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Rick,
Nice to meet you at SSR. As I recall, you arrived on Saturday and left the same evening, so you missed all the rain! The weather on Saturday was so beautiful that it almost dried out the car from the trip in on Thursday. On Sunday, it was raining when we left and the rain stopped by about Indianapolis.
I've driven my car in the rain a bunch of times, but only two or three times have I driven in a soaking, blinding, pavement-puddling rain and, while it's no fun at the time, it's great to have had the experience. As one of my college professors once said: "It's kinda like poking a stick in your eye; it feels so good when you stop!".
These big, fat tires do remarkably well on wet roads, but when it rains so hard that the water begins to puddle, they start 'planing and you lose your steering for brief periods. Of course this is the time when the realization of how miserably wet you are, how little you can see and how scary it is to be in 60+mph traffic in a little plastic car you can't steer begins to sap your concentration and enthusiasm. The safest alternative is to just pull over and wait out the worst of the storm. As the rain lets up, the deep water will run off and you'll be able to steer again. Also, for the most part, it's the wind which drives the water into the car, so if you're just sitting there, most of the rain will run off. If I can't pull over, I try to slow to 55-60mph or less, if possible, and look backwards and forwards at the same time.
The good news is that, the more I drive my car in inclement weather, the less concerned I am over a few storm clouds if I decide to go somewhere and the less I fret over getting my "baby" wet. I know how it drives in the rain, how to dry it out when I get home and that a little rain ain't gonna hurt it, although the water will wash the lube away from the rear lower carrier bushings and cause the car to squeak when you go over bumps (see Mike Evangelo at Dynamic for the fix). If I'm going overnight in bad weather, I slip my gym bag with my clean clothes and stuff inside a big garbage bag and set it on the floor on the passenger's side. I've done some waterproofing which has helped me to figure out where the REAL problem areas are and what to do about them in the future. Mike Stenhouse did a great article on this topic in one of the earlier issues of the "Second Srike Newsletter", which is well worth the price of the back issues, or email me and I'll look it up and list the high points for you.
Here's one tip, for which I owe credit to Dave "Woodsy", the guy with the Coupe: In a hard rain, the water can soak your air cleaner, causing your motor to run rich. On Thursday evening, when I limped into the hotel parking lot feeling like a wet rat, my car was running rough. Not rough, like a plug wire off, just seemed to be vibrating more, and it went away when I pushed in the clutch. I thought: "Well, nothing I can do about it now; I'll deal with it in the morning." The next day it was fine. When I mentioned it to Dave, he suggested the wet air cleaner as the cause. On Sunday morning, I put a strip of aluminum duct-sealing tape over the front 10-12" of the air cleaner and the car ran fine in the rain.
The more you drive your car in bad weather, the better you'll like the car and the less you'll mind the bad weather!
Lowell
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