My father and I are heading down to Oregon to run the Monte Shelton Northwest Classic Rally in the 65E… which of course I am still reassembling. The steering rack arrived Monday. I put it back on the car Monday night, but then issues at work prevented me from finishing the job, which requires a full front end alignment.
I plan to leave for Portland on Thursday morning as the Rally has a Welcome Reception and (more important at the moment) Technical Inspection of the participant’s cars at 6pm Thursday at Monte Shelton Motors in downtown. Thursday morning I bring the car to Les Schwab’s store in Arlington for some time on the alignment rack. The mechanic is half the age of the car, or less! He’s a bit intimidated but with some help and encouragement from me he gets the job done. One issue comes up… my freshly rebuilt steering rack shows some free play on the inner tie rod end on the driver’s side(!) This prevents the toe-in from being set accurately – but the car is as close as it can get.
I drive off towards Seattle to pick up my dad. The car feels great. I can feel the loose left front on occasion, but overall it is in much better shape than before. No more steering wobble at higher speeds. Mom & Dad have been visiting my little sister and her family the past few days. I find their hotel and pick up dad, and we say good bye to my mom, who will be off to my house to visit Sue & the boys. We drive down I-5, stop at my office, then continue on to Portland. The car, which refuses to allow the right turn signal to operate the whole way south to Oregon, comes to its senses and operates perfectly for the Technical Inspectors. Go figure!
The collected cars for the rally are quite nice. LOTS of Alfa Romeos, as would be expected for an Alfa club rally. Several E-type Jaguars too. Three series 1’s, a bunch of 1.5’s and one series 3. The latter has a six-weber carb setup, which I think looks so much better than the original factory quad-Stromberg.
We pass inspection… yeah!
I pass the evening reception looking at, and photographing cars. Enjoy:
The last image above is a poster from the old Can Am series on the wall at Monte Shelton Motors.
Oh, man. I’m drooling over here. Those Webers are hot, and I love the close-up shot of the Austin carbs and valve cover.
and are those hair nets over the SU’s on the Austin? thanks for pointing out the obvious with the NZ rego sticker on the Bentley… VTNZ – the bastards that made us have two goes with the HQ before we could get it back on the road…
wish I could have seen the Bruce and Denny show in the Cam Am’s… must have been something to hear and watch
great shots of the cars Chuck – thanks – Jerome
Chuckles, I’m going to say this again, and continue saying it till you pay the PHUQUE attention to me: You *really,* REALLY ought to be submitting your rally reports, and fotos, to R&T, C&D and the like, as I can near gar-RON-tee you’ll get selected, if not soon, not a lot later; the quality of your writing, the stunning excellence of your photos rival ANYTHING Peter Egan does, Henry N. Manney III did, or a host of other famous car journalists.
Really, there is a career here….if only an occassional one!
BRAVO, and a mighty ‘well done!’ for yet another stunning tour de force, of the Family Goolsbee and Its Continuing Car Circus!..
🙂
We got stuck in the parade. We were 2nd check point on tsd and as usuall when all cars had passed
and those that did not timed out, we headed for Siletz. Thank goodness the parade did’nt start earlier.
It took us 10 minutes just to weave around town with all the mis-information from the police on how to
get out of there. Great pix.
I don’t recall much in the way of an alternate route through that tiny little town!