Hi Folks,
I think we are ready for the trip to Ashville, NC. I've never been to the
parts of Virginia and western North Carolina that we will be visiting, so
it should be quite an experience just from the touring standpoint. I'm
psyched!
Round trip to Ashville, NC from Boston, MA is roughly 1800 miles. We'll
probably wind up putting on about 2500 or so with side trips and other
considerations. That's going to add up to a lot of time in the car.
Last week, more or less as a warm-up, my wife and I headed to south
eastern MA to the "Crash Test Dummie Rallye" that was held mostly in the
town of Rehoboth, MA. It was basically a 200 mile (round trip plus
rallye miles) warmup to the tour to Ashville. We did not place, but we
did have a good showing, and when we worked together we were able to
solve some pretty clever clues...
Narry a mechanical problem was had.
I keep thinking that I should be doing stuff to the car to make it ready,
but I can't convince myself to touch anything lest I break it! So, I keep
going out to the garage and looking the car over, but not touching anything.
I did try one mechanical task last evening, but I was unable to resolve
the problem. I have posted here in the recent past regarding the annoying
"brake" failure light being illuminated on my dash. I fixed most of the
minor electrical problems related to this light (one broken wire, replaced
the oil pressure sending unit because one of the terminals broke off _at
least four years ago_) but the light failed to extinguish.
Following the "PWDA" re-centering procedure in the manual failed to fix
the problem. However, I now know that I either have a problem with my
master cylinder, _or_ the PWDA seals are bad. I suspect the latter,
because the brakes are really okay, and I have no qualms about tromping
the brakes to stop the car. And, I get good pressure and fluid flow on
both the front and rear hydraulic circuits when I have someone operate
the brake pedal while I open the bleed valves. Thus, whatever is wrong is
causing the system to work like a single system, not the dual type system
that it should be. I'll keep my eye on the fluid, but I'm pretty sure
this is a PWDA shuttle seal problem internal to the hydraulics.
Plus, the hand brake works well.
However, I'm not going to touch the PWDA shuttle assembly right now. I'll wait
'till after the trip. Maybe I'll try to chase down some other TR6 owners
and get their feedback while I'm in Ashville.
I took the time to carefully pack spare parts in the nooks and crannies
in the boot. Even though I have done this in the past, I always find it
kind of amuzing just how many little cubby holes there are back there. All
the while I was doing this, I was thinking that regardless of the level
of planning that whatever failure I am most likely to have, the parts
will be located in the most inaccessable little cranny. _If_ I happen to
have the required spare, that is!
But, I now have all of that stuff in the car and the actual boot area
looks empty. Now I won't have any qualms about getting the computer and
other items to fit back there.
Of course, I'll probably have to take all the stuff _out_ to autocross,
but that's another issue altogether.
This is going to be an _adventure_ to be sure.
regards,
rml
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