Canistota, South Dakota to Worthington, Minnesota
August 9, 2006
The car ran great for about 100 miles before developing a miss. We pulled off in Spring Valley, Minnesota to have a look under the hood for something obvious like a plug connector off. Nope, we determined number 3 cylinder was causing the problem but would need to dig deeper to find out why.
Spring Valley was not the place to do major repairs, having only a lumberyard and a grain elevator. We opted to continue to Luverne, Minnesota on 3 cylinders. Luverne is a sizable city and more likely to have a motel if we are broke down for a while.
In Luverne we found a shady spot under a tree at a locally owned farm store. Good choice! The store sells tools, stays open late, has a bathroom and 2 service bays for tractor and small engine repair. There was a motel across the street.
We were only there a few minutes when the store manager came out to introduce himself and talk cars. An old time mechanic who owned his own business quickly joined him and 2 young "gear heads."
Howard pulled the plugs while I gapped a fresh set. I held my thumb over number 3 hole and checked compression. The engine still limped on 3 when restarted so I had a look in the distributor. Bingo, I spotted the problem. The points had closed up.
I reset the points by eyeball, buttoned everything up, closed the hood and started the engine. Smooth as ever! The crowd loved the show. I lubed the cam the next time we stopped. I did not want to ruin the show by doing it then.
Here is a pic of the mirrors I added to Sleeping Beauty for the trip. I find it difficult to drive a car without rear view mirrors. For that reason I took a clip-on mirror that could be installed on the front or top edge of the door. Worked good.
We stopped for the night in Worthington, Minnesota having covered 140 miles in our first day on the road.
August 9, 2006
