| THE CROSLEY REPORT | ROAD TRIP |
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The preparations for a road trip in a Crosley can consume all your free time for weeks before the journey. I spent every spare moment tightening EVERYTHING, tinkering with the carb and fruitlessly adjusting the brakes. Everything but the brakes was working smoothly... no matter what I did, I couldn't get those ancient cable-operated brakes to function with anything amounting to real stopping power. Still, after two years of practice, I was a pro at downshifting. My Dad tested the car and said I was crazy to drive it across town, let alone to southern California. I planned two days for each leg of the trip, allowing plenty of time for breakdowns and cooling stops. Navigator and co-pilot Al Sobrante and I had gone over routes and had settled on a series of two-laners that ran down the central valley and then cut over almost directly to Morro Bay. Aside from one 11 mile stretch of Interstate 5, we would be on rural highways and named streets the whole trip. My plan to leave early Thursday was shot when Al couldn't get down from San Francisco until after 1pm. To top it off, I managed to catch the fuel line in the fan five minutes before he arrived, mandating a trip to the parts store. By the time we'd replaced the line and gotten some sandwiches, it was 3pm. The River Road, following the Sacramento Delta all the way to Antioch was the first leg of the trip-- beautiful traveling on winding levee roads, including a short ferry trip not far from Rio Vista. The car was running ok, but was bogging at speeds over 40... a sign that the timing was still off. The Antioch Bridge was our first real challenge.... a long steep grade that brought us down to 25 MPH, and backed traffic up behind us. The car seemed to be running a bit on the warm side as well. Despite a couple stops for me to tinker with the carb, we made good time through Brentwood and Tracy where we hooked into Highway 33. |
Day 1, with all our gear. That's Al's water bag leaking, not the car. I'm the one in the dopey hat. |
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Thirty-three is a great
road that runs along the central valley flats, paralleling 5. Tiny
towns dot the route, but most of the time we were passing vast farms and
orchards. There was almost no traffic, although we did encounter
one idiot making a three point turn in the middle of the road.... as he
saw us approaching, he stopped dead in OUR LANE and just sat there.
I blasted around him on the wrong side of the road, wondering how someone
that stupid could afford a truck that musta cost thirty grand. The
sun started to go down and our operating temp dropped a tiny bit.
The sun set around 7pm, and we were still in the middle of nowhere.
We got into Los Banos about 8pm and found a nice clean Days Inn that suited Al's specs. He's a little more squeamish than me (I usually find the seediest, most run-down, route 66-lookinest place in town) and wanted a place where he wouldn't worry about all his camera gear getting snitched. We check in and lo and behold, there's a Crosley air conditioner in the room! At this point we've traveled about 150 miles... the most I've ever put on in a single day. |
| The next morning I added
a little oil, greased the water pump, and adjusted the timing and carb.
She fired up on the first start and off we went. The timing adjustment
got rid of our bogging at speeds over 40 and the carb ran nice and smooth.
We made great time through Firebaugh and Mendota and hopped on five just
past Three Rocks. We kept to the right and did our 11 miles of Freeway
driving without incident... in fact the car ran smoother because the pavement
was so nice. We got back on 33 and made for Coalinga. Just
after we made the turn off on to 41 and were approaching the Diablo Mountain
Range, a truck hauling a trailer marked "Crosley" blew past us, honking
all the way! Proof! Al and I high-fived as we now had witnesses
who could attest that we had not secretly trailered the car from Sacramento!
The Crosley wasn't too happy with the midday sun and grades that steadily increased in steepness. Cars consistently passed us, including, much to our chagrin, two Model A's who blew by us at 40 MPH (uphill). The Crosley was really cooking. I decided to pull over when we reached a good turnout. The temperature was close to 230 degrees. As I turned off the car, we could hear the water in the overflow tank boiling. After a half-hour to cool, we headed back up the hill. We made it to Coalinga without any trouble and had lunch in Cholame, famous as the spot James Dean bit it in 1955. Turns out Al was born on September 30, the same day Dean was killed. We had a good lunch, and I gave a guy some gas from our emergency can. He asked me what kinda mileage I was getting. When I told him we'd gotten about 35 MPG from Sacto he looked at his huge pickup and then looked sorta sad.
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