The Suedes were off on a road trip. Tim and Kathy, Chris and Jen and Val, Ashley and I left Friday afternoon to the Mitchell show. We headed south on 29 to with the Casino as our first fuel stop. From there we were off to Watertown where we fueled up and had a quick bite at McDonalds. We were off again south on 29 to I-90 with only one long stretch of construction zone. We pulled off at Hartford to fuel up on the west side of Sioux Falls. This was an interesting shack of a gas station that had some kinda weird displays. You could watch a cowboy shoot out the lights during a card game, watch frontier people make shoes or a big ass gorilla play the panio.
We were off again on the final leg of the trip to Mitchell. We got about 10 miles from the gas station and I had coolant start blowing out of the radiator. I pulled onto the shoulder and took a look at what happened. The lower alternator bolt had sheered off in the head and the alternator had dropped down in turn causing the belt to stop spinning the water pump. Tim ended up turning around and coming back to see what had happened. Chris went off to a small town to look for a new bolt. After a little work with a screwdriver and a hammer we were able to get the bolt to start turning out. The old bolt had about 4 threads left on it and were were able to use it and limp it into Mitchell. Chris had luck and was able to have a guy make a bolt up too, unfortunately it wasn't quite long enough. We met back up with Chris around Salem and continued towards Mitchell. As we were about 5 miles out of Mitchell we noticed hot rods headed east on the interstate, must have been about 50 or so headed out on a cruise.
We got checked in to the Motel 6 and went out to Bonanza for supper.
We checked out the host hotel and only saw a few cars there so we went back to the hotel and met up with Tom H and the Rudnicks from Bismarck. A few other rodders were also there in our hotel.
Saturday
We started out and went to register at the Host bar. After registering and looking at some of the rides in the parking lot I ran back to the Hotel, I then noticed that my alternator was overcharging. I ended up unplugging the alternator for a tempory fix so it didn't cause any problems. Then I had to hustle back to the Hotel to get in line for the parade of cars to the show. Oops. I was too late and missed it by a few minutes, luckily a club member was still there and led me down to the show. The outcasts had main street blocked off for the cars to be displayed. I would guess there were close to 100 cars at the event. The early morning rain showers may have kept some of the people away. (hopefully some pics will be posted soon). After the show it was back to the Host bar and the boyscouts served the meal of bbq's and beans. After eating it was time to rebuild the alternator in the parking lot, it was nice that I had a repair kit with just in case something like this happened. Got the alternator changed out and it was no longer overcharging. We then went on a poker run around the lake and ended up at a drive in theater where "Bullet" was being played, this was a very nice and well kept drive in. Tom mentioned that my headlights didn't seem that bright, and I didn't think too much of it at the time. on the drive back I remembered that when I rebuilt the alternator, I forgot to pull out the pin I had holding the brushes.(DAMN) toasted another regulator. Back at the hotel we had a heavy t-storm come thru and gave the cars a good wash.
Sunday
We got up and headed once again to the Host bar for donuts and give-aways. We all got some door prizes and Chris what was it you got?? Ask Chris about the Buffalo. Once again it was a rainy/ drizzle. I picked up a new regulator and dropped that in the alternator before we left the hotel and then we were off on our journey home. We ended up driving in the rain for most of the way home. As we got north of Watertown Chris had to pull over because he lost oil pressure, he ended up dumping a few quarts in and we were off again and headed home.
Hopefully we will get some pics up soon.
