New Mexico Convoy

Clearly these WWII Jeeps were able to withstand the heat of North Africa. Evidently it is the $h!+ fuel we have to buy that is causing vapor lock issues.
Clearly the convoy’s tanker with the vintage gas was MIA.
By the way, I noticed on my recent trip to Nevada that some of the stations have pumps with 87 octane non-ethanol gas.
 
One of our local stations has 85 octane non-ethanol gas. The Jeep's like it.
My wife's family had a cabin at Ute Park, NM for many years. Lots of good Jeep trails from there over to Red River, NM.
 
I was told by an old timer that they used to put clothes pins on the fuel line to "fix" vapor lock. I assume it helps remove heat from the fuel line. More than one may be required.
 
I was told by an old timer that they used to put clothes pins on the fuel line to "fix" vapor lock. I assume it helps remove heat from the fuel line. More than one may be required.
I've heard and seen that as well, but I'm skeptical of its effectiveness, since wood is a better insulator than heat conductor. The shape of a clothes pin would be great for dissipating heat, if only they were made of something like aluminum.
 
Sorry typed this up yesterday and forgot to post.

We have a non-travel day here in Taos. Made a trip back to the gorge to see cliffs and big horned sheep.

C93A4279-9C4D-47E4-9B19-7D827DDF2BA5.jpeg

There is an under crossing right here. I think they saunter in and out of the tunnel to cool off. The perk is they are right next to the road.2EFF64E4-6A81-43C4-A7AF-D8FAC593D56A.jpeg
 
25947B33-3B15-44FA-8ABE-5041BE70A17F.jpegMighty Mite behind me. Specially made for USMC to be helicopter deployable. Air cooled motor, aluminum body. 2,500 made. By the time they entered service we had helicopters that could carry std jeeps. It had no problem keeping up on the grades.
 
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I was in Taos, New Mexico with my vintage Indian motorcycle about 7 years ago. We were visiting the bridge pictured in the last post. I was the only one in our group to walk out on to the bridge. There was young man on the bridge who apparently thought his life was over because of a girl. As I was walking back to my motorcycle he jumped! On the news later that night they found his body 2 miles down the river, sad day.
 
I was in Taos, New Mexico with my vintage Indian motorcycle about 7 years ago. We were visiting the bridge pictured in the last post. I was the only one in our group to walk out on to the bridge. There was young man on the bridge who apparently thought his life was over because of a girl. As I was walking back to my motorcycle he jumped! On the news later that night they found his body 2 miles down the river, sad day.
They now have a suicide prevention hot line phones in each of the 4 viewing platforms. Unlike California, they don’t put up barriers.
 
I was told by an old timer that they used to put clothes pins on the fuel line to "fix" vapor lock. I assume it helps remove heat from the fuel line. More than one may be required.
It appears that my “flapper” was faulty. We wired it up the weight but that didn’t seem to help much. Next day during morning pre-check I found the weight had slid off the shaft sometime during the previous day. Connected it back up and re-wired it. That day (the last) we went over 10K FT and there were no issues. I really question the usefulness of that gadget.
 
It appears that my “flapper” was faulty. We wired it up the weight but that didn’t seem to help much. Next day during morning pre-check I found the weight had slid off the shaft sometime during the previous day. Connected it back up and re-wired it. That day (the last) we went over 10K FT and there were no issues. I really question the usefulness of that gadget.
On the 40s/50s chev trucks we run we have the manifold heat valves setup after a lot of hard lessons with vapor lock. I found that leaded fuel every once in awhile would lubricate the shaft the manifold heat valve rides on and make things better. In the summer it might as well be wired cold.

Two cylinder John deere Tractors from this time frame put in manually adjustable manifold heat valves. We always ran the in the cold position since the coldest we saw was maybe 5F or so.

Great trip and write up! You were practically one Willys Wagon day away from ke at one point... not really but a day plus 100miles..
 
This one is a WW2 common wealth truck called a Blitz.
View attachment 101673The owner lives in and had the rig shipped from Australia specifically for this convoy. He has taken it on convoys all over the world. His day job is owning a company that scratch builds Spitfires.
View attachment 101674
A few years ago he took a WW2 half track on a coast to coast convoy.
Not wanting to spread misinformation. After talking to him I learned that Texas offered him incentives to relocate to Texas and he did. But wait, the story gets more interesting. His family had three cattle stations in Australia and also three of these trucks, this is one of them. Two of his uncles flew in the RAF in WW2. At least one in the battle of Britain. He grew up with Spitfire, a Mustang and an Avro Anson to shuttle them around.
 
Wrap Up (I think)
Total jeep miles per my odometer was 597.4 miles. Since I run 700 tires instead of the WW2 600's it was probably a bit more than that. We trucked it about 2,400 miles getting to the launch point and back.

Engine oil consumption was 1/4 qt at most. Have not checked the gear oil levels yet, but this rig has minimal leaks, I don't expect it to take much. I did not track MPG, but it wasn't good. Gas stops were frequent and I never used more than 1/2 tank. My temp gauge never went over 180 deg on the trip and was usually showing 150-160 deg. It has a 160 deg thermostat. I did have vapor lock issues over the course of a couple days due to a bad "flapper valve" as described earlier.

Of the 17 rigs on the convoy, we had 2 bow out with mechanical failures. An MB was plagued with issues from the get-go which included chronic overheating with vapor lock and a small leak at the water pump. The 2nd was a Humvee missing a tooth or two in the ring gear making starting it a complete crap shoot. Both rigs had these issues when they arrived and the consensus was that they should've known better than to even go on the convoy.

The best part of the trip was my wife. She expected to be bored to tears listening to guys talking jeeps, trucks, armor, etc all day, every day. In reality about 1/2 the rigs brought a wife or girlfriend and she found out the guys were a little more diverse than she expected, There were truly some interesting characters on the trip. She is all-in for the next one.

Next year is the MVPA two week National parks tour doing a loop through Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. Hopefully the year after that will be the Alcan HWY which does 4,100 miles in 4 weeks. @Stakebed get your M38A1 ready to go.

Over and out, Doug
 
On the 40s/50s chev trucks we run we have the manifold heat valves setup after a lot of hard lessons with vapor lock. I found that leaded fuel every once in awhile would lubricate the shaft the manifold heat valve rides on and make things better. In the summer it might as well be wired cold.

Two cylinder John deere Tractors from this time frame put in manually adjustable manifold heat valves. We always ran the in the cold position since the coldest we saw was maybe 5F or so.

Great trip and write up! You were practically one Willys Wagon day away from ke at one point... not really but a day plus 100miles..
I can say that I saw the Sinclair station in the town of Sinclair and thought of you.
 
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