We left Mon at 3:30, cruised around Chicago. Slept west of Joliet and are now at a rest stop 80 miles east of Des Moines (with wifi and dump station!) (1:15 local time) Heading for somewhere in Neb tonight, Denver by Wed midday.

Lots of corn...

Barth seems happy, no oil used, no runs, no drips, no errors, (almost)

I think it can read my mind... I was thinking how crappy the cruise control is on this thing... last night when I turned on the lights, the cruise quit! Won't work at all with lights on but fine without! Magic! (Must be a bad ground... noticed that the dash gauges change slightly when lights go on) Oh well, something to check in Denver. I'll just run daytime without lights.

More to follow with pics!

From Chicago to Denver - arriving on Wednesday???

Too many coincidences.

if anyone respond to this... for my sake, keep it nice & classy.

Made it to Denver about 4 PM Wed. Roads close at 5 for the motorcade.

Old Barth feels the altitude. Have to run the old 454 HARD to keep up! Even so, no leaks and used about a quart of oil in 1500 miles. Not too bad I guess. Running about 7 mpg at 60 mph. 1317 miles so far.

3 days of sun, yesterday was 75 degrees. Cold front got down in 30's last night! Overcast today, mountain pics will have to wait.

Staying a couple days with sisters in Centennial. Back on the road Sat. Maybe see Dana and Lynn on way home next week. Keep em rolling!

Just wait for Saturday. Here comes winter

How about Friday morning?





We're planning to leave Centennial tomorrow, but Mother Nature may not want us to drive tomorrow!

Well... so much for the "beyond" part. Didn't get any mountain pics for you all, haven't seen the sun since Fri morning! (briefly) Between the snow, sleet and rain we can't see mountains even from Denver. Blizzards in Casper, Wyoming, too.

We'll leave the mountains for next summer after the South Dakota GTG!

Left Denver Sat midday via I 70 to get south of the weather. Snow and sleet but driving OK. Stopped 100 miles into Kansas for the night. Woke up to snow this morning but sunshine and clear. A good day for running, we stopped about 50 miles south of Des Moines for the night.

Barth is happy and running fine, we're warm and cozy.

Left Iowa yesterday morning. Beautiful day but very windy! Barth handled the 25-30 mph crosswinds quite well. Made it across the Miss into Illinois

Then the gremlins emerged...

The awning in the rear tried to unroll in spite of being pinned at each end. As I pull over to check, I notice the turn signals don't work...

The awning is wrapped with the handyman's secret weapon, non issue. Turn signal flasher laying on the floor where I must have bumped it with my foot, another easy fix.

On my way, feeling fine. Both tanks full, running on tank 2. Engine hesitates... oh oh... fuel pressure 2 psi. Switch to tank 1, 1.5 psi barely running. WTF?!!

Thank goodness for the trusty fuel gauge. Should be 5 psi...

Check filters, both OK. Hmmm... bypass regulator, no change. Check fuel pump voltage at relay..OK. Looking like maybe a tank problem... but BOTH tanks? Probably not BOTH fuel pumps...

OK must be water in the fuel? (Lots of it!)

Running on tank 2 (OK except steady high throttle..) stop for a bunch of dry gas (alcohol) dump in both tanks. Running on high anxiety mode, we continue with 2-3 psi and steady throttle. No improvement but we're moving.

After a while on tank 2 I tried tank 1 again. 1-2 psi. Didn't know the Quadrajet would stand it but we ran steady. Then I notice the gas level is going down...FAST (faster than usual!)

Hmm... now what? Filter swapping and inspection had revealed no leaks, now what?

Switch back to tank 2... runs OK (barely) but now THE TANK GAUGE SHOWS FULL! What the?

It appears I have a selector valve issue. Crossfeed through the valve is the only explanation, there are no fuel return lines to get crossed, etc... Crossfeed might be dumping the pressure, robbing the carb???

How bizarre..

Drove straight back from Iowa in anxiety mode but as always, Barth took me home.

I have work to do..

Something similar happened to us and two things showed up. There is a small filter in the quadrajet that was clogged up. Also, someone had used some blue gasket maker in an attempt to work on the carb and it had worked it's way into the float bowls. Sent the q-jet out for a complete rebuild and it has worked fine since.

Acetone also works very well for water treatment.

Acetone is excellent, didn't have any

I don't have the filter in the carb any more and I'm measuring pressure right at the carb inlet. I was already planning to get the QJet rebuilt, too. Any suggestions on carb gurus? I'll check the forums...

quote:

Any suggestions on carb gurus?

Steve,

I'd recommend Oscar Heritz down in Benton Harbor/St. Joseph area. Spent his life running a carb/auto electric shop. Knows his Qjets. He's done many for me when I lived there....I think Jim & Tere may
haved used him too. Contact info should be here, or I can look it up for ya.....

quote:

Originally posted by Steve VW:
Acetone is excellent, didn't have any

I don't have the filter in the carb any more and I'm measuring pressure right at the carb inlet. I was already planning to get the QJet rebuilt, too. Any suggestions on carb gurus? I'll check the forums...

I have used C and J Engineering since forever. Always just perfect for me. Street, hot rod, hot boat, 502 in Barth.............always a great job.

Excellent! I will check with them as soon as I pull the carb. Meanwhile a new selector valve is on the way.

It appears that my decision to only rebuild the bottom end was correct. The trip was 2750 miles total and 1.5 qts oil used, about 1 qt/2000 miles!

The poor old 454 can really feel the altitude... Mileage on the low flats is over 7, around Denver about 6.3

Aviation dogma suggests about one inch of barometric pressure for each 1000 ft change in altitude. The altitude at Kalkaska is about 1000 ft, Denver about 5000. Sure enough, all the vacuum readings I saw were about 4 inches lower in Denver.

20 inches at idle becomes 16. At home I can hold 60 mph with 14 inches of vacuum. Denver: 10 inches. Barth goes from marginal power to barely adequate. Really had to keep my foot in it just to roll along. Can't beat physical laws... in order to get the same amount of air in Denver the throttle must be open further. Power is about 20% down as predicted by air density difference.

The old 33 ft is about all the 454 can drag along. I feel for you folks living at altitude. I would lust for Bill h's 502, or at least a stroker 454. All told, I ran the old girl hard and the oil consumption was less than I expected.

quote:

Originally posted by Steve VW:
Running on high anxiety mode, we continue with 2-3 psi and steady throttle. No improvement but we're moving.

After a while on tank 2 I tried tank 1 again. 1-2 psi. Didn't know the Quadrajet would stand it but we ran steady.

The Q jet asks for only a full float bowl. The pressure on the other side of the needle is of little consequence, and the carb and engine are unaware whether it is 1/4 or 5 psi. I have run high performance Q jets on gravity feed. Not by choice, but it worked great. The float bowl only needs to be fed as fast as it uses fuel. I remember monster tractor pull V8s being fed by gravity only.

Didn't think they would go that low! I don't think they will if the little filter is in the carb (mine isn't) I think the filter has a valve in the inlet to create back pressure (reduce vapor lock?)

Like you said, a full bowl is a full bowl, additional pressure becomes moot. But flow is zilch at 0 psi! Even good old gravity feed gets some pressure!

I could watch the pressure drop as I throttled up for hills. Only hesitated once or twice but like in the airplane it demands full attention!

Bottom line: I've got really low pressure/restricted flow.

Raining and 30's today. I'll have the new valve to install tomorrow.