JR's Korner of BillyBob's Garage

WHAT'S NEW is a chronological listing of updates to the BillyBob site.

TRUCK LINKS including vendor sites for old parts, custom parts, and tools as well as sites for classic car and truck organizations

STORE Operating in association with Amazon.com, books, recordings and tools can be purchased.

PLANNING for the restoration including project schedule and cost estimates.

TRAVELS WITH BILLYBOB With apologies to Steinbeck, this area of BillyBob's Garage will be used to log the trips BillyBob and I make together.

WORK-IN-PROGRESS is the restoration of parts of BillyBob that I can accomplish without a garage.

PRE-RESTORATION includes log entries of minor repairs and adventures between time of purchase and the time when I started restoration, a piece at a time.

JR'S KORNER JR's Korner is the history of BillyBob before I got him authored by my brother, Wm. C. Kephart.

BILLYBOB MAINTENANCE Ever changing detailing, oil change, lube, etc. maintenance routines specifically developed for BillyBob, including required tools, materials and procedures.

PARTS SHOP The Parts Shop is a repository of How-To articles. Things that I have done over and over enough times to have developed a procedure. This gives me a checklist and saves brain cells.

STEALTH SHOP Urban residence design with large integrated shop and separate living quarters for a relative or renter.

17. Turnpike Blues

It was a sunny, early June morning about 7:00 am and I was standing outside the service entrance at a Chrysler dealer waiting on a ride. Yes, it was that time to pay homage to the Pennsylvania auto safety and pollution inspection conspiracy. My other car, a Chrysler turbo Lazer was due for inspection and this dealer had a slot in the door so you could drop off your keys in a convenient envelope/form when no one was there. The form part was intended to tell the shop what needed to be done and, so they wouldn’t or couldn’t be accused of doing unauthorized work, the form was quite comprehensive. In fact, it had more blocks on it than the Federal Income tax long form with attachments. I carefully and diligently filled out the form wondering why they would need my social security number to do auto repairs. I used my brother’s number.

I parked the Lazer in a conspicuous place-directly in front of the main garage door and dropped the envelope containing my keys in the slot. A short time later, Mark Bloom came bombing into the parking lot and skidded to a stop. Mark, a natural born space agent, was known for his unique driving style. I recall he was once cautioned against procreating to which he responded that it wouldn’t be a problem as he was the only one of his species on this planet. The plan was for Mark to drive back to my place and if I survived the trip I would get in the truck and to go to a vendor seminar. Later in the day Mark would pick me up and drop me at the dealer to retrieve my Lazer which, hopefully, would sport a new inspection sticker. The distance from my house to the dealer was twenty-five miles to the east. The vendor seminar was at a hotel eighteen miles to the west of my house. The seminar was scheduled for 9:00am so I had plenty of time. That was the plan.

Mark managed to get me to my house in one piece even though my blood pressure spiked and my skin became pale. Something was nagging at me as he drove me home that helped to keep my mind off the countless close calls. As I got out of Mark’s car and noted that the time was about 7:45, I became aware why I was preoccupied during the trip. I had failed to put the Lazer’s registration card and the insurance card in the envelope with the keys! One cannot get an inspection in Pennsylvania without these documents!

I now had to modify my plan. If I was lucky, there was just enough time to take the cards to the garage and then get to the vendor seminar. This plan would work if the traffic lights were with me and I stopped for nothing. Mark drove away laughing; I made the mistake of revealing my error to him. I jumped in the truck and fired the old boy up.

At this point, it might be instructive to review the hack job done to the truck’s electrical system as a result of some previous owner’s attempt at converting the truck to a twelve volt system. While he got the ignition and charging system basically correct although he wasn’t very religious about ground connections, he really blew it when it came to the gauges. In particular, he had managed to destroy the fuel gauge. I’m guessing this was done by simply connecting the twelve volts to the fuel circuit where the six volts had previously been. My approach, then, to keeping gas in the truck was to gas up whenever I had gone about a hundred miles. This seemed to work well. This procedure would come back to haunt me, however.

I flew back to the garage being lucky to catch all the lights green. But I did have to pass an old man on left to speed things up. Mark Bloom would have been proud. I screeched to a stop at the garage, ran inside, threw the registration and insurance cards at the garage supervisor then ran back to the still running truck and was back on the road in record time. I just had forty-three miles to go in about forty minutes - no problem.

I hit some red lights on the way. About ten miles of the trip would be on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, America’s first limited access highway and a toll road to boot, and I would have to do around seventy-five on the 'pike to make up for lost time. Fortunately, I didn’t encounter a state trooper on the Turnpike and I made it to the seminar with a minute to spare. To quote Col. John "Hannibal" Smith of the A-team (played by George Peppard),"I love it when a plan comes together!"

After a rather boring seminar, I walk out to truck anticipating a leisurely ride back to the plant. I got in the truck, turned the key and stomped down on the starter. Nothing! Not so much as a grunt, a whirl, a sound: NOTHING! It was at this point that I noticed that the light switch was in the on position. In my haste to get to the seminar I had left the lights on and the lights then dutifully drained the battery. The truck was on a slight hill in the parking lot and the other cars around it had left so I pushed the truck down the hill, jumped on the running board and into the cab. I quickly slipped the transmission into reverse as the truck was moving backwards and popped the clutch. Much to my satisfaction he fired up. I was in business.

I looked at the odometer and made a quick calculation. I was at about ninety-five miles since the last fill up. I surmised that I should be ok gas wise as the hundred mile fill up ploy allowed for a certain amount of reserve and I only had about twenty miles to go. I didn’t want to stop at a gas station before getting on the 'pike because I was afraid I wouldn’t get it started again.

Everything was fine until I was about three miles from my exit when the truck started to buck and surge. I pulled off the highway and went around to the front of the truck. I opened the hood and checked out the points thinking that maybe they had malfunctioned. See, I had a problem with aftermarket points that used a plastic block which rides on the distributor cam to actuate the switch action. I found that under certain conditions the plastic block would get hot and melt resulting in the points not opening when they should. The first telltale sign of this condition was that the truck would buck and surge. But, the points were fine.

Just to rule it out I stuck a stick I kept for the purpose into the gas tank filler tube. I pulled it out expecting to see at least four inches of the stick wet with gasoline. It was dry! I was out of gas at least four miles from the nearest gas station without a gas can. Somehow my hundred mile plan failed. I'm guessing that my high speed run to the garage and then to the seminar caused lower gas mileage than I expected and maybe my estimate of the truck’s gas mileage and the reserve were optimistic. In any case I was out of gas and a long way from a gas station.

Not having a gas can was also a problem. Another time when I ran out of gas across the street from a gas station, the station attendant would not lend me a gas can to put gas in the truck that was clearly visible! He said I’d steal the can! I bought a sixteen ounce drink, poured it out, rinsed it out in the bathroom and bought about twenty-three cents of gas to get the truck down the road about a quarter mile and filled up at a competitor’s gas station. Screw the bastard!

What was I going to do? The Pennsylvania Turnpike is a limited access highway and the State Police regularly patrolled the highway so one would come by sooner or later. I left the hood up and sat down on the running board to wait. Thirty minutes went by: nothing! Forty-five minutes went by and I saw a trooper coming and he was on my side of the highway. I jumped up and down and waved my arms to get his attention as if the truck with hood up was invisible. He went flying by without acknowledgment. He didn’t slow down or flash his lights. He just kept going to some unknown destination, possibly a doughnut shop.

Anyhow, after another hour of me sitting on the running board looking as pitiful as possible, I saw a trooper coming on the opposite lane but this time I didn’t attempt to get his attention because I didn’t believe that I would meet with success. He stopped, however, and inquired as to my problem. He was talking to me through an amplified speaker and I was yelling across four lanes of high speed traffic. The trooper indicated that he was the one that passed me an hour before but he couldn’t stop because he had somewhere to he had to go, ah the doughnut shop. I was wondering why his radio was apparently not working as he clearly had not called for aid and assistance for me, but I didn’t breach the subject with him in as much as I make it my policy to not unduly question anyone in authority. Keeps one under the radar, so to speak. I yelled "Out of Gas". With that he got back on the highway and was gone without another word.

With no clear solution at hand, I sat down on the running board to contemplate my next move. Had I started walking when I first ran out of gas I would just about be back with the gas assuming that I could beg or buy a gas can. I was just about ready to "hoof it" for some gas when a tow truck pulled up behind me. The driver got out and said "Out of gas are ya." The trooper had called for help. Why the trooper didn’t think it necessary to tell me, however, escapes me. I said "Yes I am." He produced a five gallon can from the bed of the wrecker and walked over to the gas filler tube on the passenger side of the cab. Before, he started pouring the gas he said "This’ll cost you twenty five dollars, five dollars for the gas and twenty to deliver it." In 1985 this was a tidy sum, but I would have paid him twice that to get off the 'pike and on my way. This was a good example of capitalism at its finest. My demand was high and he had the only supply so the price was his to name. He, however, didn’t realize his position and therefore didn’t inflate his boss’s price. I paid him and he poured the gas in.

I thanked him but requested that he stay until I started the truck in case the battery lacked the necessary energy. It started, however, and he went on his way as I went on mine. I got back to the plant in mid afternoon and laid low so I would not have to relate the day’s events.

Later in the day the Chrysler dealer called to tell me that the car was done. The service manager offered an extensive list of maintenance items that should be performed but were not required for inspection. I thanked him for his concern and said that I would take his list "under advisement". Mark gave me another memorable ride to the dealer and I picked up the car whose gas gauge was on E! I filled up at the first gas station I encountered.

I never did fix the gas gauge despite my best intentions to  
 the contrary. I did, however, reduce the mileage from 100 miles to seventy-five miles per fill-up and never ran out of gas again, at least in the truck.

< Back to IntroMore to come >

Issued Thursday December 1, 2005

Updated Monday April 23, 2018

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