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

Day 16 SITREP

The only hot food at the holiday inn continental breakfast was french toast strips. This was not one of the best. Made my reservations for the Hoilday Inn in Charlottsville, Va., tonite's destination and programmed the hotel's address into "Mother".

Sunday, June 24, 2007
Day 16 PRE Check

Checked BillyBob's fluids. Took a look at the steering gearbox. Found that most of it's lubricant has leaked out. I didn't bring any of the specialized, hard-to-find, steering gear lube with me so I'll have to improvise. I know you don't use chassis lube because it can't service the recirculating ball mechanism. Some of the guys use Pennrite (also a special order). Some use gear oil and some use STP Oil Treatment. I'm using gear lube for the time being but I will have to top it off everyday 'cause it will leak out even faster than the special lube. I also put lead substitute in the gas for the continuing mountain driving.


1.	Date and Time	June 24, 2007 10:00 AM
2.	Odometer	23,244
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	pack up, mount navigator

Engage

Instructed Mother and off we went for our last day thru the Pennsylvania countryside. It is good traveling weather. Not too hot. We are out of the mountains into rolling farmland again. On the way to Macungie, when I left Shennandoah, Mother routed me east to Washington before turning north in the direction of Gettysburg. I prefer a more direct route from Chambersburg to Charlottesville and I was hoping that Mother would redeem herself by providing one. It should be about 160 miles and 4 hours by Mapquest.com reckoning.

No such luck! This is Chevy Chase, Maryland and this time, Mother even took me inside the District for a bit. We traveled parallel to the C and O Canal before entering Virginia. Mother has snookered me again! At least it's sunday. Traffic could really be bad.

Phew! Finally into the rolling countryside of Old Dominion. This excursion to Washington City will make for a late arrival. Near the end of the run, Mother took me off on one of those rural shortcuts. I kept seeing disturbing "Road Closed" signs. Then we came to it . . . "Bridge Closed". I took the only other road available this side of the bridge. Mother recalculated repeatedly and every time she did, She wanted me to make a u-turn back to the bridge. I stopped after a couple of minutes of this nonsense and adjusted her settings for no u-turns. That added a couple of hours to my travel time . . . Not an option! Readjusted again to let her use highways and I was at the hotel twenty minutes later! Only the Eternal knows where Mother would have taken me in those two hours.

Day 16 POST Check


1.	Date and Time	June 24, 2007 6:00 PM
2.	Odometer	23,515
3.	Mileage	271
4.	Elapsed Time	8 hrs

As soon as I got settled in, I called Cosmo, an Internet truck buddy I wanted to meet. Cosmo's truck and travels were part of the inspiration for this roadtrip. His truck is in the daily driver farmtruck tradition too. I really think these farmtruck stylings some of us do are becoming a class of vehicles similar to the "ratrod" movement. Mother found Cosmo's place with a minimum of fuss. Here Cosmo (Mark) starts his tech review of BillyBob.

Mark's wife, Cindy, arrived home from grocery shopping and Mark commented that my arrival was unexpected because he thought I was coming the next day. I was here to see Mark's truck projects so I didn't realize the significance of that statement until I realized Cindy was starting to prepare a meal for the three of us. In the meantime, I was getting my first glimpse of Mark's red truck.

There are a lot of tweaks and improvements to Mark's truck that are not readily apparent from it's outward farm truck experience. His 235 engine has the 848 head and is sporting a Holly 2-bbl carb. It has a upgraded distributor and a pcv system of his own devising. The radiator overflow tank is a coke bottle. It has a 3-speed tranny with the Borg-Warner overdrive which Mark has configured for 6 foreward speeds and 2 reverse. He has warning buzzers and lights in the cab to warn him of overdrive conditions and when the turn signals are on. My tinkering Uncle Corky would like Cosmo and they are both retired Navy men like JR to boot.

Mark showed me his overdrive tranny collection and intake manifold he was working on before Cindy called us to dinner. I've only scratched the surface here in the retelling. We had a great meal and after I left, mark came up with the idea of putting the faded red truck nose-to-nose with the faded green truck for a Christmas pic. I'm sorry we missed that shot. I'm also sorry I didn't get a pic of Cindy with BillyBob. Cindy is undergoing Chemotherapy and has decided not to wear a wig. Her hair is cropped very short. She is one of those beautiful ladies who look good with, or without, hair. I didn't know how to ask her for a pic with the truck. I'm a big chicken sometimes.

I got back to the hotel and got a good night's sleep before the next leg of the BillyBob roadshow, which is Raleigh, North Carolina.

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