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.

10. Hutchinson Roadtrip

Summary

Last year, I drove BillyBob on his first long roadtrip, the Macungie Run. He did not let me down and I decided to tempt fate again this year to meet up with many of the same rogues at a truck show in Hutchinson, Kansas. This time, it turned out to be 3,788 mile run in 16 days, and again, BillyBob remained reliable throughout the entire trip. Immediately below is each day's date, day number, destination and mileage. The links are to the log entries for that day. Following below that are calculations and stats and finally at the bottom are reflections on what I learned.

Hutchinson Roadtrip POST Check

1.	Date	June 1, 2008
2.	Odometer	32,990
3.	Odo Mileage	3,788
4.	Elapsed Time	16 Days
5.	Navigator Stats	3,697.9 mi Overall Avg 45.0 mph Moving Avg 48.1 mph Max Speed 204 mph * Total Time 82:13 Moving Time 76:49 Stopped 5:23
6.	Mileage Calcs	15.23 mpg overall
7.	Fuel Cost	$0.25 per mile

* I think Mother, the navigator, got her brains scrambled on some of that Texas washboard road she directed me over. The only way BillyBob could ever attain 204 mph would be to drive over the edge of the Grand Canyon (and he could only do it once).

The difference between the odo mileage and navigator mileage above is because the navigator was not turned on all the time (show days and the Oklahoma City tour with Boz and Elaine).

Mileage calcs are guessimates. I lost my notes for the last part of the roadtrip when I did laundry with the notes in them. i do know exactly how much I spent on fuel ($993.03) and that, on average, I paid $4.00 per gallon (premium fuel everwhere but the Florida flatlands and about a third of all fuel was E10 corn squezzins'). My mileage ratings are about 2 mpg lower than the Macungie Run and I attribute it to Ethanol (probably 'cause I don't like the stuff).

What worked and what didn't

Blogging on the road worked marginally better than last year. I used a mouse with my laptop, Firefly, and it is infinitely better than the touchpad. I brought along a keyboard too but didn't use it. It takes a few hours to write one of these dispatches and process the photos. It's tedious to do after a long day on the road but I don't see any other way. You have to do it when it's fresh in your mind or you begin to lose detail. The photos help with the memory problem as do the Google Maps and Earth aerials that were made with the help of the GPS Logger tracking device. I begin to fall behind when I meet people. I'm just not gonna write the dispatches when I'm at someone's house. I think I'm gonna try to get some kind of dictation device to take on the next roadtrip for on-the-road notes (and try not to run it thru the washing machine when I get back).

Picking a hotel at the end of the day worked better than last year's method of making reservations in the morning and telling the navigator to go there. Not having the pressure of a daily "must get there" destination was less tiring. Drivin' eight hours in a 53 year old stock truck cab without air is tiring enuf.

The truck cab is hot. I warded off fatigue by carrying a ice cooler of water bottles and snacking on Planter's Trail Mix, specifically the "Fruit and Nut" and "Nuts and Rasins" packs. No candy, soft drinks or junk food. It works for me.

Once again, BillyBob came thru without a breakdown. I had some concerns regarding a rear main bearing seal leak but ended up using only two quarts of oil in almost 4,000 miles. Not bad. My hot engine starting problems were solved by opening up the hood wherever I stopped and not pumping the throttle on restart. Cold engine starting became problematic during the course of the trip but was improved by applying a bit of choke during startup. The transmission kicked out of third gear under hill loads about seven or eight times like it did last year but has disappeared now that we're in the flatlands again. I fixed last year's slipping clutch and worn out starter ringgear problems before the trip. Now I'm gonna go to work on the various leaks and mess around with the fuel system before any more high mileage adventures.

Mother, the navigator worked marginally better this year after I changed the parameters, especially, changing the route algorthym from "Faster Time" to "Shorter Distance". I could put her in passive mode most of the time and actually plan my course with maps but then, the dispatches would be much less interesting. She provides much comic relief.

The Hutchinson Truck Show

It's a funny thing that about thirty folks who met on a intarweb forum come from all corners of the country, Canada, and the Netherlands to meet in Kansas during tornado season. I met about half these guys last year at Macungie. The other half were attaching new faces to well known screen names. "GMCBob" did a heck of a lot of groundwork locally arranging the group lodgings and dinners so the rest of us wouldn't be scrambling when we got to Hutchinson. Several of the fellas' spouses came along this time and that was a pleasant aspect of this show that we didn't have last year at Macungie. "52geemsee" brought a hopped up GMC 302 engine on a stand. It was the hit of our area of the show. here's the group photo again.

Final Thoughts

Driving the backroads of the deep south and the mid-west turned out to be just as interesting as last year's drive thru the Appalachian range. Staying a nite with new friends Bartender dave and Jenny, and Old Friend Rick Boswell and his wife Elaine were some of the best experiences of the trip as was my short stay with my Uncle Tom and Aunt Marianne. Having a pickup bed full of spare parts did the job of warding off Murphy and his laws.

I'm from the "drive 'em" school of antique car and truck enthusiasts. When I rewired BillyBob in the fall of '03 a new speedometer was installed. The odometer read 0 miles. It now reads a tad over 33,000. I'm gonna continue to do one or two of these trips a year as long as I'm physically able and can afford the fuel costs. This is the last big adventure for BillyBob this year but I've scheduled a Labor Day roadtrip to pick up a new truck in upstate New York to drive back to Florida. New to me, that is. It's a '37 Chevy pickup, well known to the OldGMCtrucks.com fellas. It's a hot rod that looks like a farm truck. Neil Rowe wrote "Time to toss Mother, otherwise you'll be going the wrong direction at twice the speed!"

That's a wrap. It's D-Day. Take a moment to remember the fallen.

You can email me at  webmaster@laroke.com

Issued Friday June 6, 2008

Updated Tuesday March 7, 2017

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