About 3 weeks ago I readied the truck for it's first long drive and it's first visit to John and Peggy's for the Stovebolt Homecoming. About 190 miles one way in the rain and uphill both ways..
It was actually a very nice drive, Alec gave me some rain-x which worked wonderfully enough to never turn on the wiper (that only works a little bit anyhow).
Alec met me at the local gas station serving real gas, I topped up and we headed out. We/I crested Afton Mountain on Rt250 in 3rd gear no trouble at all. At the bottom of the mountain we got on the highway for a few exits to save a little time and miss Charlottesville before getting off and meeting Jim for breakfast on Rt15 in Gordonsville.
After breakfast I lead them along to another fill up of real gas at the Southern States in Fredericksburg and on over the river on Rt301 to the Homecoming.
Here are two pictures of the trucks at breakfast.
PIC. 1 PIC. 2 The homecoming was a great time, read here for the after action report and excellent pictures.
2016 Stovebolt Homecoming in the record books THREAD The drive home was also nice, better with no rain. this time we again crested Afton Mt. on Rt250 but we decended on the interstate. I think we generally traveled at 50-55 although slower climbing and even faster on the interstate. I actually passed a semi truck climbing a hill on I-64 outside of Charlottesville! The little ol'228 that could.
The past two weekends I've been using the truck to transport ice cream fixings to different parties, it does well with a load but it's certianly more nimble empty.
Here are two albums with some details of the diesel powered ice cream maker.
This one is the original construction as 8 Qt. capacity
https://goo.gl/photos/v71bXDjhbEzYAbsV9The next album of converting it to 20 Qt. capacity
https://goo.gl/photos/vYXYQ7pXgzESwiFp8Next, (in a few weeks or more) probably wiring harness and or back to working on different axles with modern brakes.
Grigg
