Thread: Project $ 3 K Is Underway

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We're baa-aa-aack!!!! And boy is my butt tired from sitting on 2 inches of foam for 5 hours each way, and my legs are killing me from walking 1,000 miles around the swap meet for 3 days. But I wouldn't have traded it for the world.

Brad and Hotroddaddy, I am so sorry we missed each other. I and the other guys were really looking forward to doing that. Brad, I got the note, and the money, but I don't think $100 bills are supposed to have Hillary Clintons picture on the front, at least that is what the guy at the convenience store told me, so I am not sending you the title. I laughed my tail off when I saw the note though, and thank you so much for the kind remarks on the T. I guess hotroddaddy just pulled out as I was coming in.........something about a hot date or something like that took him away suddenly. (Mrs Hotroddaddy, that is a JOKE !!! lol) You are right, we will try again at Billetproof in March.

Thank you Gastrick and JRobinson for the nice words too. You guys have a lot of room to talk, your cars are both amazing in person. I couldn't get enough of looking at the details on each one. I'll touch on that later on.

As Jim hinted, only one of our cars made it to Daytona. We started out about 11 am Thursday with Don in the lead, me in second position, and Dan driving Don's Tahoe as a support vehicle. All went well for the first two hours. People almost running into us on route 75 snapping pictures with cameras and cell phones out the car windows. That was really cool and fun.
Then suddenly I see smoke coming off of Dons rear tires as he is braking hard and pulling to the emergency lane, so we all got off. He says suddenly his engine started making a huge racket.

We started it up, and it was rapping really badly, so we pulled the drivers side valve cover and found the first valve stem had broken in half. We removed the remaining pieces of valve spring, roller rocker and other pieces and found the stem was frozen into the guide. We have no idea what happened, but will pulll the head tomorrow night and see the extent of the damage. I towed him a few miles up the road with a tow strap onto the Tahoe, and we got a trailer from Uhaul and he took it back home. I kept going to Daytona and he and Dan came up after they tucked his T into the shop.

I felt horrible for him, and he was really bummed. He kept saying he should have gone with his instincts to trailer it there because at least he could have cruised around Daytona at night while it was still unbroken. I look at it more positively though. We were lucky to be able to get it off the interstate and find a Uhaul place open on Thanksgiving. It could have been much worse.

Ok, here are some pictures of us starting out and driving up 75 prior to the engine problem. I'll be bck in just a minute tol post some pictures from Daytona.

Don