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Wednesday, May 3, 2017
The Long Long Drive
I have wanted a real heavy duty tow truck for a long time. The $150,000 to $200,000 price tag always kept me from being able to get one.
About a month ago I found this truck and even though it is older, it only has 36,000 miles on it. The only problem was that it was located in Bangor Maine, some 2,200 miles away!
Traci and I flew to Maine last Thursday and drove the truck home in four days. We drove 600 miles a day in an unloaded heavy duty truck. Needless to say it was a bouncy ride. We had many laughs as we ping-ponged between the seat and the roof!
The truck ran great and I think it is going to be an excellent tow truck for "The Long Long Trailer".
Over time, I will spruce up the truck and paint it black to match the trailer. The truck is not perfect but it is great shape for what we paid for it.
It is a standard shift 10 speed, non-synchronized transmission so I had some on the job training driving it home. I can pretty much drive most things but I had never driven and non-synchronized road truck transmission before. There is definitely an art to driving these things. You may have heard a term called "double clutching" but probably do not know what that really means. Double clutching is a process that must be used to shift the gears of transmission like this. You first must push in the clutch to shift the transmission to neutral. Then, once it is neutral, you must let out the clutch to spin the gears inside the transmission so they will synchronize with the output shaft gear. Then push the clutch in again and push the shift lever into gear. If you do everything exactly right the gear shifts, if you mess up, the grinding begins until you do the process again. Panic and you will never get it into gear! Been there, done that!
Downshifting is even more fun because you have to add throttle to spin up the gears inside the transmission between shifts. After 2200 miles, I became pretty proficient at driving the truck. I am sure pulling "The Long Long Trailer" will add a layer of stress but I am sure I will get it.
If I had not had my trusty and very capable navigator, I would not have made it home. Traci is amazing putting up with my dream chasing and riding in this lumber wagon, ha!
The dream is really coming together! Some day, we are going to start going rounds in a "real" drag race!
About a month ago I found this truck and even though it is older, it only has 36,000 miles on it. The only problem was that it was located in Bangor Maine, some 2,200 miles away!
Traci and I flew to Maine last Thursday and drove the truck home in four days. We drove 600 miles a day in an unloaded heavy duty truck. Needless to say it was a bouncy ride. We had many laughs as we ping-ponged between the seat and the roof!
The truck ran great and I think it is going to be an excellent tow truck for "The Long Long Trailer".
Over time, I will spruce up the truck and paint it black to match the trailer. The truck is not perfect but it is great shape for what we paid for it.
It is a standard shift 10 speed, non-synchronized transmission so I had some on the job training driving it home. I can pretty much drive most things but I had never driven and non-synchronized road truck transmission before. There is definitely an art to driving these things. You may have heard a term called "double clutching" but probably do not know what that really means. Double clutching is a process that must be used to shift the gears of transmission like this. You first must push in the clutch to shift the transmission to neutral. Then, once it is neutral, you must let out the clutch to spin the gears inside the transmission so they will synchronize with the output shaft gear. Then push the clutch in again and push the shift lever into gear. If you do everything exactly right the gear shifts, if you mess up, the grinding begins until you do the process again. Panic and you will never get it into gear! Been there, done that!
Downshifting is even more fun because you have to add throttle to spin up the gears inside the transmission between shifts. After 2200 miles, I became pretty proficient at driving the truck. I am sure pulling "The Long Long Trailer" will add a layer of stress but I am sure I will get it.
If I had not had my trusty and very capable navigator, I would not have made it home. Traci is amazing putting up with my dream chasing and riding in this lumber wagon, ha!
The dream is really coming together! Some day, we are going to start going rounds in a "real" drag race!
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Wednesday, April 26, 2017
Cool Video
Most of you have figured out that I love all things mechanical. I came across this neat video that shows why I love the internal combustion engine so much.
Watch the video to the end and watch the gasoline burning engine and think about how it applies to the modern race engine where the events are happening over 9000 times per minute.
Cool stuff!
http://www.enginelabs.com/
Watch the video to the end and watch the gasoline burning engine and think about how it applies to the modern race engine where the events are happening over 9000 times per minute.
Cool stuff!
http://www.enginelabs.com/
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Monday, April 17, 2017
Testing the Racepak dash
Ran the car with the Racepak hooked up tonight. All of the sensors are working and the display is configured.
Here is a video that my daughter took:
Here is a video that my daughter took:
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Checking over the new car
I spend the day today going over the new car and getting it in good shape.
I ran it for a little while and made sure all of the systems functioned correctly (oil system, cooling system, dial in board, transbrake, delay box, brakes, etc. Everything functioned well and the car seemed to run good.
After that I decided to start looking at internals and do preventative maintenance. I set the valve clearance, changed the oil, retorqued bolts, etc.
About the only thing I found that I didn't like was some unused wiring in the wiring harness from th told gauge display. The previous owner was in the process of putting in a new Racepak IQ3 display and data acquisition panel in the car. Some of the sensors had been hooked up but the old wiring was left in the wiring harness. I hate stuff like that so I took the body panels off and started cutting zip ties, hundreds of them! I have all of the unused wired pulled out of the car and I am starting to route new wires and hook up sensors. It will look nice when I am done! Most of the wires have crimp on connections with no shrink wrap on them. That kind of connection is bound to fail so I am replacing everything with 3M shrink wrap terminal ends with shrink wrap one the top of them to prevent vibration failure.
The valve train looked fantastic and was all high quality components. I am very pleased! I also pulled all of the decals off of the car to get it ready to make it mine!
I ran it for a little while and made sure all of the systems functioned correctly (oil system, cooling system, dial in board, transbrake, delay box, brakes, etc. Everything functioned well and the car seemed to run good.
After that I decided to start looking at internals and do preventative maintenance. I set the valve clearance, changed the oil, retorqued bolts, etc.
About the only thing I found that I didn't like was some unused wiring in the wiring harness from th told gauge display. The previous owner was in the process of putting in a new Racepak IQ3 display and data acquisition panel in the car. Some of the sensors had been hooked up but the old wiring was left in the wiring harness. I hate stuff like that so I took the body panels off and started cutting zip ties, hundreds of them! I have all of the unused wired pulled out of the car and I am starting to route new wires and hook up sensors. It will look nice when I am done! Most of the wires have crimp on connections with no shrink wrap on them. That kind of connection is bound to fail so I am replacing everything with 3M shrink wrap terminal ends with shrink wrap one the top of them to prevent vibration failure.
The valve train looked fantastic and was all high quality components. I am very pleased! I also pulled all of the decals off of the car to get it ready to make it mine!
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| T&D rockers and 904 bronze bushed lifter bores. All good stuff. Valve lash is set and I tested spring pressures on all of the cylinders. I stated a spreadsheet with all of the spring pressures so I can watch for valve spring failures. |
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| The car looks good without the decals all over it
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Wednesday, April 12, 2017
The New Car
After the Super Comp licensing school Traci and I decided to take a step back and look at the safest (not the cheapest) way to accomplish my goals in drag racing.
We realized that "The Black Hole" was a lot of car for an old newbie to tackle. We both agreed that a better plan was to buy a nice Super Comp dragster that was in good shape and start going to races as soon as possible.
The new plan requires that I slow down production on "The Black Hole" and spend the money that we were about to put into it on a dragster instead. This will push out the debut date for the "The Black Hole" significantly but will increase the odds of me actually making it down the track without ping ponging it off of the walls. If I do that, game over!
We found the new car on Monday and we are going to take "The Long, Long Trailer" to pick it up this weekend (Friday, April 14).
We have a bunch of stuff that is on our schedule until the 4th of July (including the Second Annual Harvey 4th of July Celebration at our lake house), picking up the new (used) tow truck, finishing a bathroom at the lake house, having a new grand baby, etc., etc.
I will tell more about the car on the new car page when I get the car.
Here are a couple of pictures of it.
We realized that "The Black Hole" was a lot of car for an old newbie to tackle. We both agreed that a better plan was to buy a nice Super Comp dragster that was in good shape and start going to races as soon as possible.
The new plan requires that I slow down production on "The Black Hole" and spend the money that we were about to put into it on a dragster instead. This will push out the debut date for the "The Black Hole" significantly but will increase the odds of me actually making it down the track without ping ponging it off of the walls. If I do that, game over!
We found the new car on Monday and we are going to take "The Long, Long Trailer" to pick it up this weekend (Friday, April 14).
We have a bunch of stuff that is on our schedule until the 4th of July (including the Second Annual Harvey 4th of July Celebration at our lake house), picking up the new (used) tow truck, finishing a bathroom at the lake house, having a new grand baby, etc., etc.
I will tell more about the car on the new car page when I get the car.
Here are a couple of pictures of it.
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NHRA Super Comp License
Just completed a Super Comp licensing course at the Texas Motorplex this weekend.
It was a blast! I accomplished all of the requirements for my license and ran two runs in the 8.60s at 150+ mph.
Fastest I have ever gone on the dragstrip and in a car. I have gone faster speeds on sport bikes but have never accelerated that quickly. It was a surprise that these Super Comp cars are that quick. My car is going to be insane!
Here is a video of one of the quick runs.
It was a blast! I accomplished all of the requirements for my license and ran two runs in the 8.60s at 150+ mph.
Fastest I have ever gone on the dragstrip and in a car. I have gone faster speeds on sport bikes but have never accelerated that quickly. It was a surprise that these Super Comp cars are that quick. My car is going to be insane!
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