RE: Short Update
Sorry for the delay-
We are safely in GA, and checked into the hotel. I will provide a full(er) write-up soon, but thank you all for the phone numbers and "votes of confidence" (devilman - I know you're just being realistic!!!)
Trip went well - I was towing the M101A2 with some stuff. Total GVW of the whole rolling monstrosity was just over 20K lbs. Karma is an evil, evil being sometimes. My clutch repaid me (in full) for all the abuse I dealt it by starting in 2nd all those months when I first got the truck. With the load in the truck and the trailer, I was unable to "put the coals to her" up hills without the clutch slipping. This was discovered on the first day, but there wasn't really an option to turn back - worst case was that we put the stuff in a self storage place, and drive an empty duece down. Nevertheless, we altered our route to take the most direct route, removed the mountainous camping segment, and shortened the trip by one day. So, we stayed in Ann Arbor, Cleveland, Cinncinati, and Knoxville. On the flats, we were going 55 (by the chase car) @ 2550 rpms and most of the hills required shifting to fourth or even third, because of the slipping clutch. This made our lowest uphill speed 25 mph. I cannot wait to load up the truck and take it on the road once I get the clutch/flywheel fixed!!! On the plus side, I never was able to heavily load the motor, so it was very happy at 75% throttle @ 2500 rpms, and ran like that all day long.
We had a flat in Cleveland, but that was fixed in 2 hours at the local truck place. We also chose to replace the passenger boot at high noon while we were stopped at Cleveland (not the brightest bunch). Didn't really need to, as I had desplined axle flanges on the front, but wanted to stop dripping peanut butter (GAA) all over the place. The check engine light came on in the chase car, but we remedied that by reconfiguring the intake/filter (in the middle of a thunderstorm) and resetting the computer. Other than that - it was a pretty straightforward trip, with average daily distances of 200-250 miles. I am kind of bummed that I have to wait 2 years before I get to do it again!! (that's right, I said *get to*!!) OH... forgot, we also pulled the forward tandem's driveshaft for the trip.
After 1100 miles and 5 days of driving a 1965 deuce, I quote the immortal words of 73M819-
LONG LIVE BIG GREEN IRON!!!!
Matt