Date:         Mon, 15 Apr 96 11:25 CDT
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         EF0JPB1@mvs.cso.niu.edu
Subject:      Apology and Safety

QUESTION:  What is slower than a splittie?

ANSWER:    A Vanagon towing a splittie.

I must apologize to anyone who had the poor luck to be
behind me Saturday and Sunday on:

I40 from Raleigh, NC to Winston-Salem, NC
I421 from Winston-Salem, NC to I77
I77 from I421 to Cambridge, OH
I70 from Cambridge, OH to Indianapolis, IN
I74 from Indianapolis, IN to Bloomington, IL
I39 from Bloomington, IL to I88
I88 from I39 to DeKalb

It was about 30 hours of driving between 45 and 50 MPH.
Most of the drive was in 3rd gear, except for the 7 mile
climb in West Virginia that I took at 35 MPH in second gear
behind a big rig also straining to climb the 6% incline.

"Poor Richard" Palmer is now one bus lighter and I have
another '67 to add to the backlog of projects here.  I
enjoyed meeting him, seeing his Westy and the various other
buses in various states of repair at the shop where he
stored the bus I bought.  I wish I had had more time to
spend in Raleigh, but I was anxious to get on the road.

My wife Nancy was interested in the '69 bug there, but I'm
sure we can find something CLOSER!  She was much help during
the trip, including the seven hours of drive from Marietta,
OH to Indy during the tow.  Her preference is something
closer to 85 MPH than to 45 MPH, but she carried the middle
leg of the return trip quite well.

For you Vanagon people, I have passed 100,000 miles
(odometer broken at 66K several years ago) on the '84.  I
don't know how many miles I logged on the trip from DeKalb
to Chattanooga to Raleigh to DeKalb, but I added one quart
(half at a time) of oil for the entire trip.

It may take two days for me to unwind or get the caffeine,
nicotine, sugar and adrenalin out of my system.  Forty miles
into the trip I had stopped at a McDonald's and the tight
turns in the parking lot made it obvious that the tow bar
connections to the bus' bumper brackets were failing and
about to go.  Two hours later the bus was on a U-Haul
car-dolly.  After a rainy late-night drive through the
mountains of West Virginia, I woke up yesterday morning to
find that one of the nylon over-the-tire tie-downs had
slipped off somewhere along the way.  Just into Illinois the
clacking noise that didn't seem right turned out to be a
loose bolt which holds the trailer hitch to the Vanagon.

Before anyone bashes on me for unsafe towing, keep in mind
that I checked everything at every stop, had my own trailer
lights attached (the U-Haul's were broken and/or missing),
fretted about metal fatigue all the way home, kept my speed
down (began to "wag" above 50 MPH), made sure back-up safety
chains were in place, and in the end CAUGHT the problems
BEFORE any disaster.  I could have cranked up the music,
forgotten about what was behind me, and maybe lived to tell
you about how a '67 looks after it goes over the side of a
mountain.

Tom Brouillette reminded me that my next chapter of Typing 2
Ink for the Old Bus Review will be Chapter 13.  Those of you
in NEATO may see more details in that "unlucky" chapter.

Be careful out there.

-Jim Bryant