VCCA Home Forums GENERAL DISCUSSION Meets, Tours & Events What a great club we have!

There is nothing like belonging to a club like the VCCA, and witnessing and appreciating the generosity of our members at a moments notice. Last week the Southern Ontario Canada Region held a "Tuesday Tour". The plan was to meet up at a Tim Hortons in Paris Ontario, then tour through the countryside to the town of Jarvis where we would stop for lunch, then head next door to the antique market. Simple plan, right? Well... things got difficult! First, it was the hottest day of the year, so the attendance was down a bit. It was a 130 km drive for me from Bolton to Paris, where four cars met at the Timmies. There, I found a steady drip coming from below the rad on my '50 convertible. Out came the tools, and the four "experts" quickly diagnosed the drip to the squishy looking upper rad hose. Ten minutes later I was packing up the tools, and starting the car to test it. It was much worse! It turns out the leak was coming from the water pump, which also had a good growl of shot bearings going on. No problem... I also had a brand new NOS water pump in my Coke cooler of spares. We had a quick huddle while George Worren, Les Gajdacs, Don Lampkin and I discussed the positives and negatives of dumping the coolant all over the parking lot on the hottest day of the year... and decided against it! We would drive the car to a local shop, and I would ride with Don in his '74 Caprice Convertible and pick the car up after the tour. Away we went, and enjoyed the tour and lunch. We were part of the way through the antique store (and the clerk had Don and I talked part of the way out of our money on a few things) when the phone rang. "Sorry Mr. Pearce, but this part is broken!" Sure it was. When I got the the pump back, it appears that someone decided to knock the pulley further onto the shaft with a hammer, and broke it off at the factory weld. (Not sure if it was welded, or pressed into place, but it was not meant to be hammered!) Well, the disappointment and worry pretty much ended the tour! We had a quick discussion and decided to head back to the Lampkin's house, and call the tow truck. My Hagerty Insurance footed a partial amount of the bill, and my beautiful and understanding wife left the T.V. shoot she was doing to come rescue me! The car was towed to Don and Judy's house and was stored for a week in Don's beautiful barn. I had the water pump fixed at a local (Bolton) shop and went back to pick the car up today. I want to thank Don & Judy Lampkin for the hospitality they showed both last week and today. They made sure that Jane and I were properly fixed up, and did a lot of phone calling and parts hunting while things looked bleak. Today Don helped me put the pump back on, then we all went for a test drive and lunch. Jane and I continued on over to Jarvis to see if we could seal the deal on the bake-lite radio I had my eye on. The antique store was closed, but my '50 kept it's end of the deal and completed the tour, as it was asked to.