The Orange Monster hits the road

In September of 2008 dad and I headed to Nebraska to get him road worthy so I could drive him to North Carolina.

The restored brake booster was installed, a new gas tank installed and the engine was tuned.

And at times it got rather exciting...

Later and before I attempted the drive I discovered that the middle two plug wires had been reversed at some point. In all the testing, he was basically running on 4 cylinders and that explained the occational backfire as seen above.

And then there was the missing interior to put back together...

And sometimes there's just no option but to read the manual.

But after a day or so the seats were in and I was able to stir up the gravel roads a bit.

Dad took the rental car to the airport and flew home. I purposely missed the return flight, covident that he'd have no problem driving. So in the early morning hours of September 24, 2008 I packed my bags, a set of tools and some extra fluids and headed East Other than being amazed at how much heat came through the roof with no insulation the drive went well all except for the fuel stops. He was using 2 or 3 quarts of oil for each tank full. I'm sure that some of it was through the combustion chamber but a lot was being lost from leakage as well. I took a small detour in Iowa to visit 'Freedom Rock', something that had been the subject of many social media posts...

But by the time I got to Iowa City I had made the decsion that the oil consuption was just more than I was willing to deal with so I went to U-haul and got a trailer and truck to finish the journey.

One of the interesting things I discovered while driving with him on a trailer was that whenever things got tight and I needed to change lanes, Folks seemed to be very accomodating and made room for me. It must have been the load of course and I'll neve know who they were but It was sure apprecieated and I waved in apprecieation wihenver I had the chance.

I got him home safe and sound and was able to drive him around a few times but It was apparent that the engine really needed to be gone through and that didn't happen for quite a few years...