Day 1, September 18, 2014, Albuquerque to Hugoton, KS

Hello friends:

Ken Murphy and Bill Sullivan get loaded and locked.

This is a short blog to document our progress driving a 1937 LaSalle from Albuquerque to Defiance, OH for the AAA Glidden Tour.  Glidden Tours are a long touring tradition for pre-war cars.  This is the 69th consecutive Glidden tour, check here for some Glidden Tour History.

This year's tour is centered around Defiance, Ohio.  This is a small town about 1450 miles from Albuquerque.  I am driving this tour with Ken Murphy,  an old friend and antique car enthusiast from New Mexico.

We have a relatively unproven car for this tour.  It is a lovely 1937 LaSalle convertible coupe that I have been working on for about 15 years.  She has been off the road since about 1963.  She has been mechanically and cosmetically rebuilt since I acquired her in 1998.  This is an amateur restoration, but I received plenty of help from friends and experts around Albuquerque.  The car is fairly up to date, with a big 346 cubic inch flathead V8 engine and decent hydraulic brakes.  We drive her around 60 mph or less.  She can go much faster, but we don't like to stress that old metal any more than necessary.



Yes, folks, some of Kansas is definitely on the flat side.

As I said, the LaSalle has been off the road since 1963.  We did drive the car a few weeks ago from Albuquerque to Fort Collins, CO for a regional tour.  This 1400 mile trip had a few problems.  But I felt the car was ready to make this much longer trip to Ohio.  Time will tell.

We left about 10 AM from Ken's house headed NE to Clayton, NM, the Oklahoma panhandle and finally to Hugoton, KS.  This was a great cruise for us, there were absolutely no problems today.  Of course, the LaSalle guzzled about 11 mpg.  We managed 392 miles, not bad for an opening day.  Only a bit over a thousand miles left to Defiance. 

At dusk, we found a nice clean mom and pop hotel in Hugoton and a good restaurant.  So that's all for today.  I will try to blog a bit each day, so keep tuned.  Meanwhile, have a great day and we will try to do the same.

Bill from Hugoton, KS.

Day 2, September 19, 2014, Manhattan, KS

We spend a lot of time at gas stations on this tour. 
LaSalle tank only holds 15 gallons, give or take a few.

Touring is not just about getting there.  It's about what you see and who you meet on the way.  Today ended up being a winner for us even though we were a bit shy on miles under the (running) boards.  We only managed about 350 miles but that was enough to deliver us to Ken's home town of Manhattan, KS.

We started our day at a local breakfast nook in Hugoton, Jesse's Drive In.  Jesse's didn't even look like an open restaurant.  But all the pickups parked outside gave it away.  Inside, it was full of locals in bib overalls gabbing over coffee and enjoying breakfast.  We ordered a delicious and reasonably priced breakfast with the LaSalle parked outside.  As we enjoyed our meal, a local strode in asking who owned the LaSalle.  It turned out it was Greg Morris, a local car collector who offered to show us his car collection.  He had an Auburn plus a very unusual collection of 1932 Fords.  Naturally, we took him up.

Greg and his wife Sherry have a lovely home with a detached old style garage and gas station.  The

Greg and Sherry Morris' home gas station and garage

garage and station were architecturally beautiful.  Inside, we found several rare prewar Ford V-8's.  Most were modified with unusual period hot rod accessories, including cylinder heads from Ardun, Frontenac and Rajo.  All were beautifully prepped and preserved.  These cars are definitely driven, though Greg expressed his amazement that we were driving the LaSalle to Ohio. The cars were treat enough.  But the garage also included eyefuls of collectable memorabilia hung from every nook and cranny.  It was hard to absorb it all.

Sherry then invited us to visit her mother's former home right near the hotel.  We had seen this house the day before and noted how elegant it looked.  Inside, it was full of antiques and original features.  This home, built in 1928 was a time capsule.  The only significant update to the structure was to the kitchen.  Everything else was left as it was originally -- all in nearly perfect original condition. All this was so interesting, but finally we had to break it off and continue our road trip.  The diversion cost us a couple of hours, but it was definitely worth it.

Inside, Greg showed us lots of 32 Fords, including this Phaeton

Down the road to Manhattan, we turned off the navigator because Ken knows the area well.  We passed through Satanta, Sublette, Dodge, McPherson, and dozens of other grain elevator towns.  The LaSalle drove us elegantly and smoothly through all of them, only requiring generous donations of gasoline.  Fortunately, the price of gas here was reasonable, usually under $3.10 per gallon.

We finally rolled into Manhattan at dusk.  We checked in downtown in a luxurious Hilton Garden Inn and met with Ken's brother Jim and his wife Rosie.   Had a great meal and talked old times until 10 PM.

So, we are now tired and ready to get an early start tomorrow.  Good thing too, we really need to rack up a good 500 miles tomorrow if we want to get to the Glidden on time......

Bill, Manhattan, KS.     

Day 3, September 20 2014, Decatur, IL

Rosie and Jim Murphy, Ken's sister in law and brother,
were our hosts in downtown Manhattan KS.

Today:  long distance but short blog. 

We did manage to make 498 miles,  our biggest stretch on this tour.  Unfortunately, to do it, we had to leave Manhattan by 8AM and keep all breaks and car guy visits to a minimum.  Still, the last hour of our drive was in the dark with a touch of drizzle.  These conditions were tolerable on I-72 approaching Decatur.  But eventually the spray from trucks and our feeble lights and wipers made it just too dangerous to continue.   We are actually in the town of Forsyth, a northern suburb of Decatur.  Something was going on here because most of the many big box hotels here were full.  Very helpful folks at the Quality Inn called around and managed to find us rooms at the Baymont Inn a few blocks away.

From Manhattan we proceeded on Kansas route 9 meandering north and east heading for US 36.  9 was a beautiful rural road with rolling hills through lush farmland.  No big towns, but lots of small ones with plenty of antiques and old storefronts to enjoy.  Unfortunately, we made a bonehead

When you see a "Road Closed" sign, better not ignore it!

mistake by not noticing a fairly large "road closed ahead" sign.  Yes, the road was indeed closed (bridge out) and we had to backtrack for four or five miles to an alternative route.  But eventually we made it to US 36. This old style four-lane federal highway took us rapidly  to Hannibal MO, home of Mark Twain.  We drove through Hannibal, but there was no time for serious sightseeing,  We did get a great sit down late afternoon lunch at the Mark Twain Café.  Great food, reasonable prices. Try it!

US 36 crosses the enormous Mississippi just past Hannibal and soon morphs into I-72.  Traffic was light on the interstate, so we stuck with it. The good condition of US 36 and I-72 enabled us to keep rolling at around 60 mph.

The old LaSalle is doing really well.  I had to add a quart of oil in Manhattan, but oil consumption is

Ken takes a break from driving in
Hannibal, MO, home of Mark Twain

moderate for an old car, about a quart every 700 miles.  The engine heats up a bit at slow idle but quickly cools off once it gets rolling.  The extreme tire wear we saw on our Fort Collins trip was completely corrected by wheel alignment:  the new tires on the car now show very little wear since we left Albuquerque. 

This car is a pleasure to drive.  It is smooth, quiet and powerful.  Eats up hills, no problem at all.  It starts readily as long as you remember to not give it ANY gas during cranking.  It has a clicking valve lifter when the engine gets warm.  This really can't be corrected without replacing the lifter, a fairly difficult job.  But the clicking should do no harm and we are just ignoring it. 

The LaSalle generates enormous attention.  Even very young people who have never seen such a conveyance are astonished and gawk at its incredible lines.  Older folks head right for it with questions and curiosity.  Car guys stop and want us to visit their nearby projects.  I have driven so many old cars, but none of them generate the buzz this one does.  It is really a delight to put it on the road, a rolling piece of history.  It's hard to imagine it has been quietly resting and hidden from view for more than 50 years.

Gas consumption?  Well, that sure could be better.  Seems to bounce around 10 to 12 MPG.

Good night and good day,
Bill.
    

Day 4: September 21, 2014, Defiance, OH

Our last day was just a bit longer than we would have liked, about 350 miles.  We stayed on I-72 heading east from Decatur, joining I-57 heading NE towards Chicago.  Our goal was to exit to US 24 and roll due east through Fort Wayne and finally Defiance.  Good plan, except we were gabbing away and sailed right past the exit to US 24.  We didn't notice the error until we practically saw the Chicago skyline in our windshield.  Turning back wasn't a good option.  Instead, we navigated through a maze of secondary roads through Indiana heading SE to return us to US 24.  It all took about an extra hour.  After that, we unmuted the Garmin and decided to actually listen to it.  No more mistakes after that.

Getting ready to bend over, dive in and tighten the fan belt.

BREAKDOWN!  Not really, but the fan belt on the LaSalle had gotten seriously slack since its tensioning bolt came loose.  It took a while to scout up enough tools to rectify it.  The engine was cool and this made the repair fairly easy.  Back on the road in about a half hour.

We arrived in Defiance just in time for the opening banquet.  Great food and about 400 people gathered for dinner.  I found many old friends here and lots of fine cars, but it was dusk and poor light for photography.  I'll snap more tomorrow.

This blog will go on hiatus for the next few days.  It's just too hard to write during the tour.  I will post some updates when I get the chance.

See ya!
Bill.

Day 5: September 27, 2014, The trip home, North Vernon, IN

Howdy bloggerheads!

The 2014 AAA Glidden Tour is over and we are on our way back to Albuquerque.  Can't say enough about the Glidden.  The Ohio group organized a simply fabulous five day tour.  Day after day they produced fascinating destinations, great food, and endless rural roads.  It was quite a thrill driving through this countryside with 200 other old cars and 400 participants.  That sounds large, but most of the time there were just a handful of old cars in sight.  But when they gathered at the various stops, all could see the enormity of the event.  If you like old cars, don't miss one of these Glidden tours.  Check out just a few of the pictures at 2014 AAA Glidden Tour in Defiance, OH.

The old LaSalle really did run great throughout this tour.  We managed to accumulate about 500 more miles driving around Defiance and Fort Wayne, IN.  No real problems surfaced.  Oil consumption is about a quart every 500 miles, a bit more than I would like.  But she runs cool and continues to drive almost like a modern car.  She received lots of attention on this tour, old car enthusiasts recognize and appreciate the rarity of these cars.

One of the many unusual aircraft at the Air Force Museum

But all good tours eventually must end and this one did after the banquet last night.  We decided to head a bit south Saturday on the way home -- stopping at Dayton, OH to visit my nephew Tom, Jr and the Air Force Museum.  We spent a few hours visiting and talking.  The Air Force Museum is a do not miss attraction -- that I have managed to miss for years.  The only problem is you need lots more than a couple of hours to see this place. 

But time is of the essence.  We took off around 4PM headed SW toward Cincinnati on I-75.  Construction on I-75 reduced travel to two very much underwidth lanes.  Keeping the LaSalle separated from all the trucks on this narrow passage was difficult and tiring.  We finally navigated to SW Cincinatti onto US 50, one of my favorite cross country roads.  US 50 was pleasant to drive but definitely short of hotels and food.  We used our GPS to find a well hidden Comfort Inn in tiny North Vernon, IN.  It was just what we needed.  We were off the road shortly after a nice Mexican dinner at a restaurant next door.  We only managed 220 miles this day.  Not much, but still not bad for our first day returning to the road.

Day 6, September 28, 2014 Jefferson City, MO

This day did not start well for me.  A cold and congestion I have been nursing flared up in the middle of the night.  Aching and coughing kept me from getting much sleep.  Fortunately, by morning the aches had subsided enough to let me crawl into the car and move on.  Ken did most of the driving today and we managed to get in a solid 450 miles.

The LaSalle was also cranky this morning.  The engine started to surge and stumble occasionally.  It persisted for 10 miles or more.  We noticed a marked increase in our already very high fuel consumption:  About a half tank disappeared in less than 50 miles.  At the gas station it was obvious that the carburetor float was stuck and the carburetor was belching out excess fuel.  After we shut the engine the float unstuck and the carb stopped leaking.  The problem did not return and the car ran smoothly going forward. We hope it stays that way.

Virtually all of our travel was on US 50.  It is quite a fine road, only lacking decent shoulders in some of its rural sections.  Much is four lane and traffic very light.  The major tension involved circumventing St. Louis.  US 50 morphs to I 255 to form a beltway of sorts.  This kept us well south of the city.  But we did manage to get close enough to see the famous arch from several miles away.  We crossed the Mississippi in the early afternoon.  This marked our own return to the west.

LaSalle approaches a Mississippi crossing on US 50

We ended our day at dusk in Jefferson City MO, finding a nice Quality Inn in the box hotel section of town.  Here we switched to US 54, another US highway that will  take us along the Lake of the Ozarks and vector us well south of Kansas City.  The only major city we need to pass between now and home is Wichita, KS.  We find avoiding big cities like St. Louis or Kansas City is important.  They are just plain difficult to negotiate with the LaSalle.  It's a big car with small windows, no turn signals, and very, very small taillights.  Not a very healthy combination in modern city traffic.

Time to turn in, we hope for an early start tomorrow....

Day 7, September 29, 2014 Edorado, KS

Faulty coil wire?  Perhaps.  Bill holds the guilty component

It was a good day just not a great one.  We started early but the LaSalle refused to.  Although it ran perfectly the night before, in the morning she just plain refused to start.  Lots of rurr-rurr-rurr but no pops at all. 

I quickly determined the distributor was producing little or no spark.  I tried several things, like  scraping and adjusting the points, tightening electrical connections, and swapping coils with a spare I was carrying.  Nothing made any difference.  After wasting an hour or so with this, I noticed that the high voltage wire from the coil to the distributor looked rather scruffy.  It is one of the few original parts on the ignition system,  I should have renewed it long ago.  I measure its resistance, it was very high, off scale.  Jay, a helpful resident of Estes Park who was staying at the hotel volunteered to give me a lift to O'Reilly's to get a new one.  They had a new coil wire that fit.  They also had a condenser I didn't think our condenser was bad, but we bought the spare anyway, just in case.  They had none of the other ignition parts in stock or I would have bought them all.  Fortunately, the new wire did the trick.  LaSalle finally started and we were off about three hours late.

Our troubles were not completely over.  The engine ran fine except intermittently it would surge uncomfortably if we drove over 55 MPH.  I believe this is a problem the dwell adjustment on the points.  It is not easy adjust the points on the roadside with a blistering hot engine.  I made one attempt to fine tune the points. It improved it, but it was still not quite right.  Tomorrow, when the engine cools, I will take a crack at fixing it properly.  Meanwhile, if we have to, we can drive the car just fine at 55.

Meanwhile, back on the road:  US 54 proved to be a very good choice.  This well paved and generously sized road winds through the Ozark mountains and the Lake of the Ozarks.  Lots of tourist stops here.  The lake is quite beautiful.  It would be fun to explore it by boat.  You only get a few picturesque snippets from this road.  Best of all, this route avoided all the major cities in Kansas and Missouri. 

We cruised into Kansas finally but we'd lost too much time to make up.  We quit at a clean Super 8 at dusk, covering only about 300 miles..... Looks like we won't be home until Wednesday.

Day 8: September 30, 2014 Clayton New Mexico

We cruised back into our home state of New Mexico at around 5 PM today.  It was a much better than average day.  We made about 410 miles, traveling mostly on US 54 and US 56 along Kansas and the Oklahoma panhandle. 

I got up early to attend to the LaSalle's distributor.  I decided the surging problem was likely the dwell setting on the points.  I closed the points ever so slightly, increasing the dwell angle from 31 to about 36 degrees.  How do I know?  I did pack a dwell meter, an old school electrical gadget that deduces the dwell angle from ignition pulses.  It easily measures very small changes in dwell.  Amazingly enough, this small change did the trick, the car ran smoothly all day.  This fits with my experience with Cadillac flatheads -- they are very, very sensitive to point setting,

The Super 8 in Eldorado was packed with workers gathering to overhaul some sort of local refinery.  One resident pointed out that the LaSalle attracted quite a crowd of curious car guys the night before. He researched the car on the internet and noted how rare and unusual these cars are.  Yes, they are, I have only seen a few of these convertibles anywhere on-line or off.



Top view of LaSalle.  Quite a shape

We managed to get on the road around 8:30.  Route 54 merged with US 400.  This produced a much improved four lane road.  Very smooth and wide, we easily maintained 60 mph most of the time.  As we proceeded, Kansas got flatter and flatter.  Winds were brisk and buffeted the LaSalle.  Before long we made it to Dodge City.  There, we switched to US 56.  This road was much narrower and rougher.  This lowered our speed a bit but traffic was light and we kept moving.  We got to Clayton around 6:30 local time.  We had more daylight but since the next town (Springer) was 80 miles away, we decided to stop for the day.

Hotels in Clayton are not plentiful, but we did find a clean looking, cheap Super 8.  It was full.  We opted for a much more expensive Best Western.  This hotel was very well maintained.  We were off to dinner at a local steak house and ready for bed early.  Our last day is ahead, just 270 miles to Albuquerque!

Day 9: October 1, 2014 Home at Last!

Here is Bill and LaSalle, finally back in New Mexico

With only 270 miles between Clayton and home, Ken and I expected a very easy cruise home.  Not so!

While driving US 56 between Clayton and Springer, a bouncy section of road seemed to cause resurgence of the surge we had a couple of days before.  I decided this was a continuing problem with the points, since a small adjustment usually cleared it up.  Or perhaps the points are just too warn to be stable?  Who knows?  We decided to just motor on anyway since adjusting the points on a hot engine is not much fun. The surge was annoying but we still were able to keep the LaSalle climbing the gentle hills around Springer.  Lowering our speed to about 55 also reduced the phenom so we stuck with that.

Lots of bugs and a few paint chips

Just outside Springer I noticed another problem:  our generator, which had so dutifully supplied lots of amps for day after day and mile after mile, suddenly stopped working.  I thought we could make it to Albuquerque running off the battery, but couldn't be sure.  Our electric fuel pump draws 5 amps or more and would eventually draw down the battery. Ken said he needed a new 6V battery for one of his cars and offered to buy a spare for us to carry.  Ken was amazed to find that a very small Car Quest retailer in Springer had a new 6V battery in stock.  We found a place to stow it on the front floor.  Off we went with just a bit less leg room.  In the end, it was not needed.  We managed to get all the way home on our original battery.

Total miles traveled?  According to the odometer, we went 3724 miles.  Clearly the LaSalle needs a bit more work to serve as a reliable touring car.  But I think she did rather well in her first outing on the road since 1963.   This car is incredibly comfortable and capable.  It is so smooth and quiet, we often felt we were traveling in a modern car.  She sure gets lots of attention.  It is still a very stylish car appreciated by young and old.  I can't wait to clean off all those bugs, make a few repairs, and try another road trip soon.

Meanwhile, we are both delighted to be off the road and back home with our families.