Well, we made it, but not without some adventure. My buddy must not have fully tightened his idler arm because it fell off while we were driving. This is some exciting stuff. We had the left wheel steering and the right wheel searching while we slowed to a stop on the side of a secondary road. At the time, we were not in a group of cars, but alone. We were stopped with the front wheels pointing different directions and the tie rod dug into the dirt. We had one bolt still installed the other bolt missing and both nuts were gone. We were able to reposition the (fortunately unbent) steering assembly back into position. We took a nut off of one of the lower front bumper bolts to fasten the idler arm to the frame. Meanwhile an old man had stopped to help us. He went home and returned with three nut and bolt combinations and fortunately one fit. Our next option would have been to pull an exhaust manifold bolt and another bumper bolt nut. The next morning we got new - proper nuts and bolts for the idler arm and we were fine. The alignment was not apparently affected. So, how's that for near-death experiences?
A few days later we were stuck with carburetor problems. We ran great on the highway but we could barely idle when we stopped. At the Detroit stop we looked all over for the Motor Medics that were on the tour. We stopped at the Pypes tent hoping for some help from the Performance Years guys. No luck. We happened to be parked next to a Camaro club. Some of the young Camaro guys came over and tuned my friend's Quadrajet better than it has run in the 28 years that he's had the car. They just happened to have a wide-band oxygen sensor with them.
Driving new cars on trips, I am accustomed to 300 miles between pee and gas stops. In the old cars with small tanks and 12.5 MPG, you go 150 miles and it's, "Oh my God, I need gas and I need it now!" We got more like 14 MPG on secondary roads, but at 70 MPH on the expressway it was 12.5. What really ticked me off is that sometimes we were so close to empty we had to buy gas from Hugo Chavez (Citgo).
Even the Camaro guys commented that there were an abundance of FGF's. It was fantastic. I will no longer be such a pussy about taking my car on a long trip. My friend's 400 Convertible was great, but I wished I had my car the whole time.
