[urq] Dinner with Eric and his '86

[racingiron at comcast.net]

Hi Folks,

We had no internet connection until arriving at Elizabeth's parents' house in Mufreesboro, TN (near Nashville).  Quite an aventure...  I'll post up a full narrative in due time.  It was great seeing all the guys in Denver.  Thanks for the comraderie and break from the road.

Here are some quick notes:  The car was covered with snow on Wednesday morning in Castle Rock, but the car started OK with full throttle.  We tiptoed up to Denver and I70 East.  Somewhere in Kansas, I think the thermostat got stuck open because the heater became barely adequate.  It was in the teens or lower in Missouri Thursday.  Took quite a bit of cranking, but she fired up.  Along the interstate I noticed a thick blue cloud whenever I closed the throttle.  I pulled over and saw that oil had been seeping from the dipstick hole and oil cap.  The level was about a quart low, so I filled it up.  No more visible smoke!  Well, not until the oil level got low again.  I'm hoping this is just a breather issue, but I can't figure out why it only smokes when low.  Is this an engineered behavior to warn the driver?  :^)

We got into Illinios and the roads became covered with ice and snow.  We crawled into KY where it got worse.  The worn SP9000s were a handful, but at least the diff locks worked.  We had barely made it into TN about 10:30pm when the Interstate just stopped... Five hours later, we were crawling again.  We rolled in here at 6am this morning.

Another unforgettable experience!  We're headed for Chattanooga and a warm garage with a cozy lift right now.  I'll post up the rest of the pictures and the full story when I get a few more days of sleep.

Eric Renneisen
'86 urq