Years ago, a very innocent I and my brother went skiing at Bear Valley. ON the way up, Friday night, I'm motoring through the dark and the falling snow. The road rises to the left and turns right at the crown of the rise. As my green '69 tops the rise, I can see TWO cars spun-out in the snow banks on the left side of the road- there's black ice on the road and the un-wieghting of the rise has a predictable effect. Further, a kindly fellow in a pickup truck is pulling these folks back onto the road- which he's right in the middle of. I jammed on the brakes, and the bus slid gently, and to some degree under my control, toward the right side of the road, where the nose slowly slid down off the road and into the ditch. My brother, who had been sleeping in the passenger seat, wakes up find himself hanging in the shoulder-belts. Since I'd been well over 35mph, The complete lack of physical damage was a surprising bonus! Even with my chains, I had no traction and couldn't back out, or go forward. Fortunately, fellow with pickup finishes pulling his first helpee out of the other side ditch, then ties onto my front suspension and pulls us out of the ditch. I thank him profusely. We continue, at a slower pace. Ian stays wide awake for the rest of the trip. On the return of this trip, I learned the third practical bits of wisdom I accumulated about cars: the first being starters, solenoids, bendix-parts and ring gears, learned on a Corvair with bad compression on five cyclenders I later bought for $0.02, and the second being the carburetor, the 28 PCIT, of said Bus, which I am amazed to report that I rebuilt successfully, on my first try. Anyway, the bus seemed to be loosing power, and I had to keep revs up on this winter trip. Returning, thankfully below the snow level, it finally would go no further. It faded and expired as I drove toward Stockton, leaving us in a parking lot at the side of the road. I was 21 and knew nothing, so I did the right thing and called a local tow-truck who would take my check, and towed us to his service station. There, the tow truck driver became mechanic and diagnosed utterly worn out points- no cam rider left. He found something he thought would fit and installed them. We hadn't been very close to Stockton, and so I took my thoroughly frozen brother across the street to Denny's and fed him. It was obvious that I needed to know more about the beasts that bore me. All things considered, its surprising that my brother still will ride with me... :-) Bill
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