Reconsidered: Tow dollys, propane injection, life in general

[DrivingMissLazy]

Lin, great story.  Your words produce very vivid pictures in my mind. 

Now for a tip to the readers:  my wide screen laptop made reading the story a bit difficult because of the very long lines of text.  Both Firefox and IE have a feature where you can enlarge the text.  That makes the column of text much narrower and very easy to read.  Try it.  In Firefox you will find it under the view tab.  In IE (7 I think), it is harder to find, but you will find it under the page tab.

Jim

It would also help if there were a few breaks or paragraphs in the text.

Richard

[GM0406]

I ran into a similar situation at Mount Madona with the '04 a few years ago.  There were 8 cars behind us when I hit an unexpected steep grade.  We were in second and I told my son if I couldn't get to first quick enough, we would all be backing down that hill!  Luckily we made it, but I was ready for the next visit to that hill!  Our Rally at Laguna Seca this year was also challenged by a steep hill going up to the RV area.  But we had the '06 that has the V730 and a turbo.  I also had the muffler off of it.  She actually shifted into second on that hill and you couldn't get much of any run for it as there is a 110 degree turn at the bottom!  We didn't have a toad, but previous toad hauling did not seem to bother this '06 at all.  I have driven 871s without a turbo and with and without automatics.  There is absolutely no comparison to the turbo!  This '06 goes effortlessly to 70 mph which is no longer necessary as we drive below 60 mph to conserve fuel.  The '04 is a lot more work to drive, but it does have the 4 valve head, N-65 injectors, dual exhaust and 5 1/4" blower inlet.  It is the high block engine and still has the spicer 4 speed.  But it has a two speed unit between the trans and rear end.  In low range, we won't be going up anything very fast, but I don't think we have to worry about stopping or backing down unless we get caught in high range in second on a grade as mentioned above!  Bill T.

[HighTechRedneck]

Now for a tip to the readers:  my wide screen laptop made reading the story a bit difficult because of the very long lines of text.  Both Firefox and IE have a feature where you can enlarge the text.  That makes the column of text much narrower and very easy to read. 

Or, just adjust the width of the window, doesn't have to be maximized.  I have run into this when working with other people's wide screen laptops or desktop displays.  Besides long lines of text, there are still some poorly designed websites that don't look so good when spread into a wide browser screen.

[JohnEd]

GM0406,

Mount Madonna?  As I live and breath.  Can there be more than one?  From the hot inland valley to the Ca. coast highway?  Enormous ancient Oak Trees?  Nice and cool?  A near U turn from the main road into the county park entrance?  A truly single lane black top road?

Now why is this indeled in my mind you might ask.  Obviously I have been there.  The turn at the bottom of the hill is about 110 degrees and with the thick lush folage you have not a clue that there is a hill on the other side of the turn.  And is that puppy steep?  Well when I first got a glimpse I thought it was a black wall and the bushes were hiding the road.  When they built that thing they must have called in plasterers to apply the black top to the "wall".  Quick as I came to my senses, I opened up the thermo quad deep into the secondary barrels and heard the mighty 440 ROAR under my feet.  I said "if ya love me Baby, please...if ya love me".  Well, she loved me half way up worth and shuddered to a halt.  I had a 240Z car in tow with all 4 down that I had to uncouple.  Did you know that that isn't possible if you are alone and the car is dangling from the ball as if over a cliff?  I had bungee cords strung to pull the tow bar up so hard that i feared it might embed the bar in my hood when it came loose.  I had a 4 foot crow bar that I had wedged between the hitch and I jumped on that from the Winnie bumper without success.  I even tried ramming it back and forth till I noticed that i had a 13,000 pound Winnie that was rocking and swaying over my head....litterally, and that bringing it down on me was a non solution.  After an hour, and probably cause I was exhausted, it popped off.  The Winnie barely crept ahead to a start on that hill without the car and finally topped the hill.  What an experience...Holy crap.

Next morning I had hooked the car up and was walking around the rig checking things and when I looked under the front I saw a new wire hanging down.  It was the plug wire off of # 8.  Reconnecting it she ran without that almost un noticeable miss.  When I stood back from her after I reconnected the wire I thought I noticed "Wendy" Winnebago smiling a little smile at me.  I knew she loved me more than half way up and just needed a chance to prove it without a hand tied behind her back.  I cautiously drove over to the precipice that was the top of the hill.  In low and riding the brake we started down.  The R's started to climb but I wasn't a'skeert cause the bulletproof 727 three speed with lockup was fully engaged.  BLAM into second without an inventation and she rocketed to 35 MPH and I let out a little scream and a little pee at the same time.  Duet, sorta.  I learned that day that the 727 has an auto up shift that prevents engine over-reving.  Wheeeeee!   Remember that 110 degree turn at the bottom?  Remember that the road was 8.7 feet across and you cannot pass another car unless you go over it?  Yeah, I remember Mt Madonna and thanks for asking.  The night we, two dogs and I, spent on the top of the mountain was an equally entertaining(?) story but in that one I look foolish.  Another time.

John

[JohnEd]

Lin,

Can you stear me to some info on propane injection?

Thanks,

John

[Lin]

Sorry John, but I am just trying to get information myself.  There are past threads on this and the BNO board.  It seems that the people that have tried it are happy, but there are criticisms.  Generally, the homemade systems seem to have an on/off switch.  One criticism was that if one stalled and forgot to turn off the switch, he could great a loud reminder.  This seems like a valid point so there were suggestions to wire it through the main switch, oil pressure circuit, and accelerator pedal.  That makes it a little more complex.  I guess I would want to try something simple as an experiment before installing a whole system.  It seems I should be able to run a temporary line into the air intake and try a hill with and without the propane on.  It would need the pressure regulated, of course.