tripin in the old 240

[charmalu]

Well it looks like this month and the first part of next month, me and my favorite wife will be putting the old 240 to some good use.

On the 8th we drove over to Carson City, Nv., my Dad turned 90 and we had a Birthday party for him. that is a 300 mile trip over the Sierra climbing from sea level to 7700ft. then down to 4500ft on the valley floor in Nevada.

My Dad decided to give up driving, and is giving his 94 Ford Tarus Station Wagon to our daughter in Portland, Or. so after spending 4 days with them, we brought the Ford back to Soquel for a week. I pulled the seats, vacuumed and shampooed the seats and carpets and got her all spit shined. they don`t eat and drink cokes etc... in the car, so after 17 yrs of use, it still looks like new.

In the morning we are heading out with the 240 and the wagon for Oregon, a 700 mile trip. we`ll take I-5 through Calif and on up to Portland. there are some pretty good climbs going over the syskues (sp) as soon as you get across the border.

We will spend 10 days there, the come home for a day, then back to Carson City for Mothers Day. spend a few days there, and back home for a couple days. then repack for a trip to Southern Calif in the Simi Valley. my Niece is graduating from moore Park College.

So when we get through these trips, the old 80 240D with almost 317K will probably have another 3500 miles added to her.

I got her all washed, waxed and polished, tires rotated, and aired up. Just rebuilt both front seats, so now Iam not sitting on the floor trying to see over the dash. Rain-X`d the windows so that should help some with the oregon weather.

Iam taking my 500 lb tool box along, not worried about the 240 deciding not to proceed in a forward direction, but there are PNP along the way. and I know of 4 in the Portland area.

Iam not taking along a bunch of spare parts like fan belts, filters etc... like I have read what others pack along. she is well maintained and I have confidence in her. (Wife also )

Fuel prices around here range from $4.39 to $4.53. be interesting to see what they are in Oregon.

Charlie

[Stretch]

Originally Posted by charmalu

Well it looks like this month and the first part of next month, me and my favorite wife will be putting the old 240 to some good use.

...

Have a great trip Charlie.

Do you have more than one wife? Or have you had more than one wife?

[Codifex Maximus]

When you started talking about mountains, I couldn't get out of my head. But, then I thought Charlie has it handled.

Have a fun, safe trip.

[layback40]

Originally Posted by Army

Have a great trip Charlie.

Do you have more than one wife? Or have you had more than one wife?

X2 ,
You have us all guessing now Charlie !!!! Hope you have a good run !!!

Sounds like fun, I've driven the 240D across country. It will do fine, just slow in the mountains.

[charmalu]

Thanks guys. Only one wife now, much better than trying to juggle 3 GF at the same time and remember where I went with which one .

Reminds me of a movie, maybe from the late 60`s, where this guy was dating Air Line Sturateses that flew on 7 different air lines. when one left, the next one came in. all worked well until the air lines changed their schedules, and they all arrived at the same time.

Yeah, I had one wife before, she hit and I ran . refere to her as Madam X or the BiG WOW, The Witch of Watsonville. that lasted 2 months.

My Favorite wife and I have 25 yrs coming up May 31. she said if I leave, she is coming with me. "you aren`t leaving me here with all this crap"

The 240 will do fine, a little slow on the steeper hills. we had it on this trip I think it was last March a yr ago right after we got the car. this is the car a lady just gave us. she was the original owner. I started a thread on it, and never added anything to it as to pictures or what has been done. I hate a thread that lets you hanging at the end w/o the end results, or? and Iam always complaining about it when I don`t know the punch line ________.

Iam always amazed at how well it runs, never a problem, put 10,000k on it this past year. My free car has cost me $900 or so going through it, nothing big, major thing was tires and the Differential that was grumbling. replaced it from a 3:69 to a 3:58 and added the 150mph spedo as is in my signature. also replaced the axles with two new ones from PNP. can you emagine replacing an axle, then junking the car?

always starts and shuts off fine, except every once in a while for only one time, the door locks won`t work. then would be fine. then yesterday afternoon the engine won`t shut off and locks wont work. started raining all afternoon, so Iam taking along my Mity Vac and some spare door actuators and will go through it at my Daughters. I forgot about this in the first post.

Lucky me, this uses the older style actuators. $148 on FL. I have 9 so far from PNP .
This is the old style

and the newer style, $36.20



I wanted to get out of here around 2AM so I could get through and north of Sacramento before the idiots get out there and screwed up the Freeways. commute time is refered to the rush hour, and they all get out there and use it as a parking lot. It`s 8am, maybe I`ll get through there before the lunch bunch.

Charlie

[Skid Row Joe]

Take less tools, and take spare parts. 500 lb of tools won't do you much good with zero parts. BTDT! 100 miles from anywhere the parts came in real handy getting back on the road. BTDT too!

[Dieselkraut23]

Good luck Charlie ....im super jealous. Now be sure not to forget about me if you see any wagon bits or euro parts LOL.

[toomany MBZ]

Have a good time, let us know how it went.

[leathermang]

I wish the really old people in my family were that sensible.....

[charmalu]

Thought I better do an up date on our trip.

We made it to Portland w/o any problems, the 240 did her job as well as could be expected.

I think we got out of the driveway finally at 10:10am on wed the 20th. and arrived here in Portland the next day at 10:50am. 732 miles.
there were a few steep grades in oregon, at 4000ft the speed dropped down to 41mph and another one to 47mph, but only for a short time. for the most part we cruised right along w/o any problems. running at a speed of around 62 to 67mph.
we crashed in 2 different rest stops, and hr in one and 3 hrs in another. then around 2:30am had to stop in Southern, Or to fuel the Ford. so was a good time for breakfast. hit a few Mcdonalds for coffee on the way also.

checking the 2 fillups, one at 31.02mpg and the other at 31.71. usually I was getting around 28 to 28.8. i did raise the air pressure in the tires to 42psi. side wall says max is 44. so raising it from 28 - 30 to the 42 made the difference. sounds good to me, and Iam sticking to it .

We have had the usually cold rainy Oregon weather. we had one day last week it got to almost 70, then that ended quickly. yesterday was unbelieveable, no clouds and warm and sunny. today cold windy and some showers. we are staying in the 5th wheel trailer, and the wind is rockin it.

Of course I had to hit a few PNP`s while here. the weather hampered me a few days, but did manage to pull a 190E 5-spd, some 240 auto X mounts, 5-spd shifter, 123 chrome cowel vents, 240D oil seperator, and a bunch of vacuum hoses and lines.

Grandma is happy to see the grandaughter, turned 2 today but had the party yesterday. she is 2 going on 10 .

It`s 2pm and should have been on the road by now, so I`ll get this computer unplugged and packed along with a few more items and get my wife in gear.

Charlie

[layback40]

Its great to hear that the trip is going well Charlie!!
It pays off not to be in too much of a hurry!!
I hope the trip home is as uneventful as the one going over.
Plenty of short "power naps" (15 minute sleeps) on the road side has always saved me from falling asleep at the wheel.
Good Luck with your trip home !!

[DeliveryValve]

Hey Charlie, Give me a ring when you're near my hood. Maybe we can meet up if I can get away. Or perhaps if I can really get away, we can meet up in the Valley and hit some of the PNPs there.



.

[charmalu]

Wow time flys, here it is the 11th already and I should have updated my travels.

We got out of Portland finally at 3:50pm on the 2nd. the old 240 was really loaded down. I had 3 PNP`s to rummage through (the reason for the 500lb tool box, not really that heavy, just seems so when I pick it up) so I had a 5-spd manual transmission, shift rods and shifter from a 190E, 2 240D auto trans X mounts, three inst clusters, 83 240D oil seperator and a couple other do dads. 4 gallons of 15w40 syn oil I purchased from the Amsoil wearhouse and 2 filters. a large plastic oil drain pan with the pour spout with the cap (couldn`t pass it up plus no sales tax in oregon) and a bunch of things I got from harbor freight. then the computer and baggage dirty cloths and what ever my wife picked up along the way and our daughter thought we needed.

So the 240 was a little saggy in the rear heading back to Calif.
My Son In law gave me his Dad`s phone # to use at the Safeway gas station when we got to Cottage Grove. they get points when they buy groceries, and knocks off 10¢ a gallon. Diesel was $4.19 so $4.09 was the cheapest anywhere.
We arrived there at 6pm, fueled and grabbed a burger and hit the road @ 7:05P.

Crossed the Calif border @ 10PM, 299 miles. a few more miles down the road, and pull into Yreka for coffee at a McD`s. 40min later hit the road until 12:25am when we crashed in a rest stop. 3AM back on the road until 4:20AM and crash in another rest stop till 7AM.

Get through Sacramento at 8:50AM, and that is scarry being in with the commute traffic. somehow we survive it, and at 9:35 get to Stockton, pull off for breakfast.
I had pulled a primer pump off an old w115 at PNP for one of the guys here on the forum and needed to get it mailed. there was a PO right across the from the restrant. lucky me, they didn`t have a box for it. no problem, so I go Dumpster diving behind the stores in the shopping center for a box. finally get it mailed and we are back on the road @ 11:45.

We get to Lathrop, Ca. and stop at my favorite Diesel watering hole. drove 524.5 miles. had to add a qt of oil after 1731 miles. so i guess that isn`t too bad for 317,000 miles.

We finally roll in the driveway at 3:40PM and 754 miles.

Unpacked a couple things, especially the computer, had to see what I missed on the Forum.
the rest of the junk could stay in the car untill the next day.

Charlie

[charmalu]

We get home from Portland on Tuesday, and on Friday take off again for Carson City. It`s Mothers day, and I need to be there. My Mom is 89 and my Dad is 90, and sure hard to see him slowing down as he has the past year. especially since when I was there for his BD in April.

I don`t want to have my Mom doing any extra cooking, so we ate out a lot. and took them to Reno for Mothers day brunch at the Tamarack. It`s a newer Casino, and they had a great cattered Buffett.
Reno is 30 or so miles north of Carson City. sure was windy going through the Washoe Valley. wind coming down off the Sierra mountains was ppushing the car sideways with the hard gusts.

it snowed a little off and on, and on Sunday night and Monday it snowed all day. didn`t stick down on the valley floor, but in the hills it whittened them up a bit. It was exciting to see it since we don`t get it in Santa Cruz. Not exciting if you have to live in it.

We left for home on tuesday, and went back on Hwy 88. this road is closed in the winter from snow, but is open now. there is several summits at around 7K ft and one a little over 8K ft. there is a lot of snow pack in the Sierra, but is melting at a good rate and filling the streams. there is one lake, Capels a man made lake that is still froze over. the road runs across the dam.
it`s beautiful up there, still ice cicles on the rocks cliffs along the road, and water falls here and there.
The 240 had to struggle a bunch on the steeper hills, luckly not much traffic this time of year, so could enjoy the views.

Hwy 88 drops into civilation eventually, and runs through some of the Gold Rush towns of 1849. and finally into Stockton at Hwy 99 which we took and then cut over to I-5 and finally to Lathrop for fuel.

When we came back from Portland, we paid $4.35 on the 3rd. the 6th we paid $4.37. the 10th it dropped to $4.29. I heard it was coming down some. this is a temporary feel good thing, when it goes back up, it will be $4.75.

We finally got home around 11PM.

So today we get the car unpacked. wash some closes and repacked the bags for our trip to Semi Valley for my nieces graduation from college. down near los Angeles. actually not too far from Metric Motors.
so in the morning when My Bro in Law gets here (8am) we hit the road again for a 400 mile trip.

I jacked up the car today to do a little checking on things. Diff, trans fluid, oil, coolant etc... all good, but did notice the upper radiator hose leaking a little where it connects to the thermostat pipe. loose clamp.
I had been having the trans grind once in a while shifting into 2nd gear. there is a little loosness in the shifter bushing under the shifter, but the bigger problem was the lever on the trans was loose on its shaft. tightened up the 10mm bolt that clamps it. this is the old iron box trans.

Gave the old girl a good washing, and once over. a little tire dressing on the rubber parts to keep up my immage. go to look good..

So we should be good to go on one more trip.

Charlie