 35 degrees F). What happened? This is supposed to be the warm south. It was one of the coldest Januaries on record for that part of the world. But at least I was fortunate to make my drive between rain storms ( for a while I thought I might see snow). As I was checking out the car at Anita and Siggi's after a night's rest I found a small puddle of gear oil under the differential (about 1 ounce I surmised). I figured since I was half way to my Hilton Head destination that I would probably be OK. I'd have it looked at in Hilton Head. I rested for a day and spent some time with my old friends, not giving any more thought to the oil leak.
It was here in Jacksonville that Anita's granddaughter presented me with a gift for the car. She donated a teddy bear which we named Victor. He was to be our mascot for our cross-country trip in the summer. (By the way, we named our car Victoria, so now Victor and Victoria are united.)
The trip from Jacksonville to Hilton Head went much smoother and faster as I was now more comfortable with the car and I had decided to use Interstate 95. What a blast to drive the car at freeway speeds! Acceleration and performance were as I remembered. I was not disappointed. As a matter of fact I'm going to have to get a degree wheel and measure valve openings when I get back to Washington as I suspect there might be a "hot" cam in this engine. This also explains the loping at idle...a little more than I remember.
There were no incidents along the way and I arrived safely at my friends' Russ and Mary's new home in Hilton Head.
After a good nights rest it was time to check out the differential and see just how bad the oil leak had gotten. The bad news: lots more gear oil under the car. The good news: at least the differential didn't run dry...as it still had oil in it at the end this 450 mile trip.
I knew I had to fly back to Seattle in a couple of days but I wanted to line up a repair facility to replace the differential pinion shaft seal (assuming that's all that was wrong). You'd think it would be easy to find a shop that could do the repair. Russ and I made inquiries and got a few names of foreign car repair shops but we knew nothing about them. I wasn't prepared to bring the car to any old shop. Not only that, I knew that I'd better first order the parts necessary for the repair ahead of time from The "Roadster Factory". I figured that the chances of a local repair shop having the proper seal was probably remote. So I ordered the differential seal and a new universal joint while I was at it. But I still needed to find a trusted repair shop.
I was running out of time and had to fly back to Seattle. At least "phase 1" was complete. The car is safe in Russell's garage in Hilton Head SC.
After returning to Seattle I started looking up local Triumph organizations in South Carolina and Georgia hoping that I would make contact with someone who could help me find a quality repair shop. I found a website for the Georgia Triumph Association (GTA) and came across the name of the director Jim Orr whom I contacted by email. Within a matter of hours Jim had contacted a fellow club member Ronnie Babbitt who also happens to be on the board of the "Vintage Triumph Register" national sports car club. Between the two of them I was now armed with a name and location of of a trusted repair shop,which as it turned out, is only a 10-15 minute drive from Russ's house. We've already contacted the shop ("BPC Motors" in Hilton Head) and as soon as the parts arrive we'll schedule the repairs.
In the meantime I have also joined the local triumph club here in Washington, the "Tyee" triumph club of Washington and am already looking forward to becoming an active member.
To be continued:
