Travels with BillyBob Log

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 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.

7. Macungie Run

This will be, by far, the most ambitious BillyBob adventure to date. 3,500 miles and 20 days are planned. We'll see how it goes. I've loaded up my laptop computer "Firefly" with website editing and file transfer software and the idea is to record the log entries daily. I will upload to the BillyBob website as often as I am in a location where I can get a net connection. I'll be all over the place but the highlight of the roadtrip and the reason for taking it is to attend the Antique Truck Club of America'S 28TH Annual Truck Show where I'll be hangin' with the OldGMCtrucks.com group.

SITREP

Last sunday after tropical storm Barry passed, I performed monthly and quarterly maintenance and changed the oil. Also finished organizing the roadtrip supplies inventory. I strayed from my usual routine a bit by using 15-40wt Rotella T oil. I also ran the air pressure in the tires up to 35 psi from the 26 psi I usually run with. Cleaned the cab and freshened up the Rain-X on the windshield. On thursday evening, John Ray (owner of "Sherwood" a '54 Chevy pickup), stopped by the Krash Lab on his way home from work and presented me with a couple of fine cigars for the trip, and the hope that I will be smoking them in comfort at the end of a day's run and not at the side of the road while I ponder some breakdown.

Saturday, June 9th 2007
Day 1 PRE Check

It will take a day or two to get a traveling routine established. I started off at the Krash Lab this morning by making hotel reservations for tonite's stop in St. Augustine using bellhop.com. Then today's destinations were programmed into "Mother", the Garmin c340 Streetpilot navigator, and reseting the trip counters to zero. Checked all BillyBob's fluids (oil, tranny, diffie, brake fluid, coolant). and tire pressure. Loaded up the travel cooler with ice. I think I'm ready to gas up and head out.


1.	Date and Time	June 9, 2007 9:00 AM
2.	Odometer	20,228
3.	Comfort Supplies	Cellphone, AAA+ membership, reading glasses, my lucky WWII Army Air Corps mechanics cap, cheap aviator sunglasses, small cooler with water and trail mix
4.	Roadtrip Supplies	Inventory
5.	Prep	fill water can, mount navigator, gas up

Engage

Gassed up at Boca Raton's only remaining center-of-town gas station. I'm starting out with a full tank and will gas up here again at the end because I'm gonna calc BillyBob's gas mileage on this trip. It took me an hour longer to get on the road than I'd planned for. But tomorrow I won't have to reboot the Krash Lab servers and clean the parrot's cage so things should go better. The starter decided to clatter on the flywheel ringgear several times before catching a tooth. Not a good omen. Due to the late start, I decided not to travel the A-1-A beach route and instead to follow "Mother's" every command. Mother took me right thru the center of West Palm Beach's illegal aliens neighborhood. BillyBob do not, I repeat, DO NOT break down here! Most of the route from there to Melbourne was via Federal Highway (U.S. Hwy 1).

I shaved about 15 minutes off my Melbourne arrival time and Mother had no problem finding my Uncle and Aunt's residence. Fifteen years ago Wingnut and I escaped hurricane Andrew to hunker down with my Uncle Tom and Aunt Marianne here. After introducing Aunt and Unc to Billybob, we retired inside to talk family, computers and politics fer a couple of hours.

Mid-afternoon, I gave Don McLendon ("DowntoSea" at Stovebolt.com) a call across the causeway at Satelite Beach. He said come on over and BillyBob and I started out. We soon returned to my aunt and uncle's place tho' as I had felt a draft. I had left my lucky WWII Army Air Corps mechanic's cap behind. 'Nother bad omen! Took off again and arrived at Don's place about forty minutes later.

Don gave BillyBob his technical review and his lovely wife paid BillyBob some complements too. Don said she had helped talk him into keeping his truck back when he was thinking about letting it go (You never get rid of an old truck. You let it go). We retired out to Don's seawall to tip a beer and talk. We have similar backgrounds as bootstrap, self-taught IT managers in the early IBM PC/XT/AT era, he in Merchant Marine ship operations and I in architecture. It was late afternoon by the time I got back on the road.

This was a long haul, the last hour or so in the dark which I was trying to avoid. Mother led me along Federal Hwy for awhile then, all of a sudden, ran me forty miles or so inland and thru the Ocala forest before heading back east to Saint Augustine. I'm not that familiar with the area so I have no clue as to the reason for the detour.

It was after ten when the truck and I chugged into the Ramada porte cochere in the St. Augustine Historic District. There's a pub next door and a bunch of half-in-the-bag car guys were in the parking lot. They bounded over to give BillyBob the once over and get the scoop. After about fifteen minutes, I begged off to go inside and register. I said I'd come down to tilt a few afterwards. After lugging all my stuff up four flights and getting a good look at myself in the mirror, I thought better of that. Got cleaned up and started writing this log entry. It's now after midnite and I haven't got this posted yet. I didn't get a USB mouse and keyboard for this laptop before I left and I'm struggling with this acursed chicklet keyboard and double cursed touchpad. Tomorrow's another day.

Day 1 POST Check


1.	Date and Time	June 9, 2007 10:00 PM
2.	Odometer	20,599
3.	Mileage	371
4.	Elapsed Time	13 hrs

Geez! That Ocala detour added a hundred miles to today's estimated 271 mile distance. No wonder I'm wasted! I'm gonna have to watch Mother more closely.

You can email me at webmaster@laroke.com