I spent most of my Wednesday afternoon, and a good portion of Thursday, packing everything I could imagine that I might need on this adventure. Rachael had stopped by and added her bag, 4 coolers, 2 plastic totes, and a small gas grille to my already copious amounts of supplies. "What's the grille for?" "You guys eat way too much track food, this way I can just cook while we are there", she replied. I shrugged, as a two time Drag Week Veteran with my brothers, she should know we never have time for cooking, but it's her dream, and who am I to dash it before we even get started. My son Ben came home from his graveyard shift, and immediately helped me prepare. We drove the 67 Belvedere into position, then bolted the hood on the 62 Valiant, and shoved it up the ramps behind the Belvedere. "Why didn't you just finish up the carb, and drive it on the trailer, Dad..." He queried halfheartedly. "The last two Drag Weeks the Valiant completed, it never fired until it got to Oklahoma...I'm superstitious, OK? Never said it made any sense, just my thing." As we were finishing up, I went to get a shower and grab my clothes. "Pack me up a bag of tools in that biggest Craftsman bag". "What do you need?" "Hammers, pry bars, crescents, screwdrivers...beyond that, I'm probably out of my league anyway!" "Ha...none of your good stuff in other words!" he chuckled. "Nope, just the pig iron, half of it won't make the trip home anyway." I was nearly ready to roll, when the Wife made it home from work with a stern warning that I had to wait until the Grandson came home from 1st grade before I could leave. "Why are you in such a hurry to leave anyway?" She blurted, "Drag Week is a week and a half away"! "I want to run Rachael's car at TNT Friday night, and get it dialed in with the 3.55's", I explained. It was a bit of a white lie, I just really get antsy when I'm burning Vacation days, and can't wait to get on the road.
It was the heat of the evening before I hit the I-17 north and headed for Flagstaff. As soon as I started the pull to Sunset Point the ole' Cummins started limiting the amount of pressure I could put on the accelerator by a corresponding jump in Water temp. This is normal when the 93 has been sitting for a while, and it usually runs better as the trip goes along. My concern was peaked when I realized that I had a bad vibration, which effectively limited me to about 55-60. My first diagnosis was a tire, but I started noticing a loud clang on gear changes, so my mind went to driveline problem. 30 miles from Flag, I pulled over to check it out. I pushed down the emergency brake, left the truck in neutral, and climbed under to have a look in the fading sunlight. I swear, as I moved everything with my hands, that I saw some movement in the u-joint just behind the carrier bearing. Once in flag, armed with directions from the gas station clerk, I made my way to an O'reilly's. I spotted it on an adjacent street, and cut through a parking lot to avoid the intersection, then shot across 4 lanes of traffic. I was nearly home free, when a blonde in a compact import came towards me in the opposite direction. Fearing that my trailer swing would hit her if she came any closer, I simply stopped. She had her window open, and was holding a cell phone to her ear. When we made eye contact, she stuck her hand out and yelled, "SERIUOSLY?" "Yes, seriously" I replied, motioning to the 32 foot trailer behind me. "Ok...go ahead!" she pointed to the O'reilly's. First disaster of Drag Week narrowly avoided! I purchased a carrier bearing, U-joint, and a tub of wheel bearing grease. The trailer had been shoving me around pretty good, so I decided to grease the ball, and see if that was part of the problem. When I jacked the trailer up off the ball, I noticed it was actually loose! After it was tightened and greased, all my mystery drivetrain noise went away, and I decided to drive out of town to the rest area near Meteor Crater Road on I-40 to possibly check it again. I pulled out my bag of tools at the rest area, only to discover the cap bolts on the rear U-joint were metric. I had nearly every SAE tool known to man, but nothing metric, so I went on down the highway.
I hit Gallup NM, at about 1am, and stumbled into a 24 hour Wal-Mart with the intent of buying a small metric tool kit, but they had the automotive section blocked off, and liquid wax scattered down all the isles! I took this as a sign that my day was done, crawled into the back of my truck, and put my head on a pillow. Day 1 of my vacation was well and truly in the books.
