Don,
It's a Moroso fuel log regulator, and it remains a mystery why that method didn't work.

We were ten miles into our journey when we found a Speedway station for our first fill-up, and it was already obvious that this was going to be a different trip than previous drag weeks. Darren and Shari were long gone, they chose to drive straight to their new accommodations in Norwalk rather than follow us on a wild goose chase. This would be my second Drag Week solo in the Valiant, because Dad decided to ride with Rachael. This came as a bit of a surprise to my brothers and I because he rode two legs of DW14 with her and swore he wouldn't do it again. He rode the final leg of DW11 with me in the Valiant and I thought we had a great trip, but I think he chose the comfort of the big B body with full exhaust and reclining seats over hanging out with his first born in a ladder bar early A. For the past three years, Dale has had James and his TomTom device on board to keep him and the Gremlin moving in the right direction, and fueled up with his very limited radius. This year he would have neither, and that made him a liability in just about any position in the caravan. Boone usually has Dad with him in the Barnyard Viper which was always super reliable and they had the trailer with them, so they made the perfect caboose to trail along and pick up the stragglers. This year with Boone and a rookie 13 year old navigator in a freshly built Duster, they were the ones who needed looking after, a role Boone was not accustomed to at all.

We pulled out of the Speedway with Rachael in the lead, followed closely by the Valiant and I. Boone was next with Dale as the caboose. When Rachael is the lead dog, she drives with all her attention on the road ahead, those behind can keep up or not, but she isn't going to adjust her speed based on anything that may occur behind her. Fifteen miles down the road , we had a half mile gap between Rachael and I back to Boone and Dale's headlights, but I decided not to worry about it, Boone would call if anything came up. We ran OH-16 for forty miles, a nice little shoulderless divided four lane that meanders alongside the Muskingum River. It probably was a very scenic drive, but the moonlight did little to allow more than a perfunctory glance to the roadside. OH-16 merged with US-36, and we followed the Tuscarawas River for eight miles. I was studying the Belvedere's lights in the darkness, and was convinced that they were dimming again. I certainly wasn't going to yell at her, as I had a year to fix that alternator plug and hadn't touched it, but I needed to stop her and get it plugged back in before she ran out of juice. We had to make a full stop to turn left on OH-93, and I used that moment to accelerate past Rachael and then pull onto the wide gravel shoulder opposite the driveway to the Agland Co-op.

She pulled the Belvedere up behind me, as I crawled out of the now silent Valiant. Instead of going to her window to talk with her, I went straight for the hood latch, as soon as I popped it, she killed the engine. I raised the hood with my right hand and reached down to plug in the alternator with my left. I had it in place when I heard the trunk pop open, and she walked up with the jack handle that we use as a prop rod.
"You need this to hold the hood open", she explained.
"I was just plugging the alternator back in", I took the handle from her and put it in place, "let's see if you have enough juice to re-start it.
The 440 cranked a half a turn before the solenoid started clicking. Dad stepped from the passenger's side and asked if I had the cables.
"No, but I have the battery charger...didn't we load the small generator up in the trunk of your car?"
Rachael had a look on her face that told me she was expecting me to be upset, and I was determined to keep it as upbeat as I could this early into the trip.
"Yeah, it's back there, I'll grab it!" Rachael exclaimed, the smile returning to her face.
"I'll get it", Dad corrected her, and moved towards the still open trunk lid, "you're in no condition to be lifting that heavy thing!"
"I'm pregnant, not helpless", she laughed at him, but allowed him to bring it up to the front of the car.
The little generator sounded like it was going to spill it's guts with the charger on forty amps, so we backed it off to twenty and the three of us grabbed some drinks from the cooler and walked to the back of the car.
"No biggie", I told them, "this will give Boone and Dale a chance to catch up with us".
The words had barely left my lips when my phone rang, I reached in my pocket and fished it out, it was Dale.

"I called Darren but he's already at the motel, and I think the generator is in his truck", he explained.
"He's already at the motel? We're barely sixty miles in!"
"Yeah, I know", he laughed, "but we need cables or something, that 50 amp single wire alternator isn't keeping up with the Duster, so when we pulled over to dump more fuel in the Gremlin, it wouldn't fire back up."
"Well, I don't know where the cables are, but Rachael has the generator in the Belvedere, and I have the smart charger in the Valiant".
"Great! Can one of you bring them back to us?"
"No, no we can't", I laughed, "because we are using them at this very moment!"
"The alternator plug again? You had one thing to fix all year..."
"Yeah, right", I cut him off, "Tell Rachael where you are, and I'll send her and Dad back as soon as I get them rolling".
I handed my phone to her and explained what was going on to Dad. A few minutes later the Belvedere fired to life and Rachael determined they had to back track about ten miles to help the guys. I decided to go on solo, and I could call them if anything came up.

I was only up the road about twenty miles when I entered the small town of Baltic Ohio, population 795, with one stop sign in the middle of town and a large mill sitting precariously close to the side of the road. I pulled up next to a couple of the large hoppers, and shut off the engine. The gentle, rhythmic hammering of the mill was comforting. I noticed the lights were still on in the garage of an old style gas station across the street. A young man was working under a pick-up truck on the lift, and a young woman was sitting there talking with him, looking at him as if he was her whole life. They were so content in their own little world that they paid me no attention at all. Ah young, small town love, thirty years in my past but I remember it like it was yesterday.

I took a couple of pictures then jumped back in the Valiant, and pulled up to the single stop sign. There were at least ten different large patches of fresh rubber laid down on the asphalt leaving the stop sign and crossing the intersection.
"My buddies left me bread crumbs to find my way", I chuckled to myself as I drove out of town.