Gawd this car looks awesome. :P
Having finally pulled it out of mothballs, Taylor (my girlfriend) and I took it on the Classic Car Adventures Rush to Gold Bridge. This event is a mixed tarmac and gravel event, which goes to a different destination or challenge each year. This year we went to Bella Coola, a very remote mountain town in British Columbia. To get there, you have to take Hwy 20...a significant stretch of which is still gravel, despite it being the only road in and out. Until 1953 the highway ended 137 km (85 mi) from Bella Coola. The Government considered it impossible to make a road to Bella Coola. Residents fired up a Bulldozer (brought in by barge) and built the rest of the road themselves. 70 years later, and the road is still single lane in sections and descends 43 kilometers with switchbacks and zero guardrails or other safety items. Perfect for a classic car event!
The event was going incredibly well, all the way down to Bella Coola, and up the hill the next morning. We filled up with fuel at the top of the hill, strapped lunch to our manifolds (seriously) and made our way an hour down the road to a park where we should find lunch hot and steaming in the engine bay. For the cars that strapped lunch to the
exhaust manifold, it was perfect. For cars that mistakingly strapped it to the intake manifold? Well refrigerated! Fortunately we had a BBQ waiting at the lunch spot to heat up everyone’s lunch :P
About 200km from the fuel stop, however, and the Rally Bug ran into a slight issue.
While a couple of cars went down the road to find some fuel, I started to think about how I could have possibly ran out of fuel about 200km from our last gas station stop. I remember putting the nozzle in the car, and being stressed about making sure everyone stopped to put their lunch on the manifold properly. I remember taking the nozzle out of the car, and the fact that the gas pump didn’t give me a receipt. But what I
couldn’t remember is whether I was sure I actually
filled the tank. Did the pump click off right away, and I just assumed it was full? Hmph.
After a road-side rescue, we filled up at the next gas station and went for the last gravel leg, a roughly 300km trip on gravel. We were running behind for dinner, but while driving I came up with a second theory besides just “I don’t know how gas stations work”. The Rally Bug has two wide-band 02 sensors. One works with the fuel-injection computer, the other a gauge on the dash I can read. When we lost the gauge on the way up the hill, I thought nothing of it. Given how long the car has been in mothballs, could be a wiring fault or a sensor failure. After a while, I realized that rocks could have taken out the sensor…wait, what if it took out the sensor for the fuel injection computer too?
But the car was running sooooo well…
…until it wasn’t.
Taylor and I got to camp in the middle of nowhere on a forest road. Coffee made by the camp stove, ‘charcuterie’ of snacks, 4 hours of no cellphone or radio while we hoped our friends could find us with fuel. It doesn’t sound that bad, but when we looked at the map before they left, we all agreed it should be “about an hour” before they’d get back with fuel. We did make it out of the woods, and the next morning I confirmed that both 02 sensors had major dents from rock hits. I know back when I was running the car regularly it had shields on the 02 sensors…so where did they go?! Hmph, a mystery for another day.
Limped it home, burning 2x the fuel it should (and probably washing the cylinders down).
Into the shop for some post-event maintenance!
-Dave