PV Dirk

I’m thinking of going on a road trip. I may be on my own on Friday to run from Phoenix to the SF Bay Area. Then to Sacramento and finally back to Phoenix on Monday. Thinking of taking the 88 iroc convertible. If I leave at 4am it might be top down the whole way. I think it’s sound and ready to go. Don’t like not having a spare tire but such is life. Probably just check tire pressures, fluids and hit the road.

83AQ9

One nice thing about driving an older car: If you get stuck, people will stop to check on you and help you out. Everyone who drives old cars or bikes long distances has been stuck at some point, and probably helped out by another enthusiast at some point.

People have stopped to check on me even when I just stopped for a second once because I accidentally popped the hatch while driving. I broke down on a bike once and a guy picked me up when he saw me walking down the highway carrying a helmet. He drove me 30-45 minutes to the nearest shop and told me about his project bikes. I've driven at least one stranded biker a similar distance.

PV Dirk

Good point. I’ve been helped before and helped others. Trouble free would be idea but I won’t die from the elements on the side of a highway.

tavert91

iTrader: (1)

I would invest in a can of "Fix-A-Flat" before departing. Also, check the condition of your serpentine belt. If you have the resources, get a battery booster too. They are much better than carrying jumper cables and more compact.

PV Dirk

Good call on the fix a flat. I have the first day behind me. 800 miles in one shot. With traffic it took 14 hours. One glitch that kept popping up. More at the end of the trip. I’d get a stutter. It feels consistent with dropping ignition for a split second. There really wasn’t a situation or condition when it occurred. It happened twice in the first 8 hours and then got more regular. I stopped on the side of highway once and jiggled connections around ignition and it stopped for a short time but restarted. This morning I went a bit deeper disconnecting and reconnecting various points. Then ran some errands with no issues. Tomorrow I drive about 90 miles to my brothers house. I’ll know better if I got the gremlin out. My brother is a master tech so we’ll go over the car and then Monday 800 miles home. One question for the group. I’ve had an ongoing problem of the rear attachment for the top popping loose. The rear of top will lift and I have to pull over to reattach. Before I left I cleaned and lubricated the attachment pieces. While I haven’t driven with top up yet, for overnight storage put top up and it pops out after a couple hours so I think I made the problem worse. Any thoughts. Anyone have that problem and fix it?

tavert91

iTrader: (1)

You probably just need to adjust the latch on the underside of the tonneau cover. A slight movement here affects how it grabs the post on the top frame. Otherwise, look for wear on the post side of the latch.

PV Dirk

I made it home. 1690 miles in 4 days. Just under 20mpg overall. The last day was the best. After the sun went down. Top down with AC keeping my feet and knuckles cool. Near full moon blasting through the desert.

On the top, my brother came up with the fix. The clip was loose. He bent it tighter and reinstalled it and it worked perfectly.

I did have some some tech problems. I was having ignition drop. We replaced ignition module and that problem went away. But I also had a stalling problem. Car would not idle. Ended up pulling plug on iac while it was about 1200 quickly after a startup and that kept it running through LA traffic. I’ll have to look into it. Don’t know why iac was shutting down idle. Tried hooking up a computer to car but only got gibberish. Oh well. I’ll probably not look at it too soon. I’ve heard a couple suggestions that the computer may just be done.