New Mexico Trip

Lowell Brown used to live in Seattle and that is where I got to know him and his gold 330 GT.  A while ago, he move to Santa Fe and I've had a standing offer to visit.  Since my 330 is in the paint shop. I decided that it was an appropriate time to accept his and Shirley's hospitality.  I was originally planning a 4 day trip, but Lowell talked me into 8 days.

The trip started well.  The hassle with TSA at the airport makes flying not very enjoyable.  However, Seattle is one of the airports offering the TSA pre-check.  Since I have a Nexus card to use at the border when I go to Whistler, I registered it with United.  My boarding pass said that I could use the pre-check line.  My neighbor dropped me off at the airport about 6 AM.  I checked a bag and was through security by 6:08.  This is like the old days, just drop everything on the conveyer (no bins), step through the metal detector, pick up your carry on and head to the gate.  The best experience with TSA I've every had.

The next part of the trip was just as good.  Lowell met me at the airport with his 330 GT.

One day, we took the 330 out for a drive to the Valles Caldera, which is out past Los Alamos where Lowell works.  The drive is very scenic with the last few mile climbing up into the caldera being a windy 2 lane road with a couple of 10 MPH switchbacks.  Of course, Lowell did exceed the suggested speed on the turns.  My only regret was that Lowell was driving rather than me.

The Caldera is the remains of a volcanic eruption millions of years ago with 500 times the amount of debris as from the Mount St. Helens eruption in 1980.  There was an early season snow fall which hadn't melted in the shaded areas.

   

Lowell was saying that he thought that his clutch needed replacing as his last adjustment was about at the limit.  At the end of the drive, I drove the car for a couple of miles.  Two things were funny.  One, the pedal wasn't returning to its normal height (about the same at the brake pedal) and two, the engagement point was only about an inch off of the floor.

When we got back, I first looked at the clutch pedal and pulled on it with my hand.  It returned the the normal height and kept returning correctly as I kept testing it.  The engagement point was still near the bottom of the stroke.  Engaging low is usually an adjustment issue and not a worn out clutch.  I also did a full throttle test in fifth gear at about 2000 RPM.  This is at a high torque point in the engine and at full load.  If a clutch is slipping, it would happen then.  I didn't feel any slippage either then or when Lowell was doing his spirited driving.  So we raised the car on his lift and removed the belly pan.  A quick check of the adjustment at the slave cylinder showed that the lock nut wasn't tight and there was excessive free play.  A couple of passes with the adjustment left the clutch engaging much higher with only about 1/2" of free play at the pedal.  So I think that Lowell's clutch has a long life ahead of it.

More to come.

Another Ferrari day.  On the way to Lowell's from the airport, he mentioned that Admiral Robert Phillips' 500 Mondial was in a storage place that we went near.  I hadn't realized that Robert (and his son and family) had moved to Santa Fe from the DC area.  We got in contact with them and arranged a visit to see the car.  I had seen it a couple of times in Monterey and at Richard Garr's events, but never was able to pour over the car in detail.  Lowell had just seen it at Pebble.  So both of us wanted some real face time with the car and Robert.  We learned a lot about the car and its history.  Robert started it and ran it long enough to warm the engine up (click for a short video).

       

After the time with the car, we adjourned to a local restaurant for lunch.

In the afternoon, Lowell and I took his 330 for a drive to the Santa Fe Ski Area.  The main purpose was to check that the clutch adjustment was working properly.  I had an ulterior motive in that Lowell has invited me back during ski season and I wanted to check out the local area.  What surprised me was that the base is at 10,350 feet with the top at 12,075 feet.  The base is almost 2,000 feet higher than the top at Whistler where I usually ski.  So the likelihood of powder snow is much greater.  Taos is also close enough for day trips.

At least we didn't have any problems with the car, unlike one trip where I took my 330 to Whistler and had a broken wire in the alternator.  I ended up getting help from a friend who worked for the ski area.

Another thing we checked on Lowell's car were the windshield wipers.  He didn't think that the high speed was working properly.  After my experience on my car, I said that we would time the number of cycles on high and low in a given time and see if there was a difference before taking anything apart.  There was, but it's not too noticeable if you are in heavy rain though.  So Lowell didn't have to do anything with his wiper motor.