Signed up on here a while ago, just starting to use it. Figured id start sharing some of my progress as i tinker my way into a hopefully successful power tour. If the ol' ponto makes it down south and back in a similar number of pieces as we started, I'll consider it a win.
Awesome, you’ll have a great time! I did them in some capacity from ‘97 until I finally long hauled in ‘02. Some of the most fun I’ve had in my life. Once you get to the first stop you’ll have no problem finding people to cruise with but you may lose who you started with. You’ll find out people with overdrives and highway gears don’t usually hang with the guys with 3.70’s and stock height tires. I found new friends in the slow lane going 63 mph and all was good. I ended up putting 3.25 or 3.00’s, gotta love a 9”, just for the trip after that. Hopefully you have a p***enger but do you have anyone else from your area to taking their car? That definitely will help. I had friends every year that went nuts over the pics and stories and said to count them in next year. Never got a person other than coming to one stop when it landed within a couple hours of home. I haven’t even looked at the route in years but if your in M*** I ***ume you have a distance til the first stop. Sorry to ramble on
I have two buddies with amc concords so we will have our own slow lane convoy. My tempest is running the stock 2.56 gears, so once i eventually hit highway speeds it does pretty good. Itll cruise pretty happily at 75 but gets much better mileage at 65-70. We are planning on taking a few days to make our way to the start (Atlanta Motor Speedway), and stopping at some new to us places along the way. The weeks can't go by fast enough. What did you take on power tour back then?
Swapped the seats out with some seats from an old 87 lesabre i had. I dont have any before pictures but the old bench seats were about 90% duct tape and falling apart. Considering that I'm going to be in the car for about a week straight, i wanted something comfy to sit on. Purists might hate it but its an old 4 door, and it looks a hell of alot better than it did.
With 2.56's you'll be just fine. That's cool you got friends committed to going. When I long hauled in '02 was by far my favorite. My brother and I took 2 or 3 days driving to Lincoln, Nebraska, can't remember now, and were driving into tornado warnings. The Speedy Bill Smith, aka Speedway Motors, museum was preparing to open. There was scaffolding and plastic still hanging in the lobby but they let us in. Unbelievable neat stuff, I wouldn't mind going back. Next morning my car backfired once and wouldn't start. We diagnosed the MSD box was bad. Called AAA and had the car towed to Speedway Motors, bought another 6AL and swapped it out in the parking lot. When I removed the old one, water just came dripping out of where it's riveted together. I sealed the new one up, bolted it on and headed to Kansas City. We missed dinner but got there before dark. Even if you have trouble once it's running again it's all good.
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