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That's not fair. You even have fenders and I'll bet at least one of those decadent "cup holder" things.

Jack is one adventurous guy, taking an unknown car on a (really) long road trip. Especially an -open- car. I gotta hand it to him for that.

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"My junk is organized. At least is was when I put it wherever it is." -olrowdy
Completed building GSXR1000 CMC7, "Locouki"
Website: http://projekt.com/locouki/

This'll be a fun story to finish writing, but I'm sure nobody's going to be surprised, my workload precludes my getting it done right away. I will say Chet's car ran like a top, and other than the fender support problem, my maintenance-per-mile numbers were lower than the trip of two summers ago in a Miata. Re the fenders, heck, I want to design my own anyway.

From a journalist's standpoint, the ending was perfect--a tight schedule and a deluge. I had to meet with one of the County Commissioners (we've not heard the end of that story) in Grants Pass, and heck, how wet can a guy get? Here's a teaser of what my last five hours were like. It peaked at a half inch an hour, which doesn't sound like much, and mostly it was falling at a fifth to a third of an inch, but subjectively it seemed like plenty and I'm likely to be eloquent in my description. I got the car parked (yes, indoors, in a hangar) at 5:10PM.

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Locost builder and adventurer, and founder (but no longer owner) of Kinetic Vehicles

oh, absolutely. i commend him for his adventurousness. we actually made the last bit of our drive today, 30741.5 km is what the car racked up since last august. the trip home with detours to scenic things, and the like was about 7300 km.


regardless, jack is still king roadtripper to me.

Jack since you had issues in the wet and troubles with the fender supports do we see a redesigned front fender in our future?

I've never gone thru water like you have in a 7. I've had a slightly wet autocross course where it was next to impossible to see due to the spray from the front wheels and then on asphalt &/or sandy course I've had to vacuum out literally pounds of small rock and sand so this has made me think the fender design itself leaves a little to be desired. A sand blasted rear fender is another reason I've wondered if there wasn't a better way.

I don't know the year models or car manufacturers, but some of the 30's (?) cars had fully enclosed fenders. While that may be extreme and would certainly be heavier, they may have been onto something.

_________________
mobilito ergo sum
I drive therefore I am

I can explain it to you,
but I can't understand it for you.

I think if you want to keep dry, the best route is to go with clamshells. That's what the original had. Either that or stay out of the rain.

But darn it, I wanna see my wheels go up and down....

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A man must keep a little back shop where he can be himself without reserve. In solitude alone can he know true freedom.
-Michel de Montaigne

Scratch built book frame with an 83 Celica donor 22RE. SHE'S A ROLLER!!!

Oh I like seeing them go up and down also and while clamshells keep you dryer, they don't keep you dry at all when you turn a corner. As long as the wheels are going in a straight line they keep you reasonably dry, but once you turn the wheels even a little all bets are off. Or at least they were on my 53 MGTD with clamshells.

_________________
mobilito ergo sum
I drive therefore I am

I can explain it to you,
but I can't understand it for you.

Cry babies!

Try an open wheeled dune buggy in a COW PASTURE!!!
(My passenger got one right in the face! Messy ............. )

_________________
"My junk is organized. At least is was when I put it wherever it is." -olrowdy
Completed building GSXR1000 CMC7, "Locouki"
Website: http://projekt.com/locouki/

Been there, done that too.

Jack's the crybaby I heard him whimpering all across the country. We're just being supportive.

_________________
mobilito ergo sum
I drive therefore I am

I can explain it to you,
but I can't understand it for you.

C'mon, guys, gimme my topic back. We have a perfectly good clams-vs-cycle-fenders topic at
viewtopic.php?f=23&t=6530

I'm filling in the back story now, one day at a time. If you go back to the top of Page 6 I'm caught up as far as the New Mexico/Arizona border (and a couple dozen miles). More to come.

Man, I hope my comments re Stephenie Meyer don't cost me points with the vampire crowd.

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Locost builder and adventurer, and founder (but no longer owner) of Kinetic Vehicles

So we have to read back thru the whole thread to find where you've added new stuff?

_________________
mobilito ergo sum
I drive therefore I am

I can explain it to you,
but I can't understand it for you.

Nah, sorry, I phrased that badly. You only have to go back to the top of Page 6 to see the new entry (I've been trying to keep them in chronological order by "editing" placeholder posts).

_________________
Locost builder and adventurer, and founder (but no longer owner) of Kinetic Vehicles

I'll ask a moderator (Dave?) to remove the intentionally-left-blanks, that didn't work as well as I'd hoped, mostly because I've been swamped since I got back. Yet another run-in with the County, things are looking a bit grim. I sure would hate to move this summer.

So I need a break, so I'll do a trip log entry:

One the road through Arizona, I caught up with this cool Cobra replica, it had a roof reminiscent of an Abarth Zagato, and saw another couple of cool cars out and about, and thought...

...good idea, time to get of the freeway at the Historic Route 66 marker. So I drove into Seligman, planning to blat to Kingman, but downtown I ran into 2000 or so of my closest friends in 700 or so of their classic cars. Yep, it was Fun Run weekend, the 22nd Annual.

So what the heck, I pulled over and registered, and waited for my commemorative license plate until #777 rose to the top. I oohed and aahed at the other cars--man, they were so sparkly--and had a great time until this conversation with a fellow Fun Runner:

"Did you build that?"

"No, I bought it from a friend."

"Too bad he sold it to you."

"Oh? Why's that?"

"Because it looks like crap. My God, are those cat prints?"

The conversation deteriorated from there. In brief, he was offended that I didn't have enough respect for this legendary event--I hadn't even washed my car. I said Look, I'm just on my way home, I'd never heard of the Route 66 Fun Run, and he said Yeah right. He had me pegged as a poser playing oh-this-old-thing-it's-my-daily-driver. I told him yes, they were cat prints, they proved I hadn't had to spend every night in a motel and I was going to clear coat over them after I trailered it home from Kingman.

I got over my snit quickly enough, most everybody thought the Locost was pretty neat, and Wow, you're driving all that way and you've come from where? It actually did stand out in the crowd due to its rode-hard-and-put-up-wet, don't-salute-me-I-work-for-a-living panache.

So I got in line, cruised through greater urban Seligman, and finally reached the open road of Legendary Route 66. Where I was able to shift into second gear. Briefly. Then back to first. Repeat. I enjoyed that for the first hundred shifts or so, then realized cruising the distance to Kingman in first-second-first-second fit my vision of neither Fun nor Run, so I did a u-turn and went back to I-40. It was neat looking at the classic cars on the way back, and if I'm ever in those parts on Fun Run weekend again, I'm going to drive from Kingman to Seligman so I can wave at everybody. And use 5th gear.

_________________
Locost builder and adventurer, and founder (but no longer owner) of Kinetic Vehicles

So I'm blasting west on I-40 and come to a crummy stretch of pavement--crummy enought to slow me down to, say, the speed limit--when the left front fender folds up and back and hangs up behind the headlight. Stomp on the brakes, pull over, stop. Whew.

It appears the upper fender stay fatigued and failed, but I don't have my microscope with me so I can't tell if it's an artifact of construction, perhaps some flaw in the metal or damage from when it was built, or if the design isn't rigid enough to keep the stay within its fatigue limit. Either way, I'm glad the lower stay held and the lower stay is close enought to the trailing edge of the fender that the fender didn't cam into the tire as it was folding back.

Live and learn. For a long trip in a Locost, one should bring a tool kit. The fender was pretty much unharmed (a bit of paint scuffing) the car was ditto unharmed (the back of the headlight got its paint scratched a bit), the fender fit in the passenger seat, the day was clear, no worries.

I looked at the right fender stay, nothing showed on it (no crack starting that I could see) so I decided to leave it on as a simple test: was this an isolated incident or something inherent in the design? I'd keep the speed down and be ready for it to happen again, on the right side.

And as I strapped myself down, my conscience gave me a wicked little laugh and said, "We got a car show entry form in that goodie bag, let's go mess with their heads. The guys who didn't like the kitty cat footprints are going to go ballistic when they see the fender busted off." So, with my conscience as my guide, I cruised into Kingman and entered the Route 66 Show and Shine.

I'm glad I went, I would have been glad even as a spectator. The cars were gorgeous, and there was lots to learn by hobnobbing with the hot rodders. But man, is my head in a different place than the Show and Shine philosophy. The spectators loved my Locost ("All the way cross the country?") and some of the hot rodders loved it, but there were waxers everywhere and they reacted like I was a guy in surfer shorts showing up drunk at a funeral, yelling, "Yeah, I went to high school with Larry, man, that guy knew how to party! I'll bet a lot of you are surprised he lasted this long..."

I had a hoot. It was anonymous judging, so anybody that looked at my car with a sour expression on their face, I asked them judging questions. "Is this right? I'm supposed to put my entry form under my windshield wiper, right? How much am I gonna win? I can't stay here all day, will you guys mail me the check?" and so forth. "Cat prints? Not really, they look like cat prints but this is one of the last hoods Von Dutch ever did. He charged me twelve hundred bucks for those cat prints. Now that he's famous, I'm sorry I sprayed over his signature..." and "Lord no, I never wash it, that's the original dirt, I got the certification when I bought it at Barrett's."

And then among the Cobras...I don't believe I saw a single Cobra. There were lots of replicas called Cobras, and when you call your car, let's say hypothetically, a 1966 Cobra, you're leaving yourself open to some smart alec saying, "Oh man, do you still have the original body? Those aluminum bodies are worth a bundle now. Whoa, looks like you had to replace the whole body with fiberglass, that must have been quite a wreck. I didn't know Chevy made a 427, I thought the '66 models came with a Ford..." and if your personalized license plate seems pretentious enough, the same smart alec may be puzzled by it. "NV, NV, noise, vibration...noise vibration me? Noise, vibration...oh, envy, ENVY ME, now I get it, the NV stands for Envy!"

BY the way, I call first dibs on NVH as a model name. The Kinetic NVH, sounds good, doesn't it? Yes, that's our stripped down model, kinda like a Locost, only without the frills.

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Locost builder and adventurer, and founder (but no longer owner) of Kinetic Vehicles

There you go again, forcing folks to question everything they have ever been taught by the media, you bad consumer you.

Don't you know free thinkers are chastised? Kill the messenger!

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Miata UBJ: ES-2074R('70s maz pickup)
Ford IFS viewtopic.php?f=5&t=13225&p=134742
Simple Spring select viewtopic.php?f=5&t=11815
LxWxHt
360LA 442E: 134.5x46x15
Lotus7:115x39x7.25
Tiger Avon:114x40x13.3-12.6
Champion/Book:114x42x11
Gibbs/Haynes:122x42x14
VoDou:113x44x14
McSorley 442:122x46x14
Collins 241:127x46x12

Ahahaha, that's pretty good.

Yeah I'd have much the same reaction to being badmounted at an event where virtually no one builds anything themselves (I know you bought this car, but have built others.) The people who answer with "Yeah, right" to your answers are the worst... I have no problem going right after them.

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Midlana book: Build this mid-engine Locost!, http://midlana.com/stuff/book/
Kimini book: Designing mid-engine cars using FWD drivetrains
Both available from https://www.lulu.com/