Ghetto Road Trip

bronson — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 01:33:00 -0700

I rejoiced when I heard that, thanks to government inaction, Cassie would be able to join the cross-country trip.

Update: Cassie wrote her version of the story here.

The need: get our junk back to California
The car: Spike, a 1990 Range Rover
The date: Monday, 19 June 2006
The deadline: Colby and Sizhen’s wedding, 11 AM Saturday

This car is beat. It’s got 360,000 miles on the clock, the A/C doesn’t work, the radio was destroyed by the blown heater core, and it has a chronic rod knock that, like high blood pressure, might cause instant death tomorrow or might last another 10 years. It’s rough but it runs.

I originally wanted to leave at noon but packing took tons of time and setting up a car computer for in-flight entertainment sure didn’t help. We left at 5pm on Monday, just in time for rush hour traffic. Oops.

We kept the motor humming and made good time for the entire first day. At 3:30 PM on Tuesday, however, as we climbed toward Omaha, the engine started overheating. I tried the usual tricks (check coolant level & pressure, look for water in the oil, etc) but didn’t find anything. Then it started backfiring. I didn’t have the tools to diagnose further so we limped back to the last town we passed through, Stuart, Iowa, and found a garage. By then it was 6 PM so we were done for the night.

At 6 AM on Wednesday morning I limped to the garage with a car that could just barely muster enough power to cross the highway overpass. The mechanic immediately discovered that the timing was over 9° retarded and figured that the timing chain had jumped a tooth He twisted the distribuor, re-timed, and the Rover was back to its normal underpowered self. If it can go 2000 miles without jumping another tooth, we can still make it. If it jumps again, we’re stuck because the distributor was twisted to its limit. That’s a chance I’m willing to take.

I triumphantly drove back to the motel, collected Cassie and our gear, and by 8 AM we were heading West at again. About 30 miles later it felt like we were low on power. We turned around and, sure enough, the car started overheating and backfiring again. Doing 20 MPH along the shoulder, we got back to the garage at 10:30 AM.

We spent all morning calling around looking for a 1990 Range Rover timing chain. If we found one in the area, we could have the garage install it that afternoon and be back on the road that evening. Find an obsolete British part in the middle of the heartland? Bollocks. At best I could mail order one overnight it to Stuart, have in installed on Thursday, and be back on the road some time Thursday afternoon or evening. In theory. That would leave 36 hours to cover 1800 miles, totally possible but leaving no margin for error. What if something else went wrong? What if it isn’t actually the timing chain? The chance of successful repair was starting to look dim…

Across the street a used car dealership had no pickup trucks for less than $5000 but they did have a rusty, lifted 1993 Bronco. Cassie and I had a fine lunch at the Lincoln Lounge while we tried to figure out what to do. U-Haul would cost $1800 for the truck and $300 for the transporter. A rental truck would be $2400 plus dolly. Flying back and sending the Rover by auto transport would be $1400 plus air fare. Suddenly the sun disappeared and a freak thunderstorm smashed Stuart with torrential hail for 20 minutes. We decided to buy the Bronco, tow the Rover, and then sell the Bronco in CA. The sun came out, I talked the guy down to $2800, put the Bronco on the red-hot Visa card, and by 8 PM this freight train was rolling again.

A 1993 Bronco towing a 1990 Range Rover on a car dolly. Could this trip get any more ghetto?

The rest of the trip slid by in style. She’s big, she’s bad, so Cassie christened her Bessie. Bessie has one of the best A/C systems I have ever seen. Even in the middle of the Utah desert she has the ability to make the cabin uncomfortably cold in minutes. It’s true, when you first turn on the fan trail dust blows out the vents but you get used to it. Just pretend like you’re offroading in the mountains.

We kept the wheels rolling non-stop except for for gas breaks and a little volleyball peppering. The sun rose while we were still in Nebraska, set as we entered Nevada, then rose again right as we reached my brother’s place in Davis. It was 6 AM Friday morning. The trip was over and, despite the problems, Sizhen’s wedding was still 30 hours away. Mission accomplished.

I replaced the Rover’s timing chain a few days later and yet the problem persists. So I’m still driving Bessie as I try to locate a working distributor for less than $900… Freakin’ British cars. If we’d tried to replace the timing chain in Iowa, we almost certainly would have missed Sizhen’s wedding.

It will be hard to sell Bessie once I’m done with her… Her throaty flowmaster, her “get outta my way” stance, her bodacious mudders, her convertible top… If you ignore the rust, she’s one hot truck. But I only have room in my life for one gas guzzler and, despite all this, I think the Rover still has some life left in it. We’ll see.

The best part of the trip was spending a lot of time with Cassie in an uncertain, stressful situation. I admire that girl more each year. She was afraid of driving the Bronco+Dolly+Rover trainwreck and yet, when I could go no further, she drove through most of Nevada, hills and night and everything.

The second best part of the trip was finding $5.00 flip flops at a Nebraska K-Mart. Best flip flops I’ve ever owned. It wasn’t a real pleasant trip.

Shed Your Head: Ghetto Road Trip

Ghetto Road Trip