The Chronicles of Rabfan: H2O 2008 by rabfan | volkswagen | articles

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The Chronicles of Rabfan: H2O 2008 by rabfan

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The Chronicles of Rabfan: H2O 2008

Compliments of rabfan @ vwvortex.com

10-9-2008

The Chronicles of Rabfan; H2O 2008

The trip started out from Red Deer on Monday night at about 4pm. Initially Ugly and I were supposed to leave our respective departure points and arrive at the same time in Montana at Lucky's.

Alas, Ugly was having trouble reinforcing his oil pan no doubt his lack of sleep during the previous 6 days was clouding his creative vision.

Knowing that we were on a tight schedule to arrive in OC on Friday night I elected to leave before him in the hopes that he would catch up.

I arrived in Montana at 3am Tuesday morning and got a hotel. The next day there were several picture messages on the phone of the Bucket on the road.

"This is a good sign I thought. Maybe we will actually make it on time."

Little did I know that the 8 hour trip from Washington to Montana would take the bucket 16 hours to complete. Sometime around 5pm on Tuesday Ugly showed up and we went to the shop.

At this point we were 1 day late in leaving and both Bucket and Kitty needed some work before the trip.

For reasons I won't reveal we didn't get started until about 2 in the morning on Wednesday. Kitty got some new injectors and a fuel filter, for some reason she was running without one, and her stalling rough running problem cleared right up.

Next the bucket needed his rear mount reattached as it had broken loose on the run from Washington to the shop. Off to Roccit's place to borrow a welder.

So finally sometime around 5pm on Wednesday we hit the road.

At this point we were now 2 days behind our original schedule. Friday night arrival was not looking good

About an hour into the trip Bucket's upper timing cover came loose and was rattling. We fixed that and hit the road again. Sometime around 11pm Bucket ran out of fuel mysteriously.

A quick trip and we got a water jug filled with diesel.

Unfortunately a full tank revealed a small problem with the fuelling system. Guess this is why the Bucket ran out of fuel so quickly.

After trying JB weld a couple of times Ugly remembered the soap trick and we were on the way again.

However, at this point we were only 400 miles from our starting point and realised that soap wasn't going to get us to OC. After some brainstorming we came up with an auxiliary fuel tank system.

MacGyvering in the parking lot of Walmart at 3 in the morning .Billings Montana.

Sprinklers came on.

Finally on the road¡K

At this point I was still thinking "ok we could still be there Saturday morning."

Then at around 2pm on Thursday it became apparent that the Bucket was so badly misaligned from a railroad tie incident in Lucky's driveway that the tires were simply not going to last to OC and we weren't even out of Montana at this point. Right about now I was beginning to get discouraged. I admit it. I started thinking "ok, it's time to turn around. There's no way we're going to get there for anything but the show on Sunday."

It was then that we decided to leave the bucket ...on a Native reserve.

Normally I have the attitude that "no one gets left behind" but this was my big adventure! My highly anticipated H2O trip. I'd missed 07' and I'd be dammed if I was going to miss this year.

So we tarped up the Bucket, bade him farewell and were on our way again.

"And then there were two"

By now it was around 5pm on Thursday. We had been travelling for almost 15 hours and covered less than 500 miles. The realisation that we were still over 2000miles from OC was beginning to sink in. Fortunately Lucky Laid a pretty good guilt trip on me and smacked some sense into my sleep deprived brain.

So now we B-Lined it.

We went through so many States so fast I couldn't tell you where we were. I know there was a traffic jam south of Chicago and there are jumps on the highway. I know the toll roads in PA must be used for demolition practice by the military and I couldn't believe I was paying to use them.

We allowed ourselves 2 hours of sleep, twice for the rest of the trip. The texting became furious during the last 24 hours and Paul was very concerned for our safety.

In case anyone wanted to know, you can operate a motor vehicle for 72 hours straight fuelled only on Pixie Stix, Red Bull and coffee.

Driver change;

We finally arrived in OC at 2pm on Saturday. That last 500 miles was brutal!

I really wanted to make the Jolly Roger meet but my sleep deprived brain seemed to think that changing the oil, mounting my Monzas and having a shower was more important.

I almost made it even after all that but then Kitty puked her battery and Ugly and I zipped over to Walmart to grab a new one. I guess we should have known that kitty and Gulf were tired too. That night after cruising the strip and meeting the NEK crew both cars broke down. Kitty with a bad voltage regulator and the Gulf with some kind of mystery power drain.

Fortunately the MK1 crowd is like a family and The DCI crew and Red Wow came to our rescue. Sadly however I was out of steam at this point and after I limped the Gulf back to the hotel I crashed hard.

Next morning up bright and early at 8am still really tired and talking to myslef...mostly swearing. Somehow I had developped turrets! Ran out the door and the car fired right up. Off to Walmart I went without my camera again Some wiring and a new battery later and the Gulf still wouldn't start. At this point it was almost 11am and I needed to make it to the show or I'd lose my rockstar parking.

Fortunately there were more rested people than I at the show who remembered their camera so there is proof I was there!

After some screwing around with the steering column Gulf mysteriously fired up. I figured I'd better get it off the grass since there was no way I was going to bump start 23:1 compression on a wet lawn.

Parking in front of Tommy's tent and his awesome car.

Being mystified at this point after reading the wiring diagrams, changing the alternator and battery, Sofa loaning me a starter, we finally just bump started it out of the show.

That night we met up with a big crowd at the Outback and had a fantastic time. By the next morning the Gulf was starting under its' own power every time.

Breakfast with the DCI crew and the Maushaus crew;

Esher almost dying;

Sadly all good things must come to an end and we had to leave OC.

I met lots of awesome people and finally got to meet up with folks I'd been chatting with for 3 years!

With the first half of the journey being so rushed, we decided to take it easy on the way home. Hotels and Karaoke every night!

First place we stopped was a vintage car dealer. Over 600 classic cars for sale. Most were complete junk but there is always 1 that makes it all worthwhile.