Road Trip!

I've had my mini for nearly 2 years now and finally have some time to stretch her legs so to speak.

I'm driving from Nova Scotia to Ontario in my "crunchy frog". My trip is purpose oriented ... I need to go and look through my dad's shop to see what I want to take home with me. My father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's shortly after I purchased my truck and has since been put in a home. If I don't go and retrieve some of his equipment it will be gone, my sister in her infinite wisdom has decided to sell my dad's stuff at auction

Neither my sister nor my mother have any clue what they are liquidating and this grates me to no end.

There are a few things in particular that I'm after... hot air plastic welder X 2 , commercial duty dose pumps X 4 or so , as many shop tools as my little truck can haul... electrical meters (fluke) , precision measuring equipment. As well there is a "duplicarver" this is a duplicating carving machine, along with this I'm also after at least one wood lathe (the missus loves turning wood since I taught her how years ago).

I'm also bringing home ALL materials relating to a two wheeled car my dad and I invented and finally got patented, including a couple of small prototypes and some neat power chair running gear and controls .

I'm also finally going to be able to bring back an invention I came up with a long long time ago. After a particularly nasty time in the bush (army term for camping) my back was killing me! As I lay in a tub of hot soapy water soaking out the kinks with a glass of Drambuie. I lay there on the cheapy "tub spa" mat, feeling the air bubbles cool off my tub and suddenly I had one of those "Eureka" moments.

It occurred to me that if I were to flip the mat over I would be trying to force bubbles down and the mat would try to float up on a cushion of air (in my mind anyhow... did I mention I was drunk on Drambuie? lol).

This thought drove me to build the "Hover Creeper". The Hover Creeper is a device I made to make my life easier working under vehicles. It connects to regular shop air and allows the user to "float" under the vehicle on a cushion of air, once in position you shut off the float air and you are solidly on the "ground"... making it MUCH easier to stay where you want to be when using big tools such as changing park brake shoes on big stuff like a 5 ton 6 wheel drive army truck. I added an inflatable head/back rest to provide assistance in working on things just out of reach rather than laying flat.

I thought I was going to make some money with this one... however it occurs to me that the days of the lowly creeper are fast dwindling as the price of hydraulic lifts etc seem to be falling steadily and even small shops seem to have them now... regardless of it's usefulness and possibility of future uses I'd like to finish my invention ( want to add rechargeable lighting etc ).

If anyone would like to meet for coffee or maybe some light wheeling (don't wanna break my truck soo far from home) that would be great

Any tips for long road moves in these little buggers?

z

 

What part of Ont. are you going to be near?...hovering on the floor drunk on a wee bit of Drambuie...A grand way to spend an afternoon

 

Hi fupa, I really don't have any plans short of gathering some of my dad's stuff out in Grafton. I'll be visiting the wifes folks out in Ajax for a little bit and spending some time with a couple of my buds.

z

 

If you drop into the states by only a few hundreds/thousands of miles I would take you wheeling on some cool trails....ha ha, but I am sure I am a "little" out of the way.... Take lots of pics of your expedition and throw them up! Good luck.

 

Well my trip had a pretty exciting start... I hit a brand new jeep patriot! Actually she hit me... I was only an hour and fifteen minutes into my trip... wasn't even out of Nova Scotia yet! Here I am tooling down the road when this "older lady" turns across my path. I lock up the brakes and turn hard right for the ditch, the a$$ end of my truck whips around and impacts her front bumper dead center (struck her with the left rear corner of my truck).

I get out and ask if shes ok... yep no physical injuries. I walk around the back of my vehicle and inspect for damage. On my truck.. I got a little red paint from her jeep and a tiny little "bend" in my bodywork.... her jeep on the other hand ... doh! I somehow managed to tear her bumper skin nearly clean off! LOL It was hanging only by the lower clips... I ask her what she wants to do about this and she figures shes going to drive like this! I offer to remove it for her and stow it in the back of her jeep till she can get it properly fixed... she agrees so I grab it and tear it off fully, then stand in the centre and fold it in half and shove it into her vehicle. As I'm leaving her jeep I take note of her plate number for future reference and I notice this brand new vehicle already has a dent in the back as well.... seems this old gal maybe shouldn't be driving....

All in all a pretty uneventful trip and pointless it seems... in total I drove over 3600 km's to find my mother and sister had already auctioned EVERYTHING of my dads (1 week before I even left on my trip) and had filled a dumpster bucket with anything they thought of no value... like my creeper prototype




z

 

That sounds like a pisser..some people just don't seem to understand the value (not always monetary) of projects guys have built with their fathers...sounds like some of yours were priceless....sorry about the loss...hope the rest of the trip went well...what was your overall mileage ?? and fuel consumption

 

Not much I can do about the actions of my mom and sister... time will heal the wounds.

The jeep lady stopped in the middle of my lane... there was another driver right behind her who stopped and made sure we were both ok... so I got her info in case the jeep lady tries something foolish like blaming me. If I hadn't swung my truck into a skid... my trip would have ended with me in the hospital or the morgue. All in all no harm from the most "exciting" part of my trip

I did take a few pics and will post some later, feel stupid tho... I forgot to take my camera to a show and shine my buddy and I went to... I drove his wifes limited edition Challenger (number 276 of 400) c/w 6.1 hemi , sure was tough to get back into a 43hp vehicle after having fun with a 425 hp vehicle My buddy drove his Prowler to the show and shine.

z

 

I kept all my fuel receipts but haven't done any calculations yet, I'll do them soon and post I gotta admit... I love my little truck.. it might not be the best choice for a long drive.. but it proved it can hold 90 km h's literally ALL day long!

z

 

Sorry to hear everything was already sold.
I know there was more stuff of my fathers that meant more to me than to anyone else that I did not get a chance to claim after his passing. Just little things that had no monetary value, like his name tags from his uniforms from the army and his first police uniform.... etc. Let alone a shop full of tools.

Glad you and your truck are "OK" after the touch and go... I would like to see the face of the body shop when she takes in the ripped off bumper, folded in half and get asked to "put it back on."

 

Once out of 'peak torque' band one is wasting fuel (lower mpg's). You'll go faster at the expense of excess fuel used. Peak torque in these little engines is roughly 4,000 rpm. You've got up to roughly 4,500 rpm and then' optimal fuel usage' plummets quickly.