Sunday, May 28, 2023

HRPT Prep 29 - Trip to Houston and Back

Today, I decided to make a quick trip to the northern part of Houston as a test drive.  The total drive was 2.5 hours and 135 miles.  

The first part of the trip was largely on the highway.  I ran most of the time with the A/C on low and the temperature of the engine was always about 185 degrees.  This was with an outside temperature of about 82 degrees at 10:30 in the morning.  

As I made it into a little stop and go traffic with fairly sustained 30 to 40 MPH sections the car stayed at 195 degrees with the AC on low.

Once there, I at Pappasito's with my wife and daughter.  When I went out to start the car 45 minutes later, it really did not want to start.  I had to floor it and there was a ton of belt squeal.  I hoped the lower base timing would help with that but I guess not.  

I drove the stop and go path home and just stopping a few times with the A/C on drove the car up to 200 degrees.  I turned the A/C off but the car kept going up in temp until it reached 210.  I'm not sure if it would have maintained that or not because traffic let up and I started driving 40 for a while and the temp slowly came down to 195.  Its bothersome none the less.

Once I hit the highway again, the temp was back between 185 and 195 with the A/C on medium (only three speeds).  I made it the whole way home without any issues.  Once parked back in the garage, I tried to restart the car and didn't have much of a problem.  I just had to floor it like normal and then all was good.  I'm wondering if gas is just boiling over into the engine the longer it is parked and it floods the engine.

This was a good trip and my take aways are that I still have some concern the car will get hot, I have a rattle in the driver door, it would be good to take more CDs, and then I noticed that the front passenger windshield trim seems to have blown off on the trip.


06/04/23 Update: I ordered a replacement upper windshield trim piece that is sold by Scott Drake.  I assumed they made it but they do not.  The quality seems to be good but it was rather hard to install so that it would not come off.  After about seven tries, I found it is best to slide it through the clips at the middle of the glass and then push it down into the others.  With that approach, I was able to install it and hopefully it will not come off.


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