It’s the weekend and time for a new driving adventure! I met Dex Kaytis before the sun was up at our usual spot, Artesia Blvd. and the 405 Southbound entrance to join the Healey gang from Orange Co at Dana Point Harbor for the rotating Classic Cars and Coffee.
We drove south on the 405 to Seal Beach Blvd., then over to PCH and turned south to Dana Point.
It was a delightful morning drive and we arrived around 0645 to join up with Chuck Lakowski, Mike Scroggie, Alice Johnson and John Hummer, Dick Ames, Rick Shoemaker, Van Schultz, Randy Clary, and all the usual characters. The weather was perfect and the very nice assortment of vintage American and foreign automobiles was more than wonderful. This small group of classic car lovers really has great people and lovely automobiles.
While checking out the different Bentley's, Jaguars, Porsches, Triumphs, Cobras, a lovely Morgan, and some great looking pickups, and of course, a nice gathering of our Austin Healey's, Mike and I were chewing the fat and all the sudden Mike says to me, “check out Tarzan”, and I couldn't believe my eyes. A lovely, vintage Bentley pulls into our area and the elderly driver appeared to be naked.
Yep, he gets out of his car with long silver-white hair and only wearing a loin cloth, a big sheathed knife and walking barefoot . Holy Moses, this guy looks like Tarzan for sure, very strange to say the least, but Mike says Tarzan has a great collection of cars, and that makes it easier to watch! At 0830, Dex, Chuck, and I left for our return trip North on PCH, and now the adventure begins. The drive to Huntington Beach was lovely and then after passing the Pier, Dex dramatically pulled over to the curbside and we followed him and parked, in time to hear Dex say that he heard a loud clanking and lost oil pressure in his Yellow Bug Eye. At this point we raised the bonnet and checked the oil level, which was OK. The I asked Dex to start the motor and oh! what horrible rattle came out of that little motor! We shut it down; it was terminal! We discussed a plan of attack. Both Chuck and I had to be home shortly due to pre-existing ‘honey dos’,so we decided to call AAA towing and abandoned our buddy, Dexter. He assured us that he would be Pine, after all AAA was coming to the rescue. An hour after arriving home I called Dex to see how it was going and he said, “no AAA yet”. He called the dispatcher again and when I checked back later, still no AAA. After another hour passed, I called Dex and asked if he had called Greg Aden so he could have the car towed to Greg’s shop. The answer was yes to Greg’s shop, but AAA still hadn’t shown up. Finally, four hours after the Pirst call, the tow truck showed up and Dex was off to Greg’s shop.
Dex and Greg started removing the motor from the car, they worked hard and fast and I arrived just as the motor was out. We then placed it on an engine stand and started taking it apart to Pind the piston rod on #2 cylinder was loose, but it was really the crankshaft that had split in half at the oil journal.
Greg lined up a reliably sourced motor that had just been rebuilt, so Dex left early Sunday morning for Carlsbad to pick up the new motor. There is much more to this continuing adventure, but Dex needs to take it from here. One thing can be said about us - we drive them, we wear them out, and we Pix them for our next ADVENTURE.
Ciao . . . .