For those that care, the GPS gizmo my brother made saves a point every 4 seconds, uploads it to the file site about every 15 minutes, calling a free dial up ISP to make the transfer.
But anyway, we left Friday night, driving to the Cleveland area to stay with an old friend of my brother. One item that will become a theme is engine cooling. Tojo doesn't like droning on at 65+ mph too much. When we arrived, a strong gasoline smell was noticed as well near the front of the car. Our hosts thought the car looked fine, but it was nighttime and I assured them it would look worse to them in the morning. The next morning, they agreed. As far as the leak, I pulled the air cleaner off the inspect things and nothing looked out of the ordinary. So, at times, it apparently just 'does that', sort like how the space shuttle emits various vapors before it launches. Tojo and the space shuttle were made in same era, so it makes sense they have similar characteristics. There is probably a PhD dissertation in that thought, comparing and contrasting the various design elements of those two high-tech contrivances. One immediate similarity is that they are both the same color.
After some breakfast and edifying nerd talk, we were off again. After lunch, most graciously provied in sandwich form by our hosts the previous evening, Tojo's temp crept up and this time we tried using the heater to moderate engine temp. This will help keep the chill of during the afternoons driving through the Carolinas and Alabama... It made a difference, but not quite enough. We discovered that with the windows open and on defrost, it didn't get that hot in the car. But, to be honest, the heater core probably isn't that efficient at removing heat as it is probably as scuzzed up with rust and whatnot as the radiator. One trick that did work, was a 'hyper miler' trick of pushing the clutch in going downhill, letting the engine drop to idle, slowing the coolant flow rate enough for the coolant to actually be cooled. To borrow a term from my wastewater treatment schoolin', we increased the 'retention time' of the coolant in the radiator. It worked well, most of the time, zipping down Pennsylvania hills with gravity as our friend, only to curse gravity as Tojo leaned heavily into the hills.
New Jersey, as Oregon, insists on having paid professionals pump gas into your car for you. But, of course, it isn't full service as they don't clean the windshield for you. Whatever happened to customer service? Due to a GPS snafu, we ended up in NYC no where near where we wanted to end up. My brother's Garmin has a mind of its own, from time to time. So he re-typed the address and eventually got us to the hotel about an hour later than planned.
We plan on meeting up with some family before heading to Staten Island for the official check-in and departure Sunday. The hotel we're at is just off Broadway and 94th street, extremely close to Symphony Space, as it turns out, which I want to visit when time permits in the future. The Days Hotel doesn't have its own parking deck, so we had to park elsewhere... with Valet parking... I was supposed to leave the car on the slope into the parking garage and set the parking brake. Tojo has no working parking brake (actually it doesn't even have a non-working parking brake. There IS NO parking brake anymore) so I put it into gear and let the clutch out and it slowly inched its way down the ramp, the compression not quite holding it back.
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