2013 Jive Weekend National Rally

[Neil Belk]

2013 Jive Weekend National Rally.
This will be held Mid October 2013 in Clyde North Carolina.
I will tentatively post the date as October 11 to the 13th.
Over the past three years the Rally's have been held on the West coast slowly moving north to Vancouver this year. It has been fun visiting a new place for the rally each year. Now the rally has moved to the East coast we look forward to seeing new and familiar faces next year.
Regards
Neil Belk

[Forumadmin]

Already planning to come over and help the West Coast meet the East coast.
Just need to fit it in around Goodwood. Will delay the Mid Europe tour till 2014.

Keith C.

[Neil Belk]

Looking forward to it Keith. Just be ready for a flood of parts requests!

[Keith Clements]

Hi guys, well I have started thinking about October and how to meet all my friends in North America. I planned a sort of route to take in Robin, John, Mike, Jim and Scott and the Clyde get together. It worked out at 10000km. Well that is not much different to the trip I did in 1968 in a battered , rescued-from-a-field VW Beetle. Here was the approximate route.
But realize all the Interstates, trans-Canada and highways were not built then (or if they were I could not go on them). The journey up through Jasper was done on wooden planks across raging torrents with no mettle on the road, I drove overnight with my girlfriend across the Rockies on a track eventually dropping down into Kamloops and Merritt in the early morning.

So are we up for this guys in our Jowetts?

Here is a possible route for me.

[Robin Fairservice]

You would be moe than welcome to visit us, we have two spare bedrooms. Prince George airport is not far from our house, and the major car rental companies are there. We were planning on flying to North Carolina via Detroit, but maybe we could drive with you to Clyde in NC.

[Keith Clements]

This is a possible route.

which means the Canadian contingent can meet up with the Californian Contingent in SLC.

[Keith Clements]

Scott now has the rebuilt engine functioning but the temp gauge seems 10deg low so I am taking over a replacement electric one plus some layrubs. Hopefully I will be picked up in the Javelin at LAX airport tomorrow. I am counting on my Galaxy S4 phone being able to keep you all up to date on progress on this 5000 mile adventure, once I have mastered the technology and the cell phone system in the US. I will normally use the wireless hot spots for the daily reports as the coverage may not be great on the GSM network.

[Keith Clements]

In boarding lounge of Heathrow having left Chris and Jack in garage.

[Keith Clements]

Picked up at LAX by Scott in his Javelin and then went to his workshop with 3 Jups, Europa and Sprite keeping the Jav company. Then to Huntingdon Beach in Jim's Jav.

[Keith Clements]

All set to go.

Having spent yesterday sorting spares and tools.
Today bought coveralls and Scott has just blead the brakes. Early start tomorrow.

[Keith Clements]

Started at 5 a.m from Jim's in Huntington Beach to go to Scott in Los Alamitos. Picked up breakfast of ham and cheese croissants on the way. Loaded up and pumped up tyres to be away by 6 a.m before sunrise. Traffic was building on the 16 lane highway already and by Riverside even the diamond lane was slow so lost half an hour. I persisted with Scott to pull off for petrol which was good because only half a gallon was left and we had not filled the can. Once on the I60 the traffic eased and we made our first stop, Joshua Tree by 9:15 but because of fed govt shutdown the park was closed. But we were interviewed by local reporter. http://Www.mydesert.com

So we filled up with petrol in 29 Palms before crossing the Mohave desert which was just within our range of 200 miles. There was some fantastic scenery reminiscent of my trip across the desert in 1968 in a beaten up Beatle.
Had an ice cream in Earp aka Wyatt before taking the westside road (great drive avoiding burros crossing the road) up to the Parker dam and Lake Havasu to arrive at 14:30 which is where we are now.

Temps were at 93F at10 am and climbed to 98 or more across the desert. On some long steep climbs water temps rose with our heat gun agreeing with the gauge at 90C 200F. The hot temps increased oil consumption over the 330 miles to 1qrt along with water consumption of 1qrt. Petrol consumption was marred by a dodgy pump short changing us. Anyhow we estimate about 20mpgus.
Decided not to push on but to chill out at the end of London Bridge in a real ale brewery.
Some pictures here.

TOPIC

[Keith Clements]

We left Lake Havasu after taking photos of the Jav on London Bridge.

We worked our way north to the start of the best bit of Route 66 at Topock only to find it closed!


A 40 mile diversion via Bullhead City got us back onto it to climb a badly maintained road up to Oatman just as I remembered it 40 years earlier. Some interesting people ran the stores and we bought a few presents.



We carried on along R66 for 150 miles via Kingman where we had lunch in a classic cafe, Peach Springs and Seligman, Williams and Flagstaff, great road, great scenery with many bikes and some classic cars.
We found a fantastic road with lots of hairpins as the sun set; down Oak Creek canyon ending up in Sedona.
Statistics for the day. 300 miles, 13 gallons ,no oil ;a quart water.

[Keith Clements]

Leaving Sedona through some spectacular red rock gorges we climbed to 7000ft out of Camp Verde and then dropped some 4000ft into Tonto natural bridge down and back up a long second gear hill. This was after Strawberry and Pine but before Payson

Then mile upon mile of forest along the 260 into Show Low and panoramic views gradually thinning out as we approached New Mexico into Springerville. Oil pressure was proving troublesome, so we put in some additive which improved pressure from 30 to 50 psi. However at low revs went to 10. Switched off engine to conserve fuel on a downhill stretch and pressure went up to 70 but still as low at low revs. Rather than risk a 180 mile desert stretch we bought stuff to drain sump and make gaskets. No bits in oil so will look at oil pump tomorrow.
Statistics. 228 miles 15mpg
We adjusted carbs to compensate for altitude but will check floats tomorrow.
More picks in gallery

[Keith Clements]

On our way along the 60 through Socorro and then the 380 to Carrizozo after taking apart the oil pump pressure valve and polishing it. This solved the low pressure problem but seems only temporarily as now stopped some 150 miles later for lunch, it may have returned. If you are following our route we are in Socoro about to enter Apache territory.
The oil pressure relief valve continued to be troublesome but we lived with it and did 327 miles to make it to Area 51. Roswell.
On the way passed the Very Large Array



and the Lincoln heritage town famous for the largest feud in US history when the owner of the store, an English man, was murdered.

Once again arrived when the place was closed but the man let us in and we had an interesting chat after going around the museum.
Also picked up some wildlife


Close to Trinity where the first Atom bomb was exploded.

[Keith Clements]

Chilly start at 39F. So after a service to the Jav we set off and managed to stay off the Interstate roads all day via the 380 and Plains, 84 to Snyder and into Mineral Wells on the 180 for the night.
The oil derricks were everywhere through all the many changes of scenery.



This evening we just caught the back end of a storm with wet roads as we closed on Mineral Wells east of Fort Worth.


Everything is big in Texas , miles of sunflowers.




Historic markers gave us a few breaks.
This remembering the rail head that moved beef to market until 1967.


Stats for day. 405 miles 20 us gals of gas. 9.5 hours on the road including about an hour of stops