I arrived in Elecott City MD yesterday about 5. 1 tire flat on my trailer so I have that to take care of this morning. 459 mi ride by way of Roanoak VA to pick up the Mercedes. Today I have to get it inspected, insured, and tagged. Going to hang around visit a couple of days then back to NC. Later

Arrived home about 1 hour ago, 1060mi round trip. Tomorrow go to Cary, NC Mercedes dealer to get my Smart car back and if I have any money left guess I'll get some groceries. Hope vehicles rest for awhile now. Spent one day with the guy that pays the CASH prizes at the WFC races and the Thanksgiving foot brake race at Piedmont. Pretty interesting. Stay safe. AND KEEP POSTING!

Fern, that's a lot of driving just so you can drive. LOL

Well probably done for the year. #8 hole full of water and probably 3 quarts extra oil when I drained it. Oil filter must be working overtime because the oil was so clean when I pulled the plug you could see through it.

William it sounds like you're making bank. Hope everyone is having a good fall.

Welllll---$2100 repair on the Smart. I drove over there, 65mi, with the dolly and got it. Got back here and it would not back up. Called them and they said bring it back. So we let it go and went to dinner. Came back 3 hours later and Mama tried it and it seemed to work. I give up! Will continue to try it all week end and make a decision Monday. Mama wants to head to the mountains to look at leaves tomorrow so you know where I will be. Everyone be safe and keep posting. Oh, we may go to Cana, VA and look up Mike Hawks if he is still alive. He started this thread you know.

While my Toyota Tacoma was being aligned the Shop Manager called and said that it needed additional front end repair work, control arm bushings and one ball joint, $1979's worth of work. I bought the parts including a all of the front end bushings and, at 83 did the work myself. Total expense, $207 and three hours of work, saved $1772. OBTW, the bushings were fine and there was nothing wrong with the ball joint.

I posted the results on our local "Lakeside Neighborhood Web Site". One more place to avoid.

Bob

At 83 I could replace the parts but had no way to program a Mercedes computer and could find none of the local"experts" that could do it either. Thats on the Smart car. I was having some custom work done on the turbos on the SL 63 AMG Mercedes. But like you I do most of it myself. Need saved cash for my toys of which I have to many.

Good evening. Fern, Bob, I'm with y'all on the repairs issues. After many hours and a few thousand $$$, my dually still isn't cooperating. Damm thing still refuses to shift. New shift solenoids, internal harness, sensors and recent rebuilt tranny, it still falls back into low gear and gets stuck. Reputable shop says valve body bad. Tranny shop says they're wrong. Done spending $$$ for now, gonna park it again til I have time to get after it myself again. At least this time I have more info from them and have reason to think the computer has crapped the bed.

Went to GALOT today for a "big" NT/grudge race. Billed as North vs South. Big let down. Between extended down time, most runs were singles, and half passes. Been to other Grudge races and they were pretty good. GALOT has too good of a reputation to be the let down here. My guess, the promoter and organizers failed. Waste of a day that I could have spent fixing junk of my own. Lesson learned and tomorrow will be a better day.

Y'all have a great week.

Hey Fern,
Since my boy has taken possession of the old hay hauler I don't hardly wee it anymore. He just got a new Shafiroff 540 for the new turbos. He said the old one was tired. He's going to rebuild that one for a spare. Hey, it's his money.

I got to find me a race around here, soon.

I think we are going to try to get to the March Meet this year.

Found one! Went to Farmington this weekend for a $10,000 Sat $5000 Sunday race for $200 entry. I didn't see any of the touring professionals but the race was well attended by what I call regional racers. I think they had about 260 racers and paid the advertised purse. My car was deadly but the driver left a lot to be desired. One loss I was .007 to a .088 and gave it back another I was .008 to the other guys .007, I ran dead on 5 and he was dead on 0. It was a well run race, saw a lot of old friends, and had a good time. Oh, and perfect weather.

Well its time for this to go back to the top. Hope everyone voted and is ok with the out come. I drove 700mi round trip just to vote and a short visit with daughter. Worth it. Foot Brake Nationals at Farmington this weekend so I will head there tomorrow for a little fun in the sun. FOOT BRAKE no buttons, hope they have a good turn out. Skip a week then Thanksgiving Foot Brake race at Piedmont. If you know how to swap feet these are both good races. Piedmont being put on by Jared Pennington and Steve Stites of the WFC so expect a good event there. Everyone stay safe and post here once in a while to keep Scott happy.

Good evening y'all. Still wide open busy over here making other peoples landscape look good. Warm weather is making me a little extra $$$. My problem child of tow truck seems to on it's way back to my driveway in the near future. This time driving right. Original computer crapped the bed and no one supports programming that type anymore. Would be easy enough if the engine was still bone stock, as a junkyard unit would work, but mine has a supercharger, which the junkyard replacement seems to hate. Picked up a newer model PCU to swap, just need to have someone put a tune up in it for me. Got a few leads on that. Watched some good stick shift racing last weekend. Classic Gear Jammers were at CPD. Don't know the car count, but it appeared to be well over 50 stick cars on site. CCRA race scheduled a couple weekends away. They always put on a great show as well.

Fern, good luck out there working them feet. Hope the knee is doing well. Been a while since I've raced, but footbraking is all I've ever done. No buttons in my cars, except the line lock.

Hope everyone out there is having a great week.

So--I got to Farmington Fri night and woke up Sat to a perfect day for foot brake racing. They had about 215 entries for a 2 day $5000 purse and in spite of several oil downs finished Sat around 9pm. I sucked really bad so I didn't even buy back Sat. But it shows that a race like this brings the locals out. Other tracks should try it. Sunday was overcast but still good racing. This day I did better getting to the 4th round with no buy back so I was happy. After the 4th round rain got them so they split the money---I think they said 22 were left. I had a good time, saw lots of friends, and won some money. Don't get much better than that. Oh, and thanks to Sandy Collins for checking on me after I disappeared Sat after my disgusting loss. Next stop Piedmont Thanksgiving race. Everyone stay safe.