Myself, my father, four kids and Grandpaâs delapidated '63 Chevy II Nova Stationwagon
I post this as a tale of woe so horrible anyone with a worse story truely has my sympathy as it would have to involve more than one tombstone. I included eleven important life lessons I learned on this 2000 mile trip.
It all started in 1998 when my father and I decided it time to collect my grandfather?s 1963 Chevy II wagon which Grandpa bought new. We were unsure of its mileage as the odometer turned over so many times my grandfather lost count. He drove it until the transmission overheated and he no longer had the mental ability to fix it. It sat for about 4 years, 2 outside in a storage facility. It held great sentimental value for me as some of my best childhood memories occurred around that vehicle.
I priced having the car hauled from Camano Island, WA (north of Seattle) back to my home in Dubuque, IA at about $700. So, against my wife?s judgment, my father and I decided it would make a fun, 10 day vacation to take my four children, ages 5 to 11 out there by car. My boss at the time was from Portland, OR and wanted to give his older Ranger extended cab truck to his son still living there. My father drove his Honda CRX (a two seater) for a back up vehicle and to tow back Grandpa?s small fishing boat.
I called the local mechanic there and arranged to have the car towed to his shop so he could get it running about 2 weeks before the trip. I figured I would have to spend that money anyway when I got the car back here. I called the mechanic a week before we were to depart and he still had not started on the car. I already scheduled the time off work so the trip was inflexible. He reassured me it would be ready. We left in the middle of June on a Tuesday, I believe. We drove out there, three kids in the Ranger, one in the Honda.
Lesson 1; Three kids, even young, do not fit well in a Ranger.
In route, I continually called the mechanic from payphones to check progress. The day before we arrived he finally had it in the shop. We reached Grandpa?s house on Thursday. The mechanic had the car running the next day. That cost $500 and all I can figure he did was clean the lifters, free the seized valve stems with WD40, add transmission fluid and replace a headlight. He was all concerned about that headlight. The car did run, as long as I didn?t let it idle, and we brought it back to the house excited. I checked the brakes and front wheel bearings. They were good. The radiator was filled with a thick, dark brown soup, however. I pulled the hoses off, drained it, sprayed it out as best as I could and put cleaner in it.
Lesson 2; Brown soup does not come out of a radiator by just rinsing it out with a hose.
We spent a couple of days visiting friends, taking kids to the zoo, giving grandpa a ride in the old wagon (he did vaguely remember owning a car like it once) and replacing the fuel pump which fortunately died only a couple of miles from Grandpa?s. A very nice Nova coinsure drove us back to the house and was the first of many to offer buying the car. Also while driving the wagon around the area, I noticed it had a tendency to overheat going up hills. In addition, when rounding a sharp corner, I suddenly lost drive power and could only move at a snail?s pace. Rounded another opposite corner and everything was good again so I didn?t worry about it. (Nor did I have time to figure out what it was.)
Lesson 3; Listen to such signs from God.
We decided to leave promptly to allow an extra day to return. I needed to be back by Saturday for work and my father had a flight to catch on Friday. We could not get the rear power window to lower in the wagon so we threw Grandpa?s old air compressor that I wanted, (about 200 lbs.) in the boat. Everything else went behind the back seat in the wagon and we were off. Now, as anyone who has been there knows, Interstate 90 out of Seattle requires crossing a series of mountain passes. Needless to say, on every 2000? climb, I drove slower and slower to try and keep that dreaded temperature light from flickering. We ended up using every rest stop to put fresh water in the radiator. We finally made it as far as Missoula not too long after midnight where my dad had hotel reservations.
In the morning I removed the radiator (I did think to bring a tool box along) and washed it out in the hotel room?s bathtub. It took about an hour but I did a pretty good job. I do not think housekeeping appreciated the bathtub, however. I also went to the local parts shop and replaced the thermostat. I put the thing back together, filled it with water from the hotel?s garden hose and started the car. Water shot out of the thermostat housing. I tightened it.
Lesson 4; Make sure the thermostat is centered in the housing before reassembly.
The housing was now cracked and I spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon searching part stores and junkyards for another one. Unfortunately it is unique to that car so finally a sales clerk at one of the parts stores recommended a product called liquid aluminum, a two part epoxy that you smear over your mistakes to cure the results. It worked great, in fact I am still using the same housing. Now, things are a little fuzzy here but I believe we made it to somewhere outside of West Yellowstone park. The wagon was running pretty well now, except for the noise in the rear getting worse, and having to keep my foot on the gas every time we stopped. We decided to go ahead and take the kids through Yellowstone as we wanted them to enjoy a least some of the trip.
Lesson 5; Don?t push your luck.
We spent most of Wednesday driving through Yellowstone, taking pictures of the buffalo and antelope, watching Old Faithful once and then getting back on I90. There is a shortcut in eastern Montana that cuts off a large section of I90 called hwy 212. It rejoins I90 in South Dakota. We reached this desolate highway after dark but pushed on as time was now running short. At about 2 am, we reached a section of highway under construction. We expect it because we drove this route on the way out. I need to make something clear here; in the state on Montana, when they work on a road they do not waste time doing one lane at a time or putting down something silly as gravel. They completely remove the whole road down to the mud and just keep going over the roughly 20 mile section of ranchland with a grader to smooth it. It just rained and the road was hard to find let alone drive on. Being tired I was still driving about 35 when a rut as deep as Lake Yellowstone loomed up right in front of me. We hit it hard which bottomed out the poor wagon and resulted in a cloud of steam billowing from under the hood and a terrible clackity-clackity-clack from the motor. I pulled off to the side of the mud path and got out with heavy heart. I fearfully opened the hood, afraid to look, and found the fan was bent which resulted in a neat, circular cut in my freshly cleaned radiator. But the oil pan was intact. Meanwhile, my father, miles behind us, found another rut that tore the tire completely off the boat trailer. Mind you we did not have cell phones yet so all he could do was dump the trailer and drive until he caught up to us, which he did rather quickly. Fortunately, we tracked down the man pointlessly running the grader who let us use their phone in the construction trailer. Bell Fourche, 75 miles away, was the closest town with towing service. We called the tow truck, talked to a VERY nice man, and he recommended he collect the car the next morning. We unloaded the back of the Honda into the wagon, piled the four sleepy kids, like puppies, in the Honda?s hatch and drove to Belle Fourche, SD. The kids loved it.
Lesson 6; Short cuts, Short cuts, Short cuts.
Lesson 7; It is better to sleep in the car than drive through rural Montana after midnight.
The next morning, after a good 4-5 hours sleep, we woke with the wagon already at the local mechanic?s shop. My dad purchased a new wheel for the trailer (it had no spare) and drove back to install it. This mechanic found a used radiator at the local junkyard for $50 and cleaned out the carburetor so it actually idled a little. I think the total bill was less than the cost of the 150 mile round trip tow! Dad told us to leave without him while he fixed the boat. So we were back on the road before lunch. Meanwhile, the sound was still getting worse in the back of the car.
Lesson 8; Always have a friendly mechanic investigate such things, even when in a hurry.
At this point we were definitely running out of time, it was Thursday and Dad had to catch his fight the day! So we decide to push on until we reached the safety of home. We made it past the Bad Lands and Wall in good order and in good time. The kids, all of whom were in the wagon, were getting very restless, harassing each other, throwing crayons, tossing toys, yelling, all the things that promote birth control.
Lesson 9; Use birth control.
The noise in the rear of the car was loud, now, and I knew with no uncertainty something was very wrong. Then, in the middle of Nowhere, South Dakota a storm hit that, to this day, I have never experienced the like of outside of a basement. It rained and hailed so hard I could not see the road in front of me. I could barely make out the taillights of the Cadillac five feet off the end of my hood. But I feared if I stopped, I would not start again so I forged on with my knuckles white from clenching the steering wheel. The wind blew so strong I kept the wheel turned nearly sideways to keep the horrible sounding car on the road. By an act of God and many promises of future faithfulness we made it through the storm. The kids loved it.
At this point I decided no further stops were needed, except gas. The pedal went to the floor and we booked it to get away from the dark clouds lingering, pursuing, in the rearview mirror. We made it across the Missouri River and encountered more construction. We had no idea how far behind us my father was. As he is a minister I knew he was in good hands so I did not worry. At the one-mile sign for the Kimball, SD exit, in the middle of one-lane freeway traffic, there was a loud clunk in the back of the car followed by a terrible rubbing sound and immediate loss of power. I pulled over between the orange cones and got out. I found the passenger rear wheel rubbing against the fender.
Lesson 10; Rear axles have bearings to check as well.
The road workers were of no help and so I was forced to flag down a passing state trooper. It worked. My father and a tow truck showed up at the same time. It was late in the afternoon so the driver said he would get to it tomorrow. My father still needed to get home so once again, we loaded the kids in the hatch of the Honda and everything else in the boat or the back of the wagon. He took off and made it back to Dubuque 10 hours later in time to drop off the kids, sleep a little, pack and catch his flight the next afternoon. I asked the old tow truck driver if he thought he could fix something that looked so bad. ?The day I can?t replace an axle on a ole chev? is the day I need to retire,? he replied. I spent the night apologizing to my wife in my room at the local hotel, fortunately Kimball had one.
The next day I woke, stowed my one bag at the front desk, paid the $40 for the room, and went in search of the shop holding my car. I got there to find no one working on it. In fact, it still sat on the flatbed of his truck. The mechanic had retired.
His wife came out of the neighboring house and said his assistant would be down shortly to start working on it. Shortly turned into midmorning before a tall, skinny, blurry eyed, man finally emerged and unloaded my vehicle. He had no trouble finding an axle from a local junkyard but the bearing was a larger issue as, once again, it was unique to that car. The closest bearing was in Omaha and wouldn?t arrive until Monday. I had to be at work the next day or risked loosing my job. I was not going to leave the car there. I paid for the axle, $100 I believe, paid $60 to get a ride to Mitchell where the nearest U-haul dealer was, rented a 25? truck with car trailer, drove back and loaded up the car. The rental was around $500 one way. I then drove the remaining 10 hours home completely ignoring the recommended maximum speed posted everywhere on the truck and trailer. It took blaring old country songs bemoaning the cowboy?s miserable life to keep my spirits up, but I made it.
The next day I feared the worst from my wife for this trip ended up costing around $2000. But she found me so dejected and the story so funny she said it was worth the money just so she could make me retell it. Yes, I still have the car.
Final lesson; Listen to my wife.
