[RallySnake]

JB,

It would be great to meet you, too. I'm sure we could swap stories all night long.

Sunday's rally was going very well. Checkpoints 2 and 3 were very tricky to find, Ron and I even had a short argument over which way to get there. However, our "boss" rule saved us. The rule is: if you cannot see a checkpoint, the Navigator is the boss. If you can, the driver is the boss. In this case, I wanted to turn left. But, we could not see the checkpoint, so I deferred to Ron and turned right. I am really glad I did, because it was the correct way to go. You see Rallymasters like to find roads that do not look like they do on maps. In this case, we came up to a "T" intersection from the bottom of the "T". The map showed us a road intersecting from the right. I was fooled by it, along with half of the teams in the field. But, Ron and his GPS were not and he directed us the right way.

There were 12 legs and we had perfect scores for the first 4. We were cruising through beautiful back road scenery, when the engine started misfiring badly. I tried revving it up to keep it running, but it quit when I stopped at a stop sign. We pushed the car off the road and started investigating. There was fuel pouring out of the Holly's secondary vent tube. Thinking it was stuck float, we tapped on the carb to loosen it up. Then, we tried everything we could think of, including swapping the needle and seat tubes from front to rear. Each time, it would run ok for a minute, then start flooding over again. Finally, Ron said, "It seems like we are getting too much pressure". That made me think of the Carter fuel pump under the car. I also have a backup stock pump that runs when I push a switch. I decided to disconnect the Carter pump by pulling off one of the wires and turn on the backup pump. That worked! The engine ran good again and the got the air filter back on and put the tools away and rejoined the rally. We did not have enough time to get to the next two checkpoints, 5 and 6. However we found 7 in time and continued on to zero all of them except checkpoint 11. We got a one there.

So, we completed the rally with a score of 1001 and were happy to BE at the finish, with all of our friends, at the famous Anderson's Split Pea Restaurant in Buellton, and not on the back of a flat bed heading home with a busted Cobra. Life was very good, even without a trophy.

Later, we figured out that the Carter fuel pump has an internal pressure regulator. Somehow, that failed and started pumping at a higher pressure. I am planning to replace the 20 year old Carter pump and to install an external pressure regulator near the carburetor as secondary protection.

Paul