Well Ollie Patterson and his wife Teresa came to our place for the Geezer Drags. We had a BBQ on Fri evening with Dodger, my cousin Al Todd and wife Barb, my friend Terry Bohnert( Pink Panther) and wife Becky and of course my wife Phyllis and I. It did sprinkle on us but we weren't smart enough to come in out of the rain and had a good time anyway.
ot timed
Sat we met at Quaker
Steak and Lube in Council Bluffs, IA for lunch and then headed for the Geezer Drags. Dodger, Paul Lenneman, Steve Micks and Cheryl, Ollie and Teresa and my wife and I attended the lunch. However it was raining and they cancelled the event for Sat.. So we went back to my house again for
Sunday was damp and cloudy to start but not bad at
all. The event went on as planned but they included some of the Sat functions into Sunday's. The sun did come out and it was fairly warm and humid. Paul
Lenneman, Steve Micks and wife Cheryl and the Patterson's and Kinsley's where ready for the festivities. I changed to the Drag Radials and went out for a test run. My previous best was a 9:15@xxxx in the 1/8th. My first run was a 9.307@xxxxx and the temp and humidity were both 77. The car began smoking near the finish line. The second run I did not heat up the tires and I had some spinning and chattered a bit off the line. I turned 9.454@xxxxx . The smoking persisted. The third run was a flagstart competition, not timed, against a Chevy SSR. It was the small pick-up 2 passenger with the Vette motor if my designation is wrong. He did the flagstart wrong and started when the guy pointed at him so he lost by default. However I would've creamed him as he was running 10.5's and I was running the 9.3-4. I didn't run hard as it was a solo and it smoked more and as I was exiting it had a vibration setting in that felt like the trans.
We had been looking to see what the issue was and noticed some trans fluid. I wiped it off and didn't see anything wrong. It did get worse and we didn't run it any more so as to prevent any damage until we found out what was wrong. After the day was over Ollie and I headed home and babied it down the road. We got about 10 miles and into Bellevue, NE when the smoking stopped and the vibration became very obvious and forward progress had to stop. We pulled over and put the rightside wheels up on the curb
so I could get under the car. The trans fluid was not even on the dipstick now. I found the speedo gear appeared loose as I grabbed the cable and wiggled it. I figured it was loose and the fluid was leaking there. However I soon discovered the tailshaft was wiggling and not the speedo gear. With a flashlight I saw the tailshaft would wiggle about 1/4" plus and the trans didn't. Then I saw a crack all the way around the tailshaft just behind the trans mount! Holy smokes I broke off the 727 tailshaft!
So of course 'ol LeRoar got another ride home on a flatbed. Ollie and I thought maybe I should just get one to stand by at the end of the track next time :-0 So I guess I made some good runs with a busted tailshaft and again I dodged a bullet in that it didn't fly apart or ?????
Have no fear. It'll be coming out and as long as it's down I'm thinking maybe I'll pull the heads and see if there's anything noticeable in there from the 8K
disaster. Dodger believes he has a spare sb poly 727 pb around so we can at least get a case. This may take awhile to fix while I try to come up with some $$$$$ for the project. May be another nice winter project. I am NEVER bored! In the meantime I need to finish the '72 Olds that I have been tinkering with for quite a few months. I might even get some money for LeRoar out of that job :-) Another guy wants me to rebuild a carb and fix/diagnose a trans leak that he has on his '66 Ply. (The infamous one that Dodger and I worked on last summer.)
I learned how to downsize my pics, thanks Gary H, so I'll enclose some here. I hope they are OK for you Jimmy. Don't have any of the broken tailshaft yet. I'll do another post to the groups with some more Geezer Drag pics too. Great event! BTW the last pic is what I call a Rich Kinsley wheelstand :-)
Rich Kinsley '64 Dodge Polara LeRoar 4dr 324 poly
w/goodies
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