Opel Road Trip 2008 - The Car / The Plan

Well, After 9 years of living in Ohio it was time to move back to my birth state of Louisiana. In time I'll get back to Texas my home of choice. It took two trips between OH and LA to get all of our "stuff" moved. My wife asked if I was going to trailer my 1970 Opel GT home. It was a good question but it just seemed wrong to trailer a car that I had worked so hard on to recover from years of neglect.

The GT, a 1970 with a fair body and tolerable paint. I built the engine last summer, Bored over to a 2 liter, new 2.0 pistons, Chevy 1.6 exhaust valves and 1.83 intake, hardened valve seats, new valve springs, Roller rocker arms, ported and polished the head, unshrouded the intake valves, balanced the entire rotating mass including the flywheel and Chevy S-10 clutch, added an OR66 camshaft (3 degrees advanced), Weber 32/36 carb on a modified intake, EDIS Electronic ignition, DIY MegaSquirt ECU ignition controller, chevy 60 amp alternator.

The car needed the usual fixes, repaired the headlight wiring, lowered the suspension 1 inch with OGTS lowering springs, added after market rims with Sumito tires (sticky), new radiator, carpet, dash cap, seat covers, Sony stereo cd/mp3 player four speaker system with boosters, fuel tank modified for fuel injection (future project) and resealed, Optima battery, replaced headlights with halogen, front and rear suspension completely rebuilt with poly bushings, added front and rear anti-sway bars, brakes replaced and added stainless flex brake lines, transmission resealed, drive shaft rebuilt including a new donut bushing, new U-joints, several dash gauges replaced or repaired, the clock was repaired, new heater core and fan motor.

Prior to leaving on my road trip I had an occasion to drive the GT on a short trip of about 100 miles. It seemed like a good idea to warm up the GT as it had been sitting for several months. The shake down trip proved to be a good idea. During the drive I broke the number three intake rocker arm stud. I limped the car home and proceeded to repair it. This was complicated by the fact that I had already moved all of my spares and 99% of my tools to LA. Thank God for Opel GT.com, I posted a cry for help. The guys responded by offering their spares and got me going again. During this repair I found that I had an interference issue between the roller rocker arms and the valve spring keepers on the intake valves, that was corrected. Then I took the car out for a 183 mile shake down, the GT performed flawlessly and even got 34.88 miles per gallon on the drive.

The plan - this is a simple trip, 1200 miles through the country staying away from major highways. My tourist stops will be whatever I see that interests me as well as distilleries in KY and TN then on to some civil war grounds and sites along the way. I promise not to stop for any Giant Balls of Twine! The trip will be spread out over 3 to 4 days. I'll have nothing more than a gym bag of cloths, a handful of hand tools, and a double fistful of MP3 disks loaded with the 60's and 70's.

The car is packed and ready to go, I get off of work on Wednesday May 21st and plan to leave on this trip on the 22nd. I will try to post a progress report as I go along to chronicle the ups and downs of the trip.

Gregg