Advice for long trip

[SirHamblett]

Ok so I have a 1973 55 with a 82 2F engine and a 4 speed. I'll be driving from Colorado Springs to Baton Rouge, LA. Any tips on what type of junk I should bring?

My plan in to haul most of my garage (including spare piggy parts) in the truck and the latch a tow dolly ('91 Honda Accord strapped to) with some more junk. The car is probably 2800lbs plus another 500 or so worth of junk.

The trip is going to be split into two days. One to Wichita Falls or Dallas and the rest the next day. Right now all of my gauges work correctly. Fuel, speedo, temp and pres all do well.

Besides the normal list of trip items:
spare
tools
extra hose
extra water
spare emergency gas

What else should I bring or be thinking about? Assuming the normal 23.8 gallon tank at 12 MPG on hwy, I figure about 285 miles per tank. Is that reasonable? or should I figure something like 8 MPG instead with all the crap I hauling? That would be 190 per tank. At 190 per tank that should be about 3 times.


-Mark

 

[Wayneraintree]

well,

service the breaks and ensure you can stop that load
spare fuel pump, alt., belts and hoses, fluids, water, flares, extinguisher, thermostat all would be nice to have.. oh yeah, tire plugs, air, spare, flashlight, MRE's, blankets, rain poncho, plugs, wires, cap and rotor.. if you have any and all of that it may help. ..let us know if you break any land/speed records

 

[bonzai]

Hey Shamblett I think I saw your 55 last week driving by Lowes.

I work at the Chipotle over their.
Stop by And I can give you some free burrito coupons for your trip if you like.

I am Josh If a white 55 is in the parking lot I am their.

 

[SirHamblett]

yep that was me. I was at Lowes getting some hoses for the heater. Did you know that Blue Pool hose works great (and kinda looks interesting as well)? Basically I was replacing the 3 hoses that move the air from the heater to the defogger ports. I did have to rig up some fittings on the right side though. The left worked fine with a few 2" to 2" rubber hose fittings.

Anyway I was preparing for my trip to Baton Rouge which I made this past Wednesday and Thursday. The truck did fine getting all the way to Witchita Falls, TX in one day. I don't ever think I'll try that Raton Pass again while pulling a car and another 800 lbs of stuff.

 

[SirHamblett]

So I did finally make it to Baton Rouge. Luckily the only problem I had was driving off with my gas cap on the top of the truck. I managed to fine a parts store that had a replacement that actually fit.

As far as how the truck did, I did calculate an approximate milage number. Keep in mind that I was pulling a '91 Honda Accord with a Uhaul car dolly (the kind that just hold the front wheels). I also was carrying my entire garage boxed. That turned out to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 800 or so extra pounds. All in all I made it on aprox 110 gallons of gas. By traveling 1230 miles I figured I made about 11.18 MPG.

The truck did ok on the hills as well. The only real troublesome parts were the pass and any long stretch of incline (didn't really matter the grade but the distance did). For the last 1/2 mile before I peaked on the pass I was in 1st gear tregding on at about 15 mph. The engine seemed to want to keep stalling so I kept pumping the gas every now and then to give it the extra fuel. besides that, those long 2 deg grades that last 2 miles sucked my speed down to 40. This was more of a hassle having 18 wheelers blow by me.

The engine did good as far as heat. I thought I might get a little concerned with all the hill climbing and Texas heat. I noticed that on my new temp gauge the normal was around 180-200F. On those tough parts it got as hot as 230F. For most of texas it stayed around 210-220.

So I had no real problems. The only scary part was stopping. I knew that just from having the original drums my stopping would not be as quick as my Honda. But it kinda frightened me the first I tried to slow down while carrying the big payload. I almost went through one intersection completely. So other times (like when there was a wreck ahead) I had to do a whole lot of engine braking as well. Otherwise I would have just rolled over a car of cars.

All in all I guess this really reminds me of everything I want to do to the truck when I have money. Brakes first, Power steering, weatherstripping, AC, bedliner or carpet, new engine, new tranny, ...


-Mark


Total Cost os Trip:
Gas - $300
Hotel - $70
Food and Snacks - $40
Gas Cap - $5
Car Dolly Rental - $350
Boxes - $30
Spare Parts - $30

Grand Total: $825

 

[bonzai]

Driving your pig through severall states while towing......priceless