Thanks to all who had anything to do with this trip, but especially to Carlos for opening his hometown and the car-guy wonderland that is the Pisgah Forest. As everybody has alluded - this is a pretty serious driver's weekend, with some of the best roads east of the Mississippi (maybe anywhere). The roads are Speedster/Spyder sized, and while other cars are welcome, the thing is best experienced in a dialed in clown car operating at 8 or 9/10ths. I could drive The Rattler every day of the rest of my life and never get tired of it.
As this was the 3rd or 4th time we've done this, and as Jeanie has gamely come along for at least one ride every time (even though she doesn't like spirited driving), she requested ahead of time that we make an actual vacation of it and head down to Charleston and Savannah after the party broke up on Sunday AM. I booked the AirBnBs for little downtown inns.
We decided to leave the limo and trailer up in Brevard with Carlos (thanks @Carlos G!) and drive the speedster down to the coast since we'd be staying in the interiors of old cities not set up for 40+ ft of rig. We left Brevard in the speedster with the top up due to the predicted rain, but put it down by the time we got very far on I26E. Every interstate highway in America has it's own "feel" and I figured out pretty quickly that I26 is about 1-2 lanes too narrow and traffic is heavy and fast the all the way through NC and SC. We both pretty much hate driving with the top up, and the car likes cruising open much better. The added visibility was almost a requirement on this highway.
I woke up on Sunday with a toothache and an aching back, and by Spartanburg I was hurting pretty badly. Somewhere between Spartanburg and Columbia, my oil light came on and my tach started jumping around. I knew I had good oil pressure because I've got a gauge, but I immediately pulled off on the shoulder with extremely busy (and fast) traffic whizzing around me and shut off the car, mostly out of habit.
I assessed the situation and hoped to get a little further down the road to get a bit further off the road. I tried to restart the car, but was dead in the water. The engine cranked over for about 10 seconds before I gave up - I knew it wasn't going to restart and I didn't want to drain the battery. I sat in the car - tooth throbbing, back hurting, and traffic buzzing my door. I asked the Lord to help me find the issue quickly.
I suspected a ground problem, since I knew I had oil pressure but the tach was bouncing and the oil light was on. I hobbled out of the car carefully and went to the back. I gingerly opened the decklid and looked straight at the coil mounted upside down on the shroud. I felt underneath the coil and came up with a broken ground wire in roughly 3 seconds. The coil had slipped down in the clamp and rested on the hex bar, where the wire had work-hardened and broken off cleanly at the ring terminal. I went to the front of the car, got out the tool bag and the parts bag labeled "wiring", found a new ring terminal, stripped the broken wire back, and crimped on a new terminal. I replaced the wire on the coil, went around and started the car before it completed 1/2 revolution on the crank.
I zip-tyed the coil so it wouldn't slip down again and put everything back together. We were back on the way in less than 5 minutes. We drove on the Spartanburg, where we ate lunch and got some toothache gel. Traffic started thinning out and we rolled into Charleston by 5:00 and got settled into the Inn. I slept like a baby that night and woke up yesterday morning with the toothache gone and my back feeling better. We had a great day exploring downtown.
The moral of the boring story? You don't need to be a mechanic to own one of these cars, but it's important to understand how they work and what might go wrong. Prayer helps. It's been a long time since a "real" car required this and a lot of guys just can't deal with the uncertainty of it, and deem this sort of thing "unreliability".
It's not. My car is dead-nuts reliable, as long as I think about what is happening and what it's trying to tell me. Carrying sensible spares and tools to make simple repairs is something all automobiles used to require and these cars still do (regardless of what kind of engine is behind the seats). Traveling like this gives the entire thing a feel of a little bit of adventure.
You either like that or you don't.
I do.
)
