Carmichael Redwing FT/6 CrT Land Rover

FT/6


2005 - Road Trips

Just a list of various activities for 2005.

Road Trip #1 - British Car show in Alexandria


This was just a short trip. I really had not planned on going, but I decided at the last minute to go.
It was a cold and rainy day. I got the Carmichael out of the barn. It started fine - it always does. Got the hose out and washed off the dust from the barn. And then hit the road... It hailed on the way there.

First problem - no overdrive.. It won't shift. The lever won't move.. Great, something else to fix

It was a short trip - only maybe 30 miles.. The Carmichael got there fine. Just too late to put it in the show. But, I didn't mind - and as it turned out, I never would have gotten it into the spot they had for the Land Rovers. Not under the low hanging trees. So, I left it in the parking lot with an assortment of Little British Cars.

The "parking" area was right next to the car show and the Carmichael got a lot of looks... I suppose I'll have to make up some sort of posters for the windows with history and pictures.

The trip home was uneventful.


Fixing Things
An old friend of mine - who has his share of British and other foreign cars - used to say "Drive the car, fix the car."

First off - the Overdrive problem. One of the square pieces with the spring-loaded ball under the ring that the shift-fork moves had come loose from where it was supposed to be and was preventing the ring from moving. It went back in place and everything seemed to be OK. But, then the first time I drove it, it came loose again. And, the overdrive seemed noiser than normal. I guess the overdrive will be coming out at some point.

Next problem - the fuel guage. This has never read correctly. So, I pulled the sender out of the tank and with the aid of some alligator clamps and wire tested it. Move the sender and the guage moves.. All the way down and it reads empty. All the way up and it reads full. My conclusion was that maybe the guage did not have a good ground connection. So, I cleaned up the top of the guage where the mounting screws go and put it all back together.. and added a ground wire.

It still doesn't work.... OK.. I'll get back to it..


Road Trip #3 - Blacker than Night (BTN) #4 A long road trip. About 215 miles one way, to Ben Smith's place in New Jersey. The kind of trip I should have left on Friday morning to go on - except I had to work. So, the plan was to leave early Saturday morning. Like 7:00 AM..

Oh course, that did not work. Q - in his SWB IIa and I finally hit the road around 8:30- 9:00 AM.. Traffic wasn't too bad. Early on, I found the overdrive was again not working.. (See Fixing Things, above.) We got through the Harbor Tunnel in Baltimore and on the other side the Carmichael was just not running right. It felt like the clutch was slipping..

We pulled off the road into a parking lot.

This was farther than we ever got before on a trip without breaking down.

Then, the Carmichael would not start back up. It was ignigtion this time. I did have a new set of points, condenser, cap and rotor, so they all got changed. Maybe it was just running bad, and was not the clutch?

Back on the road - and it still feels like the clutch. I stopped.. we talked.. some guy in an '89 Range Rover pulls up behind Q. He asks if we need help...

We got talking, he says he has had his Rangie for a week. I'm suprised he even recognized the Land Rover's as Land Rovers.

I decided it was prudent to head home. Q suggested we drive his truck to BTN.. I agreed... The guy in the Range Rover - who was from Baltimore - got us turned around and headed back to the Harbor Tunnel.

The Carmichael seemed to run OK on the way home, but the overdrive sure sounded noiser.. something else to fix...

I had brought a GPS along on the trip - to check speedometer accuracy.. According to the GPS, the speedometer in the Carmichael reads about 5 MPH too fast.. So, with the overdrive, (on a good day) it tops out at about 60 MPH...

We were running maximum about 50 MPH.. It would have been a long, hot trip to New Jersey.


Mid Atlantic Rally - 2005 We got as far as Waldorf, Maryland - a whole 15 miles down the road. The clutch was definately slipping. So, everything got offloaded into Quintin's Izuzu and my Range Rover and we went home. The clutch didn't slip on the way home. But, it was just as well. There was so much rain this year at the MAR that everything was MUD. The Carmichael would have been parked all weekend anyway. I guess I will just have to change the clutch in 2006.


Guy Fawlkes Day at LRU - 2005 One last outing for the year. Elaine Bond put together a LRNA "reunion" for Guy Fawlkes Day at Land Rover University. Could I go? You betcha! I had to bring the Carmichael. It made it there and back with no problems. We all had a great time and it was sure good to see those folks again.


Previous Photos Next

Last update - 01 Dec, 2005