Ford Nationals - Areas for Improvement

The car ran near flawlessly and I'm proud to have built something to make the trip.  There are always was to improve and I'd like to think through some of those so I continue to improve the car.  The things that come to mind include:

1) I need to get some stiffer rear springs or find out what is going on with the passenger side rear tire.  It continues to rub the quarter panel.  It did it a few times on bridge transitions on the highway.  I can just see it destroying a tire.

2) Car tends to follow uneven areas on the highway like grooves.  It also gets rather sketchy when there are a large amount of unlevel and bumpy areas of the road.  I'm not sure if this is just the manual steering or the low profile tires.

3) Once it started to rain especially hard, I noticed leaks which seem to come from the wiper arms  and then all around the top of the windshield.  I don't think I installed new gaskets around the wipers arms which might explain some of the problem.  I'm not sure if the windshield is no longer sealed or what might be causing the windshield to leak.

4) The passenger door is a little difficult to open.  I think this is primarily because the portion of the latch mechanism that is mounted in the door jamb is not aligned properly.  I've tried to change it before but the screws which hold it in place don't want to budge.  I'll have to work on it again.

5) The left turn signal indicator on the instrument cluster does not light up when the blinker is on.  I imagine the bulb is out which is simple to fix.

6) There seems to be quite a bit of vibration in the drivetrain.  It is nothing I have not felt in the past.  It is just noticeable after hours of driving on the highway.

Ford Nationals - Day 4 - Car Show & Drive Home

Another round of storms made it through Tulsa last night.  The forecasts all mentioned heavy rain and potential hail through the morning hours of the day.  Luckily, the hotel allowed me to park overnight under the front covered entrance area.  

I expected to wake up this morning and find it raining but it had stopped about an hour earlier.  It was raining all around Tulsa but not in Tulsa itself.  The car show was somewhat on the way out of town so I decided we would stop for a while.  If it started raining or there were no cars to see, we would just hit the road.

The car show was at the Southern Hill Marriott.  We parked and made our way to the car show area at about 8:15 and cars were just starting to find their spots. The rain no doubt impacted the turn out as I think many expected it to rain and likely left town already.  However, as the morning progressed, the clouds lifted and more and more cars arrived.

Aaron and I looked at the cars for a while and eventually decided we had seen what we needed to see.  Cars were still arriving but we would be here all day noticing ones from a distance which seemed to have just arrived and walking over to them.  At 9:30, we decided it would be best to leave and get an early start.

We headed south on 75 which is a decently smooth road with few of the potholes we found everywhere else.  We cruised with the morning sun shining and the A/C running.  It was starting off as a much better day than the weather suggested.  This continued until we made it to a few miles north of Durant, OK.

Just outside of Durant it began to storm like crazy.  The kind of rain where everyone is pulling off the highway and you can't see anything.  I've driven the Mustang while it sprinkled but never in the rain before.  There was no avoiding it this time.

It was not long before we noticed numerous leaks in the Mustang.  I don't think I put rubber gaskets back on the wiper arm brackets so there were some leaks there.  What was more surprising is that I think I must have a bad windshield gasket or rust holes at the top of the window as it was literally pouring water in from around the top and down the sides of the front window.  I certainly did not expect that.

We stopped in Durant and I pulled under the covering of a gas station.  Aaron dried inside the car some while I dried off around the windshield frame and put duct tape on it to seal up the area.  I did not want to but we still had five hours of driving ahead of us and the weather showed there were many storms still ahead.

We ate at a Sonic to wait out the rain a little.  When we left it was not raining but it took only minutes for it to start raining rather hard again.  Thankfully, the duct tape was doing a good job.  However, we now had no radio as I turned it off out of fear water was getting on it.  I tried turning on the headlights only to find they no longer worked.

We drove for hours home hitting rain sporadically.  We must have been driving in rain for a least and hour of two of the trip.  On several instances, it was hard to see the road but we continued on working our way back home.  We had old shirts from our bags in the back seat soaking up water in the floorboard as we drove but we made it home.

I was a little frustrated at the rain, other drivers, and that the trip was ending on what seemed to be a low point but I tried to stay upbeat.  In reality, we will likely look back on this and laugh in the future.  I guess I could not have prepared much for this as I would not have even considered the windshield would leak.  I suppose this was the point in the road trip where you earn it as mechanically we had no troubles.

We made it home at 6:30 in the evening and had Father's Day dinner with my wife and daughter.  It was a good trip.

...

I don't know exactly how it is possible but I tracked all of my mileage and the gallons from each refuel on the trip to check my gas mileage.  It seems that I was able to average just a little over 20 miles per gallon on the trip.  I drove a little slower than I normally would (65 or 70) but was still mostly going the speed limit unless the road was bad.  I'm impressed.

Ford Nationals - Day 3 - Tulsa Raceway Park

Ford Nationals - Day 2 - Hallett Raceway

We left the Dallas Holiday Inn Express at about 7:15 in the morning as we wanted to make it to the Hallett Raceway before registration check-in ended at noon.  

We cruised all the way without any difficulty.  We had the air conditioning running and the cooling system ran at 180 the entire time.  The weather was perfect with a light wind and in the low 80s.  You could not ask for better.  

We made it to registration at 11:55 providing just enough time to check in.  When we parked, I was beyond happy the car had actually made it.  I felt rather confident but had many others who acted as if I were crazy and would be left stranded in Oklahoma.

We made it right as the Corinthian Vintage Racing group was lining up to start racing.  My son was amazed at the cars, how loud they were, and how fast they went.  He immediately began taking pictures himself.

Ford Nationals - Day 1

Starting mileage for the trip is 3,510.2.  When we finished up the day, our mileage was 3714.4.

I'm going to track my gas mileage as well.  For those purposes, I filled up last at 3370.2.