My son Aric and I start our journey tommorrow at noon. Our first destination is 19660 8th St E, Sonoma, CA 95476. We are towing gopack's car (Mark Wollett) out to McMarks shop along with parts for the limo.

Here's Marks car as it arrived at area51werks. Mark and his wife are moving to Cali from the cheesehead state. We were heading out to the gold coast with an empty trailer so it just worked out to move Marks car now.

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Stupid road salt

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Here's our route. We would like to see a couple sites as we roll through. We are planning a trip past Amboy to "The Route 66 Ramble" and then though Garden City to visit Mary and family. Maybe take a spin in Buttercup and then on to visit Mike Moorman in Wichita.

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Too bad you're not in a Teener to do Rte. 1 Coast Hwy. between Santa Cruz & Morro Bay!

Watch yourself over the Rockies this time of year - esp. if the trailer starts passing you!

Nice trip - makes me want to do a road trip! .... but I'll wait for better weather.

Safe Travels!

When are ya'll gonna be here? Saturday?

Rick,
I'll be flying over your head today! See you there. Give me a call when you are near Sacramento, and I"ll join you if I can (unless it is on Friday) over to McMarks shop.

In the words of the immortal Lou Reed: "It's the begining of a great adventure".

We plan yo drive straight through Mark. I think we'll be there late Thursday night. I'll call you from the road.

Looks like it will be Friday Mark. But call me if you have time and we'll see where we all are.

AWESOME! I have a clear Friday to hang out.

Just pulled up weather/road conditions for I-80 through Wyoming.
Doesn't look too bad, scattered snow/ice a couple places; but at least it's open.
I'm in Cheyenne if you need a POC.
PM'd my tele.
Mike

What's that white stuff in those pictures?


Andy

So Rick, you're rolling in on Fri AM?

Rick when are you going to hit Route66? Be damn careful draggin a trailer around on I80 in Wyoming on ice. BTDT. Wind too. Careful my friend.

Slight drizzle, on otherwise dry roads, covered the car with salt spray! Since this was a southwestern car, I am sure she was saying the same thing! I am looking forward to moving to your neck of the woods!

Are you sure? CA is a tad wacky.. and bankrupt.... and I'm a CA native!

I've been to worse places. A lot worse, in fact ...

And for the most part, it's the "good wacky" kind!
Andy

Ummm, correct me if I am wrong, but you will be going backwards if you go to Garden City first, then to Mike's place. You might want to swap those two around.


Shoe

And how many yards are you from Berkeley?

Oh, you meant *those* nutjobs ....

Has Rick and son been sighted? I hope he's making it through OK...

Are they here yet? Are they here yet?

Amboy? Make sure you don't get there during "shift change"

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Just a quick post. Were fried from driving. Left home in the rain. That turned into snow. Between the snow and ice frozen to the roads and the wind and wrecked trucks were done for the day. We are in Reno. Spotted another 914 here!

Reno is a ways away from Wickenberg!

Reno is close....

I may be grounded this weekend as Buddy has a temp / breathing problems...

Were on a tighter schedule than we thought we would be. We left a day later than we planned. Aric had a test he couldn't schedule early. We lost about 10 hrs driving time to the weather. Were going to have to pick up Sandy's car and head to Wickenberg. It's approximately another 12 hr. drive. So noon puts us in at midnight. I hope to be back out this way again sometime this year.

Sorry.. But hey! you could alway's come to MN!

WEre back on the road heading for another joint! That's how it goes playing in a band! It's a long way to the top if you want to rock and ric ola!

Be careful what you ask for...

Hey save those joints until your off the road Be safe

Did you shoot a man while in Reno ? I hear it's customary

Were in Rio Rancho NM. We went to see Liz and Nico at the Fat Squirrel. Liz was working. Her family is fine. Her car has a few small issues but nothing major. Were leaving early for Kansas.

Did you remember to set your clock forward?

See you soon - drive safely cheers!

Aric and I had a wild and long journey from Duluth to Sonoma and then Half moon Bay.

First, I have a confession to make. I had a mishap with Gopack's car. I'm not going to go into to detail here but let's just say I damaged the front fiberglas and a couple more other things in the front. Second, Don't use those ratchet straps that lock into the track system. They don't hold. I feel really bad about it.

That's how our trip started. it was pouring rain from the time we left until we hit the 76/80 split. We took the 80 and drove through snow and ice and freezing rain. There were rolled tractors and cars and road speeds were at 20 mph. We lost so much time we ended up a full day behind.

The one bright spot is we were able to actually see and touch the limo! Mark has a really nice shop! We talked about a few issues with regard to the construction of the car. Mark has some very good ideas to make the car very nice.

We dropped off Gopack's car and left a couple seats for the limo project that Paul (Lotus_65) and I donated to the car.

Friday we tried to get back on track but we missed a turn and lost a couple more hours. More rain. We picked up Sandy car in the pouring rain. Soaked and way behind our time schedule we decided to cancel our reservation in Wickenburg and miss the Route 66 Ramble.

We were charged for the hotel because we missed the cancelation time due to the time zone difference. What ever, We moved on and tried to get back on schedule.

We drove through the rain the rest of the day and stopped in Bakersfield for Friday night.

We drove all day Saturday through the rain again and stopped in Albuquerque, NM. I called Liz and Niko at Turtle Mountain Brewery. Liz was over at their new place The Fat Squirrel. We stopping in for dinner and a visit. It was nice to see Liz again! BTW: The food is awesome! You all need to eat there!

Sunday morning was a nice clear day. We had a long drive ahead of us but took some time to stop in Tucumcari for a Route 66 photo or two. I'll post some later. I'm having an issue with my computer right now so I can't access the photos just yet.

We arrived at Mike Moorman's house Sunday night. His wife Mary had a roast simmering in the crook pot when we arrived. We ate like kings!

Then out to the garage where we proceeded to surgically (kind of) remove the front clip from Mikes parts car. His black ruster gave her front so Sandy's new car can be brought back from the depths of near death by saws all.

Monday morning we left Mike and Mary's house before the sun came up. By the time we crossed the MN border the sun was shining and it was a very nice day and a welcome end to a long journey. We had about 4800 miles on the odometer in 5 days.

Thanks to friends along the way. And specially thanks to BryanF for selling us the car. I will post photos. This is one solid 914!

You're crazy Rick... glad you made it home safe...

Glad to hear you made it home safe.
Hopefully you weren't puckering too bad on the Wyoming portion.
Mike

I'm glad that 914 will be on the road again. It was too nice to be slowly picked to death as a parts car, but I certainly don't have the time or skills to get it back on the road.

Wish you would have had more time to spend in Half Moon Bay. It is a nice part of the world.

Looking forward to seeing your progress!

Bryan

Hi Bryan,

We did get to take some breath taking photos of the surf on the way to your place. As soon as I get my computer issue ironed out I'll post some.

And also I will post photos of the car for all! You did the right thing by wanting to see it saved. It's going to be a part of our family now.

It was great to see you Rick and to meet Aric (and the puppy Penelope).

I have never seen a rust-free 914 before - it is a gem and a more than worthy candidate for donation of the front clip from "Black Beauty".

Glad your home -

I can't wait to post pictures. The computer I'm posting from is so old it doesn't have a slot for my camera card or software to accept photos from a flash drive. I'll get some posted soon.

Thanks again for the help Rick! Don't feel bad, because HAPPENS! I'll take a look at it when I get out there in a month, and you me and McMark will get it figured out. No worries!

Thanks for understanding Mark.

Finally have my computer back. Something happened to the wireless connection while we were on the road. I had to back up everything and dump the hard drive. Here come several photos. Hold you comments for a couple post for me will ya. Abby (Alien baby) has gone under the knife at area52werks.

Ok, Here are a couple photos from the road. Aric and I stopped in Tucumcari NM to see the famos Blue Bird Motel and get this photo. Then who can drive through Texas and not stop at The Big Texan!

Some damned iron-ranger came through California and failed to report to me! How come I am just seeing this thread. Is it because I don't read absolutely everything??? Oh well, my wife tells me she wants to go to Minnesota to see my family so we will get out there to see you guys soon...

I took some measurements of the chassis and discovered the damage. although it looks serious was limited to the upper chassis amd did not effect the suspension pickup points. The doors werk perfect and the cowl and strut towers are square. I used my post to relieve the stress in the front. This is the first step before cutting out and metal. Always rough the car back into basic shape. Then start cutting out the damaged sections. Note the damage has crushed kinked and ripped the fender ends. I had to pull the headlight pockets back as good as I could just to get the motors off the mount and the lifts out of the pockets.

More fender and headlight carnage.

After the first pulls were complete I was able to cut out the trashed front panel and headlight pockets. Notice the inner wheelhouse is crushed.

Abel hit a car. We used a power puller/pusher and put a 4*4 up against the lower firewall to push against.
That whole area moves fairly easily.
If you unspotweld the headlight buckets and the little brace below it moves REALLY easily.
We pulled it all back out in a few hours and he was back on the road.

Rich

Well then...nevermind
You posted the last set of pics while I was typing....so nevermind...

The master will make it fine.

Rich

Passenger side fender is bent causing about a 1' gap at the end of the hood and is crushed down in the headlight pocket.

This photo shows a vector pull to realign the fender and inner structure.

The fender is coming back into line and Here is the test fit of the front panel Mike Moorman (Kansas914) donated to the project. Thank you Mike! That is the first time I set that part inplace. Notice how nice the fog light holes line up with the original holes on what is left of the green nose panel.

Call us when you get to the metro or wherever... Sorry, 5000 in 5 days through every kind of bad weather you can have... No time for anything but driving really.