3,400 mile road trip in 73 swinger

-
G

GenLee1970

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 28, 2015
Messages
53
Reaction score
10
Location
Rhode Island
So, I just got back for a loooong *** road trip in my /6 Swinger.

I live in Rhode Island but I have friends in Alabama, both parents wintering in Florida and other friends in South Carolina, so I did what any car nut with time on his hands would do. Pack some clothes, tools and a few spare parts and hit the road.

Well, ok, maybe I did a little more prep than that. Like going through the systems on the car most likely to leave me stranded: cooling, brakes, ign, fuel, etc. But still a leap of faith or a dumb *** stunt as some have alluded to.

All in all no regrets. I had a great time with my friends and family. Enjoyed many hours behind the wheel of a classic car and met many nice folks on the road who wanted to talk about my car or take pictures.

The journey down was an eye opener, I found out that my car doesn't like hills so much (I came down 81, very hilly) and that fuel economy in said hills is lower than on more level ground, 20- 21 vs 23 - 24 back home. Also driving 70 mph does mileage no favors either. Average for the whole trip was 21.7 so not too bad.

There was a little mechanical drama though. The right rear wheel bearing started singing on the return trip near the top of Florida. By the time I got to Charleston S.C. it was pretty loud. Luckily my friend there had access to his shop and we pressed a new one on. Very frustrating as I has replaced both rear bearings only 6 months ago. And the car picked up an intermittent rough idle that became a not so intermittent rough idle near the end. I boosted the idle speed a bit and made it home ok. Ran great off idle though so I'll be tearing down the carb soon.

Not a bad warm up for the route 66 trip I have planned for the fall, which will be at least twice the mileage over a two week period.

Anyone else have a similar a body road trip adventure tale or plans in the works?
 
No trips quite like that but I drive my 73 Dart anywhere without worry.
700 miles in one day was the longest so far all at once but it was 700 miles back on a different day.
Made that trip 4 times so far so 5,600 miles at 80mph at 17-18 miles per gallon with a lightly modded small block.
Even got to drive part of Route 66 in Arizona since it parallels I40 for awhile.
Not ONE problem the entire time.
 
Flew a commercial flight from California to Port Angeles, Washington to pick up a daily driver I found on Craigslist: 1965 Plymouth Valiant Signet Convertible 273 automatic. Drove it to La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico with no incidents on the highway (2,250 miles). Still drive it around once in awhile. So far, rebuilt the carburetor once, nothing more.
 

Attachments

  • 100_2812.jpg
    62.5 KB · Views: 424
Actually,that's pretty darn reliable for 70's tecknology....
 
Sounds like a blast. Nothing like cruising the highways in a classic. I've got a pretty long trip planned for June. I will be shipping my African Valiant to Dallas, and then driving it to the start of the Power Tour in Gonzales Louisiana. Once there we will do the long haul to Kansas City and then drive from there back to Phoenix. Should be an awesome trip. At the moment the car is apart. Got the rear axle out doing a gear swap for some highway friendly 2.73's, and also a new set of leafs.
 
i sold my 74 scamp last year, it was a 50k mile original car, guy from wisconsin bought it and drove it back from oklahoma. it was over xmas break and he had his teenage son with him and they were just hitting differant hockey games between here and there , he said they made it back with no issues. i miss that car.
 
Great story! Drove my 84 Dodge D150 home from Saskatchewan. 57 hours 2000 miles and no hotels. .lol factory 360 4bbl so we wont talk mpg.
Longest trip was non mopar but cool 73 Olds Delta 88 convertible. Ontario to Indiana Texas Tennessee Wisconsin. 6000 miles in 10 days.
Most recent was picking up Dads 67 S in Colorado. 3 of us in F150. Approx 5500 kms in 4 days and 1 hotel stay.
Love to drive. Hope to rack up a ton of kms this season in the cuda.
 
Awesome, you will love RT66. I did the entire thing from Chicago to Santa Monica in my 1968 Dart GT (273/904/7.25" w/2.93 gears) and loved every bit of it. The car is all original, so after checking the major systems, it was mainly a leap of faith as well. I too packed a ton of clothes, parts, fluids, tools, etc. No major issues other than a tire blow out which to be fair I could have avoided had I stopped sooner to address the issue. The car even burned about a quart every 500 miles ha, but she made it. Other than that there were minor issues here and there but nothing that stopped the car from driving under its own power and I would fix small issues along the way.

I even took pacific coast highway up to meet a friend in San Jose and continued all the way up to Washington. What an awesome time. Drove all the way back to Maryland to finish out the trip. I was on the road about a month and I wanna say around 8,000 to 10,000 miles. I mapped my exact route on a huge map I had with me.

Definitely take your time on route 66. It can go by quick. Stop and take it all in every so often. Lots of roads on old 66 are dead ends or go through private property so plan for doubling back a few times. In some places you can see the original 1926 road that is now pedestrian and/or bicycle duty only. One section to avoid is a strip near the Bagdad Cafe in the Mohave desert. It was absolutely awful to drive on. Not kidding I was doing 10mph and still the car rattled and shook like a paint can so bad that the screws holding the instrument panel in backed out and onto the floor. Couldn't wait to get to proper highway while on that. I had to do 10 miles before I found an exit to the freeway. All in all, awesome experience that I will cherish forever. Seeing our country and all the landscapes it has to offer. I hightailed it on I80 on the way back and I definitely recommend that so you can see the salt flats (bonneville speedway). I raced down the flats as I had it all to myself. Keep in mind also the tune on your carb (lean vs fat). I was tuned at sea level so rising up to almost 10k elevation made me run rich, but safe to run. The elevation goes up and down so much that I opted to leave the tune as is rather than change jets or mixtures and such all the time. Its a 2bbl carter so I'm not sure how much tuneability is in it anyway. So much to say I'm sorry I have to stop somewhere haha.

The only thing I had planned was the time off of work in advance. Other than that I literally packed up, hit the road and drove as much or as little as I wanted and called around for hotel availability. Definitely stay in some of the quirky places along route 66.

You will love it. Keep that car on the road as it was meant to be.
 
Wow, great stories!!

Yeah, I love to drive em. Got nearly 40,000 on my 70 Charger over the past 11 years or so. Carlisle 7 times, the Nats twice, Road Atlanta once and Bristol Motor Speedway for Dukesfest once, plus a whole lotta backroad cruising. Kind of got the whole cruise night, show scene out of my system early on. The open road is where it's at for me.

Really looking forward to Route 66. Thanks so much for the tips and tales. I'm also not going too nuts with planning. Kind of looking for that Two Lane Blacktop vibe, free and easy, you know what I mean. I don't plan on driving in the dark so I can see all there is to see and plus I figure daylight is more than enough hours in the saddle. 2 weeks is my planned time but I'm flexible. I do want to head up the coast of California to visit my ex brother in law, he's a major car nut and I will be detouring for the Grand Canyon. Other than that, no plans.

I'll need a navigator, so I'll likely take my ex (we make better friends now that we're not married O:) ). That'll make it easier and make for better pictures too. Hopefully she can stay the duration and see her brother but if she runs out of time (or becomes a problem :finga:) I can drop her off at an airport to go home. My camera has a black and white feature so I'll be taking lots of vintage looking shots.
 
I recall the road trip my wife and I did. It wasn't fun, but we moved in thread of winter during a bad storm in 94. Driving my 70 Dart with a u haul trailer behind,and the trailer so heavy I could just barely pick the tongue up to connect it. All this, stock drum brakes and the Rocky mountains too. It was terrifying...we had to pull over 10 minutes from our destination to let the brakes cool off,they were smoking nbad.as the last hill was a 30% grade...
 
When my 3 kids were little, I used to take them from Timonium, Maryland to Marion, South Dakota every summer for a visit with my father. 1,360 miles each way, usually 70 to 75 mph, 300 miles between stops, all day long in a 73 4 door yellow Dart. A picnic lunch at 11:00 am at a rest area, hot dinner around Indianapolis, sleep about Davenport, Iowa, Pull into Marion a little after noon. The first year we had just bought it from a friend, with 30,000 miles on it. At every stop someone would offer to buy it, or had a great story about having one like it. One of the best things I ever did with the kids. Never a problem on the road, even after about 6 or 7 round trips. My son still has the Dart.
 
When I was a kid, we used to jump into mom's '66 383 powered Fury III wagon every summer and drive from Colorado to Ohio pretty much non stop with my parents and my older brothers trading off the driving. Only stops for gas and potty breaks. Took about 23 hours straight through.
That's the way we did it in the old days, never gave a thought to "is the car going to make it". They were meant to be driven and that's what we did.
 
I've driven 7 -8 times from New York to Florida in my 70 340 Swinger back in the late 80's early 90's. It was a blast, and the front bench seat served as the Dodge motel at a few rest stops for many of those trips. Only had one issue the whole time - a loose connector down at the neutral safety switch which forced me to start the car by jumping across the starter relay with a screw driver. Once I fixed that it never gave me any trouble.
 
Here's a pair of pics I took in the middle of a 2900-mile trip I took in 2010 with my 225-powered '73 Dart Custom, showing the original mileage on the car. The speedometer on that car was quite accurate, but I'm not sure why I even mention that, because these are pictures of the original mileage on the car. Anything else you might be able to see in the pics is totally incidental.

Odo_1.jpg

Odo_2.jpg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
-

Back
Top