Hotrod46
Member
I thought I would check in with my where-abouts for the last few weeks. I’ve made a few posts to other threads, but have been pretty much off the board.
My wife and I took a 10 day vacation to the Pigeon Forge, TN area for the NSRA Southeast Nats. This trip had been in the planning with some mutual friends for about a year and was originally supposed to be a mainly motorcycle trip. The plan was simple, trailer the bike behind the 46, rent a chalet and spend a few days riding the motorcycle in the mountains, then take the 46 to the nats. I even bought a new motorcycle for this trip.
These plans changed when I got the T finished. At pretty much the last minute, I decided I wanted to take the bucket to the mountains. Of course, I still wanted to take the new bike. So, I borrowed a flatbed trailer from my dad and a ton Ford from my father in law. Talk about a trailer load!
My wife and I had a few things we wanted to do that the rest of the group didn’t, so we left a couple of days early and stayed in a motel. The trip went well until we were .3 of a mile from the motel. With absolutely no warning, the Ford suddenly started hemorrhaging transmission fluid from the converter cover at an alarming rate! I mean we were leaving a trail in the road! I nursed it to the motel and called for a tow truck.
After it was hauled away, I decided that I wasn’t going to let that ruin my vacation. Between the T and the bike, we had plenty of transportation. The towing company could haul the whole rig back to Louisiana if needed (expensive though) and we had 10 days to get everything worked out. I was going to have as much fun as I could cram into our time and worry about the truck later!
I wish I had known that Ron (RPM) was located in the area. I would have looked him up
.
We did some of the tourist stuff like Dollywood and went gem mining near Franklin, North Carolina. We found a nice star sapphire that my wife had cut for earrings and a pendant
.
We put about 850 miles on the bike. The weather and the scenery were beautiful! I know that every location has some downsides, but this area has to be one of the prettiest places to live in the country. It is truly a motorcycle paradise. Nearly every road is a perfect bike trail. Of course we did The Dragon Tail (US 129) at Deal’s Gap and the Cherohala Skyway on the bike.
So what has all this got to do with a T bucket? Well, we took the T over to Knoxville on Thursday to register for the Nats. On the way back through Marysville, I decided to take 129 and run the T over The Dragon and the Skyway.
What a blast! If you don’t know about the Dragon, it’s advertised as 318 curves in 11 miles! I didn’t count them, but I wouldn’t doubt it. This stretch of road draws bikers from all over the world and it’s certainly an interesting piece of asphalt.
The little T handled the road beautifully. Other than a definite push when you got on the gas exiting a curve, there were no surprises. My wife swears that I was going faster in the T than I was on the bike, but I don’t think so. The cornering forces just throw you around more in a car (the seat belts helped).
I waited to post this as I had photos ordered from one of the pros that set up and take pics of just about everything that passes and I wanted to add pictures. We actually got 2 thumbs up from one of the photographers as we passed and I’m sure they see a lot of pretty exotic machinery on that road!
The weather got nasty on Saturday, so I put on my MC rain suit and headed for Knoxville. This was the first time that I had driven the bucket in the rain and I was more than a little nervous. I soon found out that it did a whole lot better in the wet than I had figured it would. In fact, I learned that if you went too slow, you got a lot of spray off of the front wheels. So if any of you heard about a crazy man in a T going 70 on I40 in the rain waiving at all the streetrods as he passed, it was me. Kept most of the rain off though!
We had a good time at the nats and managed to put over 300 miles on the T that week.
Of course when we got back home, I found that bad weather had stripped some shingles off my house AND I smacked a deer on the way to work, nearly totaling my truck. So I’ve been kind of busy getting everything straightened out. I think I need another vacation!
Oh about that transmission. Seems that the mechanic in Tennessee couldn’t find anything wrong with it! He put 7 quarts of fluid in and it never leaked. I had him pull it and check it out anyhow. He changed the pump bushing and front seal, but said they really didn’t look bad. In fact nothing that he could see looked bad and it never gave another minute’s trouble on the way home! I’ve since learned of another E4OD that did the same exact thing that this one did and that one never leaked again either! Go figure!
I know this is off topic, but this is the bike on the Dragon.
Typical area scenery! Bald River Falls. Beautiful!
This is US 129 near the Dragon.
On the Dragon!
Over the windshield on the Cherohala Skyway.
See you on the road!
Mike
My wife and I took a 10 day vacation to the Pigeon Forge, TN area for the NSRA Southeast Nats. This trip had been in the planning with some mutual friends for about a year and was originally supposed to be a mainly motorcycle trip. The plan was simple, trailer the bike behind the 46, rent a chalet and spend a few days riding the motorcycle in the mountains, then take the 46 to the nats. I even bought a new motorcycle for this trip.
These plans changed when I got the T finished. At pretty much the last minute, I decided I wanted to take the bucket to the mountains. Of course, I still wanted to take the new bike. So, I borrowed a flatbed trailer from my dad and a ton Ford from my father in law. Talk about a trailer load!
My wife and I had a few things we wanted to do that the rest of the group didn’t, so we left a couple of days early and stayed in a motel. The trip went well until we were .3 of a mile from the motel. With absolutely no warning, the Ford suddenly started hemorrhaging transmission fluid from the converter cover at an alarming rate!
I mean we were leaving a trail in the road! I nursed it to the motel and called for a tow truck.After it was hauled away, I decided that I wasn’t going to let that ruin my vacation. Between the T and the bike, we had plenty of transportation. The towing company could haul the whole rig back to Louisiana if needed (expensive though) and we had 10 days to get everything worked out. I was going to have as much fun as I could cram into our time and worry about the truck later!
I wish I had known that Ron (RPM) was located in the area. I would have looked him up
.
We did some of the tourist stuff like Dollywood and went gem mining near Franklin, North Carolina. We found a nice star sapphire that my wife had cut for earrings and a pendant
.
We put about 850 miles on the bike. The weather and the scenery were beautiful! I know that every location has some downsides, but this area has to be one of the prettiest places to live in the country. It is truly a motorcycle paradise. Nearly every road is a perfect bike trail. Of course we did The Dragon Tail (US 129) at Deal’s Gap and the Cherohala Skyway on the bike.
So what has all this got to do with a T bucket? Well, we took the T over to Knoxville on Thursday to register for the Nats. On the way back through Marysville, I decided to take 129 and run the T over The Dragon and the Skyway.
What a blast! If you don’t know about the Dragon, it’s advertised as 318 curves in 11 miles! I didn’t count them, but I wouldn’t doubt it. This stretch of road draws bikers from all over the world and it’s certainly an interesting piece of asphalt.
The little T handled the road beautifully. Other than a definite push when you got on the gas exiting a curve, there were no surprises. My wife swears that I was going faster in the T than I was on the bike, but I don’t think so. The cornering forces just throw you around more in a car (the seat belts helped).
I waited to post this as I had photos ordered from one of the pros that set up and take pics of just about everything that passes and I wanted to add pictures. We actually got 2 thumbs up from one of the photographers as we passed and I’m sure they see a lot of pretty exotic machinery on that road!
The weather got nasty on Saturday, so I put on my MC rain suit and headed for Knoxville. This was the first time that I had driven the bucket in the rain and I was more than a little nervous. I soon found out that it did a whole lot better in the wet than I had figured it would. In fact, I learned that if you went too slow, you got a lot of spray off of the front wheels. So if any of you heard about a crazy man in a T going 70 on I40 in the rain waiving at all the streetrods as he passed, it was me. Kept most of the rain off though!
We had a good time at the nats and managed to put over 300 miles on the T that week.
Of course when we got back home, I found that bad weather had stripped some shingles off my house AND I smacked a deer on the way to work, nearly totaling my truck. So I’ve been kind of busy getting everything straightened out. I think I need another vacation!
Oh about that transmission. Seems that the mechanic in Tennessee couldn’t find anything wrong with it! He put 7 quarts of fluid in and it never leaked. I had him pull it and check it out anyhow. He changed the pump bushing and front seal, but said they really didn’t look bad. In fact nothing that he could see looked bad and it never gave another minute’s trouble on the way home! I’ve since learned of another E4OD that did the same exact thing that this one did and that one never leaked again either! Go figure!
I know this is off topic, but this is the bike on the Dragon.
Typical area scenery! Bald River Falls. Beautiful!
This is US 129 near the Dragon.
On the Dragon!
Over the windshield on the Cherohala Skyway.
See you on the road!
Mike
