So for any of you who have been following my adventures here is the latest installment.
I flew out Sunday night to Florida and landed at Orlando airport at 11:00PM. I was met by one of my customers who winters in Titusville.
It was absolutely miserable here when I left, raining heavily and very cold and gray. I walked out of the terminal in Florida and was met by a very warm breeze which was gently swaying the palm trees. What a change.
Anyway I spent the night with my friends and we set off the next day for Tampa on a mission to get a car part and visit some forum members. Well that didn't happen, the seller called and said the car was ready. So we diverted straight to the car.
A couple of hours later after all the paperwork was done and I had a Fl temp tag I was set to head north again. let me tell you I didn't really want to go. It was a beautiful there, 84F and sunny.
Here is the car at the sellers lot.
I had to set off right away for the place that I was getting the other car part from and skip visiting the forum members as it was getting late in the day. Once I got the part it was starting to get dark so i just set out for home.
I just kept driving to see how far I could get that day. I initially wanted to get at least halfway home (700 miles). I did manage to get that far after a layover in West Virginia due to fog in the mountains.
After a 2 hour nap it was light again and I could see to drive. This was 7:30 am Tuesday and my goal was to make it across the border before the 4:00PM deadline for clearing through US customs.
The car decided that it didn't want to leave the gold old USA so soon and started giving me trouble. The fuel system was causing the difficulty. I could accerate up to highway speed but if I had to climb a hill or press down on the pedal the car started chugging and would stall if I really pressed down on the pedal. Of course it waited until I was in the mountains to do this. I tried several places to have it look at to no avail.
Eventually my window of reaching the border in time closed and I called on some forum friends for assistance.
Once again Frank (62overlander) came to my aid. I gave him a call and I knew that I wasn't to far away from Acefly's place near Pittsburgh. Frank called Ace and he agreed to help me out. What should have been a 4 hr trip from West Va to PA took nearly 7.5 hrs but I did make it.
Ace & I (mostly Ace) changed out the fuel filter and the fule pump. I did help a little by holding the light and the new pump in place. Many many thanks to Ace for all his great help. He also offerd up his couch for the night and fed me supper. I wasn't the best company because i hadn't slept more than 2 hrs in the last 24. Sorry Ace for being such a bad guest. I'll try better next time.
8:00AM Wednesday morn I set out again and nearly made it to Erie PA before the car started again. It wasn't as bad and the hills wern't as steep so I did make it to outside Buffalo by noon. I stopped for lunch and one of my many fuel stops. Oh yeah I forgot to mention that the fuel guage is not working so I had to guess how far i could go before running out of gas. The car has a 22 gal tank and at 10MPG I probably could safely go 200 miles between fill ups.I filled up every 150 miles to be safe.
After that the car finally decided that it's fate was to end up in the great white north and gave me no more resistance coming home.
The border was quiet and all went well with both US and Canadian customs. After parting with several more dollars with Canadian customs for Federal tax I was on my way her on home soil.
I arrived home safe and sound around 4:30PM yesterday.
Her she is in her new home.
Now she needs to get fixed and tinkered with to make it a reliable and safe TV. She will get a tune up and a new rad and whatever else this old girl needs to make her happy.