FEATURED MAY 2010

Despite some sketchy weather this Memorial Day weekend, I still managed to get into the hills.  Sunday proved to be the best day, so I chose to head out of Boise on 8th street again — otherwise known by me as trouble road.  You see, every time I’ve headed out that road, something has happened (one time, the fan stopped working .. last time, I broke the fender and almost got stuck near the hill top).  This trip was no exception.

Fixing my Carb

First, let’s talk carbs.  I thought I had gotten the carb running well, but hesitation problems continued over the past week.  By Friday of this week, I was getting ticked off at not being able to floor it and go — instead, I had to accelerate slowly.

My solution:  find a Carter/Edelbrock manual and get instructions.  Sure enough, I found one online that described my problem.  What I thought was the result of too much fuel was actually a problem of too little fuel.  So, I increased my primary jets to .86.  I also re-routed my PVC valve into the base of the carb.  Those two changes made ol’ Lost Biscuit much much happier.  Nothing like reading the manual ….

Now, onward and upward until …

So, with the carb functioning correctly, climbing out eighth avenue into the foothills went smoothly.  As usual, I checked my gauges frequently, especially my temperature gauge.  So, it was quite a surprise when I looked down and saw that the temp gauge had lept to 260 degrees!  SHIT!  I pulled over immediately and shut down the engine.  I jumped out to lift the hood to let the engine cool more; however, much to my surprise it turned out the engine was holding down a ready-to-explode radiator hose.  As soon as I lifted hood, the hose separated from a connection tube and a geyser that could be seen from Yellowstone NP let loose.  If I wasn’t so pissed off, it would have looked pretty cool.

So, there on the trail I sit scratching my head.  After letting things cool just a bit, I quickly found the cause of the problem — a wire had come loose at the base of the fan relay that was part of the original connection. So, I spliced around that loose connection and the fan started working again.

Now, how to get some water into the radiator?  I had a total of one bottle of water on me, so  I poured that in; unfortunately, I needed another 20 bottles or so.  That’s when lady-luck arrived in the form of a puddle around 20 feet behind me — I think it was the only puddle along that entire road.

So, I took my bottle, gathered water from the puddle and filtered the muddy water through a shirt.  After many trips back and forth, I got the radiator filled, cringing the entire time.  But, I figured it would work until I got it home to drain and clean it.

Now, onward and upward for real …

But I was sure about one thing in particular … I was getting to the top of that road this time!  And I did get there, all the way to the ridge road — finally!   Once I got to the top, I was having too much fun, so I just kept going and exploring.  And so, here are some pics from the trip.

First is a composition of images taken from the ‘road’ that ran along the mountain ridge.

On the north side of the ridge there is plenty of green, while the south side is pretty brown.

Here’s a bunch of sheep munching along the hillside.

I wanted to make sure I can get through the snow.  Without a winch, I don’t want to get stuck.

Finally, near the top of the highest mountain, too much snow filled the road to allow passage.  So, I have to save the very highest roads for some warmer weather

And here is the view looking west of this road.  You can just make out Bogus Basin road which carves upwards to Boise’s ski area, Bogus Basin.

And yes, once I arrive back home, I immediate drained the engine of water and flushed it with additional water.  I also changed the way the fan relay was mounted and simplified the wiring so that the damn fans won’t ever shut down again!