VCCA Home Forums GENERAL DISCUSSION General Discussions All Cal 2011

Well the All Cal 2011 is over and with a grand success. The hoasting club did a grand job of feeding us and putting on some great tours. I logged 521 miles on my 31 coupe round trip from home. Saturday we went to the Sequia national park. We climbed to 7000 feet to find snow all around but not on the road. We saw the General Grant sequia tree which is the third largest tree in the world. The last ten miles of the trip to the top was second gear only. The oldest car to make the trip to the top was a 1915 touring car. I think that we all had a grand time. There were 93 cars in the group this year. What a turn out.

Glad to hear the All Cal was another success story! Any photos?

Not that it isn't a great feat for any vintage car, but tell me more about the 1915. That's a lot of miles - who's car, which model, how did it do?

I just looked at the roaster and it was a 1915 Baby Grand Touring car. On Saturday we went on a 146 mile tour up to The Sequoia National Park, altitude 7000 ft. The 15 was the oldest to make the trip along with a 26 touring and two 28 roadsters. The Baby Grand came from Nebraska. We went there to see the General Grant sequoia which is the third oldest tree in the world. The last twenty miles was going uphill. When we got to the top there was snow all over but none on the road. I will look at my pictures and send you some if you want.

Sal... Stop teasing us all, and post them here! You know how much we all love the pics!

Having seen some of Sal's previous tour pics they will be worth waiting for (generally several pages of when they do show).
Tony

I still do not know how upload pictures on the chat site, plus I have way to many to upload. I will see if I can put them on a free site and then post the link to it.

Hi, folks -

I did get this one photo of the 1915 Baby Grand touring that was on the All Cal from Dan O'Day, who was also there. Turns out the older gentleman that owns it had restored it several decades ago, came all the way from Nebraska with it, and is bringing it to Flint! I just thought it was pretty interesting that a car this old (and all stock - still has thermo-syphon cooling) participated in such a vigorous tour.

That car has made several of the Pre-29 tours and keeps up with the herd quite well.

http://s996.photobucket.com/albums/af83/1931sal/ OK, I hope that this will open for everyone. If not just type in the information into your search area. If you have trouble you can send me a PM and I will try to help. If you open the site there are also pictures from last years All Cal and the Palo Alto concours.

Excellent photos! Thanks for sharing! Looks like a really great event.

Great pics, Sal... it looks like it was a great event. I like the pictures of Tom's garage... what a Chevy shrine!

The 34 was the last car restored and that is the one that Tom is bringing to Flint. He told me that there will be three others their as well.

Your photographic prowess has not been damaged Sal. Very good pics of very good cars with the odd portable engine and aircraft thrown in for good measure.
Tony

Sabrina and I had such a great time at the All Cal Tour this year. The Central Valley Region did an outstanding job on hosting this terrific meet.

The Impala ran good except that it tossed one of its hub caps on the way up and spit gasoline from the glass-bowl fuel filter all over the top of the engine. Thank god it happened while we were parked and the engine had a chance to cool off. Sabrina (with coaching from three VCCA roadside assistants) got to do her first emergency road repair herself. It was really cool. The whole trip was awesome and I can't wait until next year's meet in San Diego.

The 1915 and its owners were very special. We ran into them at a gas station and this 20 year old local man driving a 1996 or so Chevy pickup was all over the 1915 asking a ton of questions about it. The couple was very patient with him and answered all of his questions. They were very nice folks and it was great to meet them.

Sabrina is excited about doing the permanent repairs to the Impala by installing a new gasket back into the glass-bowl filter and reinstalling it back in front of the carb and replacing the radiator overflow hose with the correct line since that was used as our temporary fuel line from Fort Tejon to Tulare until we could find a real fuel line from O'Rieley's Auto Parts. So, we will be back under the hood of the Impala this weekend too.

Oh, and I found a hub cap on ebay last night! ;-)

Hi Jim,

Great report on your experiences at the 2011 All-Cal.

I'm curious about the hubcap that left the scene. I don't recall from seeing the Impala in Rohnert Park last year if it has "hubcaps" or the larger size Wheelcovers. My question is do you have radials on the Impala and do you think the hubcap or wheelcover came off due to wheel "flexing" that some people have commented about when radials are installed on the original steel wheels ??? Obviously none of my business, just curious.

Hope all is well....

Bill.

Bill,

They are the full wheelcovers. Yes, the car had its radials on. Another member also mentioned that this could be to "flex". It was suggested that I might put a couple of dabs of adhesive arond the edge of the wheelcover when I put it back on. I am still not sure of this whole concept. I know we went over a good bump about 20 minutes before the wheelcover took flight. That is the first one I have lost, but it hasn't been on the open road much besides the trip to Santa Rosa last year.

I don't beleive the wheels changed when radials became an option a couple of years after the Impala was "born" so I am not sure about the whole flex thing. It just seems to me if there were flexing wheels out there, someone would have had a nice class action suit. It was around the whole time of Ralph Nader and look what he did to stop production of a whole nameplate, I would think he would have better arguments over flexing wheels. But, I am not an engineer, so I really have no idea if this is possible or not. I am going to try it one more time and if I loose another one I will either return to the bias ply tires or start sniffing glue I guess.

Jim
I seriously doubt the "wheel flex" theory because if it was the case there would be a lot of broken wheels on the side of the road by now. A steel rim doesnt change because a more flexible sidewall tyre is fitted to it.
Tony

I have had the Flex wheel problem with radial tires on bias ply tire era rims, however that was on pre-1955 rims on our 53 with 215-15 radials on the original rims (the ones with the hub cap clips) these rims were also designed to be run with tubes in the tires, after I put on the post 1954 tubeless tire rims I haven't had a problem of loseing the 53 full wheel covers.

I lost three wheelcovers during the first day's tour within 30 minutes of starting the tour in Louisanna, right after I mounted the radials. We lost one wheel cover making a right angle turn out of the hotel parking lot on the first day. The loose wheelcover makes a loud racket when it comes off under the fender skirt and can't get out because of the close fit of the wide radial to the fenderskirt about a half inch.
. A few minutes later, we we were driving around 65 MPH on a rough pavement, trying to keep from being over-run by some logging trucks we lost two more, We never had a problem with the old wheels with bias-ply tires. I haven't had any problems with the 68 Impala using Goodyear 215-14 radials on it. It surely rides and drives better with the radials, as does the 53.

Sorry about hi-jacking your tour thread, I didn't notice anything but the flex wheel posting After I read the first several postings it looks like you all had a fun tour!