{"id":46,"date":"2008-09-21T11:11:50","date_gmt":"2008-09-21T16:11:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/daveorhelen.com\/?p=46"},"modified":"2008-09-21T12:51:16","modified_gmt":"2008-09-21T17:51:16","slug":"here-we-go3-days-and-were-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/daveorhelen.com\/?p=46","title":{"rendered":"Here we go…3 days and we’re off"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>Run a business or have a career in addition to being a husband, wife, father, mother, grandfather or\u00a0grandmother then\u00a0try to get a 35 year old car ready for a cross country trip. What else could we have to do you ask?\u00a0Well, deal with a hurricane of course!<\/p>\n

We’re all alive and well. We’ll have a new roof on the house. The only question is who will be writing the check, us or the insurance company. We’re still on for the rally, much to the surprise of the hosts.<\/p>\n

Dave\u00a0has been working late nights to get the 6 ready. The departure time is here; she’s as ready as she’s going to be. We leave in 3 days. A few swipes with the wax rag,\u00a0a bit of chrome cleaner, and we’ll be off. Anything else on the “to do” list will just have to be ok.<\/p>\n

The rear bar was installed in the past few days. Look close at the pictures. If you see the skin from Dave’s right hand please let him know, he’d like to have it back.<\/p>\n

\"TR6<\/p>\n

\"TR6<\/p>\n

Dave has also\u00a0replaced the rear brake shoes, wheel cylinders, adjusters, wiper blades, door seals, radio, etc, etc. As we were getting ready for a test drive he was checking the systems under the hood and discovered a very small crack in the steering coupling.\u00a0Breaking down the steering column and fitting a replacement wasn’t high on his list of things he was hoping he could do. Considering the repercussions of a catastrophic failure Dave started the tear-down process. Here is what the coupling looks like:<\/p>\n

\"TR6<\/p>\n

This part connects the steering wheel and upper steering column\u00a0to the lower steering column and the steering rack. With a bit of sarcasm Dave said, “its pretty important that it works.” Here is what happened to the coupling once the bolts were removed.<\/p>\n

\"Broken<\/p>\n

Pretty scary if you consider that we were going to try to drive mountain roads! God is indeed on our side, Dave had a new coupling in his spare parts box. A couple of hours,\u00a0a few layers of skin off the knuckles, and Dave instructing the coupling to do some things we’re not sure are anatomically possible and\u00a0\u00a0the new one is in place.<\/p>\n

There has been a few interesting last minute entries in the rally. We now have drivers from as far away as Cologne Germany, Atlanta, and Sugar Land of course. The list of vintage British cars is very impressive and includes\u00a0a 1936 Bentley, 1949 Bentley, 60’s & 70’s MG’s, a beautiful 1959 Austin Healey 3000 (see picture), and a couple of TR6’s. There is even going to be a one of the new Smart Cars from the local Mercedes dealer. Yes we know its not British but the dealer wrote a\u00a0big sponsorship check which is what this is all about, so we’re going to make it drive at the back of the pack, and get this, we told them they HAD to install an MG name badge on it to make it legal\u00a0and they did … too funny.<\/p>\n

\"Austin<\/p>\n

\"Healey<\/p>\n

Right now the weather looks great. We’re expecting sunshine with daytime highs in the low 80’s with evenings in the low 60’s. Perfect weather for an old English sports car!<\/p>\n

Here is\u00a0our schedule this week:<\/p>\n