B Body Roadtrip!!

@DaveRS23 was kind enough to sell me this beautiful Satellite which my son and I will be picking up in Illinois and road tripping all the way back to California. We’ve done a few road trips together before but this will be the last before he ships out for the military. It crossed my mind to try to fix the car up a bit on the way from state to state. I guess we will see what she needs if and when problems arise. Any suggestions on good things to see along the way or places to stop to get some work done on the old Plymouth?

By the way. I’m not looking to restore it. Just make it a solid hotrod.

Awesome! Please post updates along the way!!

Sounds like a fun trip. Hopefully, you will have less problems than the RoadKill crew.

Best of luck with your trip!

Sounds like a great time.

I would suggest not putting your luggage in the trunk.

Looking at that rust you might want to start with an underside inspection before hitting the road. Or rent a trailer. Myself having lived in Ca. and in the rust belt for the last 25+ years, that car does not look road worthy to me, Sorry but that's my

Thanks for the replies. Looking forward to it!
Dave said he put rear frame rails under it so hopefully that will get the job done. The last duster I had was a Bay Area car with similar quarter panel and roof rust but was solid as a rock underneath….you never know.

We will be hanging out in Illinois for a couple weeks. Hopefully that will give us a chance to iron out any wrinkles ahead of time. We will see just how reliable that old slant six is!!

It really sounds kind of weird to me, usually people take cars from CA and bring them to IL, not the other way around....

Where about in IL will you be? Its a big state. I'm in the north west corner if your in the area and need some help. Gene

Sounds like a fun trip. I would love to do something like that!!!

Enjoy the time with your son and please tell him "thanks for serving!".

If memory serves, isn't that a Slant-6 car ?
I think it was pretty much his daily driver.
I'd just smoke it over a bit checking fluids, maybe bring a ballast resistor and a few small tools for good luck...
As you enter the drier areas of the Country, maybe shop a place or two for some sheet metal ?
Have a safe trip, check out some 2-lanes & small towns.

There was a guy on FBBO that bought a 68 or 69 318 Satellite and drove it from the East coast to Oregon...BY HIMSELF. He posted updates along the way. No major troubles, just a few small problems that he fixed as needed. It was a great thread. He seemed to have a great time and made some lifelong memories.

If you are taking a more southern route you can check out historic route 66. Much is still maintained by individual states. Interesting sights to see.

That's some fun and good memories right there. Good luck and enjoy

have fun and enjoy your trip


Carsten

Good luck and do keep us posted

A great memory-making trip for sure! Best of luck with it.

Is this still a point ignition car?

I agree on bringing a few emergency items (you probably are a step ahead of us) but just in case a gallon of distilled water, duct tape, some rain x in case wipers stop working.

I think it's a great trip!!! Enjoy!!!

Yes. They are good and I set them recently. Along with adjusting the valves, replacing the valve cover gasket, clean and check the plugs. I converted the single wire alternator to the dual wire set-up. The old leaning tower of power would really be good-to-go except that the carb is just about shot.

Trip got underway today. My nephew drove me down to the Benton area. I got to meet Dave who is as great of a guy you could hope to buy a car from. Car was better than he described. I drooled over his Hemi Cuda for a bit then we hit the road back to western Illinois. We put about 250 miles on her today. Only a couple of small hiccups. A fuel leak from a pin hole in one of the rubber lines and the dash lights pooped out on me about 25 miles from our destination. Haven’t had a chance to check it yet. She made it though! There are a few things I want to dig into the next week while we putt around Illinois before we hit the big road. I’ll keep you updated. THANKS AGAIN DAVE!

Here we go with the sideways pics again. I don’t know why that seems to happen when I upload from my phone to this forum.

Take lots of pictures, and enjoy the experience(s) and time with your son. AND don't forget to keep us updated with the car's status as well.

Hope you have an awesome trip. I did 1800 miles in my Super Bee last year and it was the time of my life. My advice.....Stop for every photo opportunity you get.

Safe Travels

You are going have a great time. I drove my 69 Super Bee from Michigan to Reno for Hot August Nites not once but twice. Both trips were absolutely great.

The front tires are showing a lot of weather cracking. I tried to get a couple of replacement tires at the WalMart in Macomb, Illinois where we had been staying. They had some fronts in stock but nothing that would work for the rear. When I told them to install the fronts they put it up on the lift then took it right back down because it “smelled like gas” had been leaking. It does spill over a bit from the filler neck when full but it only had 1/4 tank in it. Decided to take our chances and hit the road. About 100 miles in the temp
Gauge stopped working. I figured I would check it the next morning. About 300 miles in it started severely overheating. I limped it to a toll station. I noticed even when I ran cool water on the radiator it wasn’t cooling the engine. Pulled the thermostat which was stuck shut for no apparent reason. Running without it for now. The overheat melted the radiator cap so I’ll have to look for a new one. We jumped back in after the thermostat and knocked out a couple hundred more miles. 500ish down so far and crashing out at some roadside motel on the western edge of Kansas that smells bad. Lol. Back at it in the morning.

Oh yeah, I found that old pre wwII penny while installing the seat belts.

The temp gauge just had a loose connection and is good to go again.

You guys have bigger "Kuhoneys" than I EVER had ! Thank you for update !

I'm saying a prayer every night for you guys ! PLEASE be safe & of course GOOD LUCK !

And the excitement has just begun. Wait until you hit the mountains. How are the brakes?

Lol! The brakes…..Um……work. The pedal is really stiff…..probably more so than it should be. The left rear drum was hanging a little so I had to back off the adjuster. Other than that I was too afraid to actually look at the shoes and wheel cylinders. It looks like someone replaced all the lines recently. So that’s good.

A few more pics….

You are making great memories that will last for ever.

In 2016 I built a 1953 Dodge pickup rat rod. Dakota front clip and EFI Magnum 318. Drove it from Tennessee to Ontario Canada. When I crossed the boarder into Canada the cute little Canadian customers gal asked me after all the official questions were done with a puzzled look on her face “You actually drove that piece of junk all the way up here from Tennessee?” Me “yep why not.”

Enjoy the rest of your trip and good luck.

sounds like a blast! I've done 5 and 7 hour one ways in my old cars. In 40 years, one bad alternator, and one muffler went bad. Looking forward to the updates.

We got pulled over 5 seconds into Texas but we had a temporary reg from Illinois so we got away with a “warning” (warning of what I’m not sure. We are half way through Texas and it’s hot. 104 but she’s still putting along.

If anyone knows the trick to not having my photos rotate when uploaded from
My phone let me know.

Looks like an awesome Road trip! tThanks for sharing, safe travels. Your adventure makes me think I've done too much RV driving, trailer towing lately and need to get back to some real old car driving road trips.

I am watching this thread. I am going to, sometime late summer, drive my 68 road runner from Washington to Arizona. I was thinking of trailering it before your thread, now I want to drive it!!! Looks like a fun trip! Be safe!!

Oh how I envy you. Seriously,
Enjoy the memory's im sure it offers along the way that will be with you for A LONG time



When I bought my car back in Oct 2020 I did give some serious thoughts to drive it from Cinn Ohio to Tucson AZ.

But my biggest issue was race gas availability along the way . And in a car that gets MAYBE 10 miles per. ( Street Hemi that approx. 11.5 to 1 comp )
Regrettably I decided to have it shipped.

Now that Ive had the car a while I seriously regret not going ahead fly out and drive it home. Ive got the timing backed off to be able to run pump gas with an additive and so far so good.

I just did about 700 mile round trip to ShowLow , Winslow AZ area on all AZ backroads with zero issues ,,,,other than lots of gas

Seemed like slow going today. We hit a big detour in Texas that added several hours to our trip. Since the thermostat incident I had been running it without one. Once the outside temp got over 90 the coolant temp would slowly climb for about two hours until it got hot. I thought maybe the coolant was flowing too fast without a stat so I installed a new t stat and radiator cap on the side of the road somewhere. Helped a little. It got up to 104 outside through Texas. We sweat a lot today. Free sauna. Made it to Albuquerque and the kid couldn’t take anymore and talked me into stopping for the night. As we get closer to CA I get more nervous about leaving it parked outside hotel rooms so I pulled the coil wire to be safe.

The car doesn’t like to hot start all. Seems like during fuel stops the carb is heat soaking and flooding the engine. The starter and battery are getting tired of me having to crank so much. 1000 plus miles down, 900 to go. I’m having a good time. We got to see the Oklahoma panhandle, the Texas plains and a New Mexico sunset today.

It's about which way the phone is when the pic is taken - dig cam pic files include data about which edge is the top when taken. I usually rinse my stuff thru a desktop app to get them right side up and downsized to a reasonable file size. Some phones have some image editors built it that may be some help. Figure out which pics rotate and then hold the phone the other way is the easy way out.

Why is it so hard for people to believe an "old car" can't be driven cross country ??? . . . most comments on trip were : "you actually DROVE that all this way ??" sure a slant6 won't win any drag races, take time to get up to 60mph compared to 318 or bigger, but it will run all day long . . . The 64 Falcon Futura Convertible has been across Canada a couple of times, the 6cyl running perfect, 22mpg all day long . . . so it was update with an alternator and Ford duraspark electronic ignition, but that was all for reliability in long run . . . and it has been . . . (pics of car in Newfoundland)

As many have said, enjoy the journey, takes tons of pics to remember the trip !! . . .

You're kinda missing the point on this. It's not that this particular car is old. It's that it's old, mostly original and poorly maintained. Basically worn out. But it is a Mopar. Which, unlike a phord, doesn't have to be as good as new to go across the country.

And that always makes for a great road trip! It brings excitement to life.

I have to say, at 10 mpg with a slant 6, I would have spent some time looking for that gas leak when the car was in IL. Past that, the rest of the stuff is a "as long as it keeps moving, keep driving" event. If something breaks that you can't patch up, you can always get it hauled the rest of the way home. I think too many people are afraid of having a little trouble, that they miss out on a lot of fun stuff.

We drive our 48 Plymouth coupe all over the country, its probably a lot better maintained then this B Body is, but even with the new shiny paint on our coupe, people are always asking us if we drove the car to wherever we are when they see us. They have been programed to think a car has to be new to be reliable. Its kind of like the old Mopar guys that think a car has to have a carb on it to be reliable, but drive the newer stuff that probably has more then 100,000 mile of trouble free use. I worked in a gas station back in the early 70s, there were not many 60s & 70s car that survived past 100,000 miles. Maybe that is why people question driving the old cars so far from home... Gene

The hot start issue is most likely caused by today’s gas. It has a lower boiling point than the gas back in the day. It’s formulated got fuel injection. Can’t boil when under pressure. Had the same problem with my Super Bee until I put EFI in it. It would stall setting at the light due to the fuel boiling over in the og bowels and flood the engine.

Let me start by saying….WE MADE IT! Over 2000 miles from door to door. Yesterday however was where the trouble began. We left Albuquerque and we’re cruising along happy as could be. Had some beautiful rainstorms coming through Arizona and a great lunch near the Grand Canyon. We crossed into California and were coming through the desert near Needles with around 100 degree ambient temp. I felt the engine lug hard and smelled coolant. I pulled over and saw the upper radiator hose had burst. Here’s where the good luck/bad luck starts. Fortunately the upper hose burst close enough to the T stat housing I was able to shorten it and reseal. We only had about 1 1/2 gallons of water with us so I added that and tried to limp it to the next gas station that was only 1 mile away thank goodness. Unfortunately while limping it to the gas station the lower hose burst. Fortunately it split larger but still close enough I could trim the hose and just get a bite on the water pump. Unfortunately this made the hose take a path where it would run the belt. Fortunately I was able to use zip ties to hold the hose away from the belt. We were back on the road but unfortunately the zip ties broke and the belt rubbed a hole in the lower hose. Fortunately I was able to bolster some electrical tape with some sports tape (we had been training pretty hard in Illinois) and make a temporary patch. I left the cap loose so it wouldn’t build pressure. We were trying to make the auto parts store in Barstow CA before they closed at 9 pm but had to take it slow to keep things from steaming over. Made it to the parts store 6 minutes before closing. They WERE NOT going to wait for me to pull the hoses for comparison so I had to drop $75 on two flex hoses that were a complete guess. The top was way off but the bottom cinched down ok and we were able to get back after it. It was a long, long day but we were so close to home I wanted to keep on rolling. Quick truck stop power nap and we hit the road rolling in the driveway a little after 2 am. WE DID IT!

Love that old Studebaker

Glade you made it home safe.

Thank you for sharing your interesting trip. Making memories like that with ones offspring is priceless; they will last a lifetime.

Ragnar in Iceland

Congratulations! Cel phones make trips like these a little easier, but you still showed a lot of ingenuity and creativity getting home.

I guess now you'll be giving her a proper going-through...

Great story/trip/car/pics thanks for sharing!Take care bee safe!

a big CONGRATULATIONS to you guys !
THANK YOU for the story !

I don't know who/what I am prouder of.......you guys or the old Satellite.

Anyway, my hats off to you and CONGRATULATIONS!

You made it, all safe and sound, no major problems, and some great memories! But $75 for a couple flex hoses? Did they give you some Vaseline with those? Holy Crap.I carry spare hoses in my road runner and D 100. Can't wait for the updates on your car!

I remember when we went through Missouri, it seemed like there were UHH, adult entertainment stores at every exit. maybe he got HOSED at one of them LOL
Glad you made it home safe and you have bigger cajones than I do

Well done! You will look back n this trip fondly, I guarantee. Nothing beats a family road trip!
Until 1996, when I traded it for a good amount of $$ and a '68 Charger, I owned a 1964 Polara 500 for 16 years. Bought it from the original owner.
My wife's son's bio father lived in Bakersfield, CA - we lived in Kirby, AR. A little better than 1500 miles, each way. We would take the boys to CA in June, pick them up in August. Fortunately, it did have A/C [added less than one lb in the time I owned the car]. We took the Polara until the boys outgrew it, like in 1994. The A/C got turned off and we drove at night, west of Kingman. Way hot!!
That car had 337 K on it when I sold it. We went EVERYwhere in it. Gulf coast, Chicago....

I think the point is . . . no matter HOW OLD or HOW LONG the vehicle has been sitting, looking after the basics, will get you going and you might not catch every issue, but then that makes for memorable trip !!! . . .

Great story. Thanks for sharing and congratulations on making it there. I love road trips and would like to do something like that someday.