Amazing drive with new friends!

[hineas]

I hope TMartinLVNV (https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/member.php?28540-TMartinLVNV)and GTBradley (https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/member.php?27743-GTBradley)don't mind me posting this, but my brother and I had a great drive with the two of them a few weeks ago.

They had planned on coming out to my neck of the woods in Western Colorado. They found out I lived in the area and invited me along. We spent 3 days driving in Western Colorado and Eastern Utah.

The worst part for us was the fact that we are still in gel coat and their cars have finished paint jobs. Seeing their cars really inspired us to do the body work this winter. Luckily they were gracious and didn't give me too much grief about our lack of paint.

We ended up putting about 1,000 miles on the cars in 3 days. As you know, we talked to several people at every stop. One lady was ready to leave her husband right then and there and hop in with Terry.

I heard Bradley answer the "are they real" question about one thousand times by saying, "You think we are driving about 9 million dollars worth of vehicles? Even if I had a real one it would be in the garage and I'd be driving this replica."

Bradley and Terry had me lead the trip since I live in the area and know all the roads. The best part about being in the lead was being able to see two amazing cars behind me in the rear view mirror. The worst part was that I had to swap driving with my brother...

[hineas]

They were staying in Grand Junction, so all the trips were loops from there. The first day we went south to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. We went to the south rim and drove down to the river. Then we drove around the entire Gunnison Gorge to the north side, up over McClure Pass to Glenwood Springs and back into Grand Junction. This was about 350 miles through multiple mountain roads. Many of the roads are lightly traveled with a lot of tight, mountainous turns. The views were phenomenal.

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It did rain on us, and maybe it would be nice having windshield wipers. Luckily I had put Rain-X on the windshield the night before and that was sufficient. Honestly, the main reason we got wet was because we don't have any weather stripping on the doors and the water from the road would spray through the underside of the door right onto my leg. A well placed towel fixed that and I wasn't too wet.

After we parted ways for the day my brother and I started back to my place. On the way our lower radiator hose popped off the radiator. Luckily Bradley and Terry weren't far and they came to the rescue. We had to buy a new piece of hose to connect the corrugated hose back to the radiator (we lost the piece of tubing that is used as an adapter) and get back on the road. Bradley brought his trailer just in case we needed it. That turned out to be a perfect ramp to lift the front of the car so we could get underneath to fix the hose.

While fixing it, my brother was holding the corrugated hose out of the way while I was pushing the rubber hose onto the radiator. He "accidentally" dropped the end of the corrugated metal hose right onto my forehead several times. He still claims it was an accident, but we know better. It was a rainy evening, it was getting dark, we were wet and covered in radiator fluid, and we were in a parking lot trying to fix the car. We thought the whole situation was funny, so my brother and I laughed a lot. Every time he dropped the hose on my head we busted out in laughter. We laughed enough about it that Bradley said, "I want to see two you in a fight. I bet it is full of tickling and giggling."

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After everything was done, I checked all the hose clamps and they were mildly loose. As a public safety announcement, don't forget to tighten your hose clamps after several heat/cool cycles!!!

[hineas]

The second day we went west into Eastern Utah. We drove down the Colorado River into Moab then drove through part of Canyonlands. We stopped and hiked to Mesa Arch. I recommend not hiking in driving shoes. I speak from personal experience...

Bradley, as always, was a wealth of knowledge. He was able to explain to several people on the hike that Mesa Arch was in fact one of the included images in Windows for the background. People were always impressed with this statement and said things like, "Oh yeah! I remember that now!"

We then went south east back into Colorado, drove along the Dolores River to Gateway, CO. We stopped and visited the car museum in Gateway. It is a fun museum in a gorgeous area of the country. I highly recommend it. After lunch at Gateway we went back to Grand Junction.

This was a total of about 375 miles. It was HOT, but the scenery was amazing. There was less mountain roads and more desert roads through red rock cliffs. Luckily we left early so most of the day wasn't hot, but by then end it was about 100 degrees outside.

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[hineas]

The last day was a shorter day because of various reasons. Mainly, I had a meeting at work in the morning that I couldn't miss, so I convinced them to do a later start.

We ended up going through the Colorado National Monument just outside of Grand Junction. This is a fun, twisty road that goes up the endge the red rock cliffs in the area. The views are stunning. We then went over the Grand Mesa, which is a mountain road that goes across the largest flat topped mountain in the world.

Sadly, Terry was having some mechanical issues so he ended up leaving his car at the hotel and riding with Terry. We also had an issue were the car just died, but after a few minutes it started right back up and ran fine. I wonder if it was vapor locking because the gas line runes fairly close to the headers. We are going to put some insulation over the lines to help.

All-in-all it was a great trip, we made new friends, and we put about 900 miles on our car in 3 days. Over all the car did well, it was a pleasure to drive, and I can't wait to do it again!

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[Nigel Allen]

What a great write up. I could really feel the joy in the adventure. Thanks for taking the time to put the story and photos together.
Yet another great aspect of this forum.

Cheers,
Nigel

[Joel Hauser]

Wonderful adventure, write up and pictures. Thanks for sharing. The cars look great...even in gel coat.

[GoDadGo]

Thanks For Sharing Your Trip & Pictures With Us!

.What A Great Motivation To Get Our Cars Out On The Open Road!

[John Ibele]

What a great idea, and a great thing to share. It's the sort of thing every builder dreams about doing when they're in the middle of building their car. As GoDadGo said, thanks for the additional motivation!

[TMartinLVNV]

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It was a great trip and thanks for leading us up to 11,000 ft and down to Moab! Even riding with Bradley instead of driving my own on the third day. It allowed me to take a lot more pictures.

[Blitzboy54]

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It was a great trip and thanks for leading us up to 11,000 ft and down to Moab! Even riding with Bradley instead of driving my own on the third day. It allowed me to take a lot more pictures.


You lost a rocker?

[TMartinLVNV]

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[k-roy]

I am rather jealous.

I get my engine delivered this week, my kit delivered next week, then a few months :rolleyes: and I will be there for the next ride. Or maybe a few years....

[TMartinLVNV]

You lost a rocker?

Yep. It happened without notice when accelerating from a stop sign. Not real happy about it. But, it happens. I'm working on a fix right now and will post everything on my build page once I get her up and running again.

[hineas]

Yep. It happened without notice when accelerating from a stop sign. Not real happy about it. But, it happens. I'm working on a fix right now and will post everything on my build page once I get her up and running again.

Yeah, that was a bummer of a day when you threw that rocker. I hope you get it up and running soon! At least you got ceramic coated headers out of it though, right?

[TMartinLVNV]

That and I upgraded my valve covers and air cleaner to something a little nicer. I'll put my old ones up for sale on here in a little bit.

If something breaks, it is always an opportunity to upgrade. Even other stuff that didn't break along with it :p I'm going to try and get up and running again on Sat.

[niceguy]

It's so great to read about driving your Cobras through the mountains. I arranged many driving cruises here in western Pennsylvania. Yes we have break downs also, a few of us carry many tools with us and can get most issues repaired. Only twice over 10 years did we need to have Cobras hauled.

[RFracer]

Thanks for sharing your adventure. Looks like it was a great trip. You know its officially fun when you pop a radiator hose and bust a rocker. We’ve all been there at one time or another.

[D Stand]

Thanks for sharing your adventure. Hope to be in your shoes soon, driving in gel coat!

[Railroad]

Hope that was a defective rocker and not the result of spring coil bind. Good luck on repairs.

[GTBradley]

I hope TMartinLVNV (https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/member.php?28540-TMartinLVNV)and GTBradley (https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/member.php?27743-GTBradley)don't mind me posting this, but my brother and I had a great drive with the two of them a few weeks ago.

They had planned on coming out to my neck of the woods in Western Colorado. They found out I lived in the area and invited me along. We spent 3 days driving in Western Colorado and Eastern Utah.

The worst part for us was the fact that we are still in gel coat and their cars have finished paint jobs. Seeing their cars really inspired us to do the body work this winter. Luckily they were gracious and didn't give me too much grief about our lack of paint.

We ended up putting about 1,000 miles on the cars in 3 days. As you know, we talked to several people at every stop. One lady was ready to leave her husband right then and there and hop in with Terry.

I heard Bradley answer the "are they real" question about one thousand times by saying, "You think we are driving about 9 million dollars worth of vehicles? Even if I had a real one it would be in the garage and I'd be driving this replica."

Bradley and Terry had me lead the trip since I live in the area and know all the roads. The best part about being in the lead was being able to see two amazing cars behind me in the rear view mirror. The worst part was that I had to swap driving with my brother...Don't mind at all, Carl. I do plan to set the record straight though.https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/blob:https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/6969f2d7-4b64-456b-b23f-3f22b03cbc59 I missed this last week as I was at my son's graduation from Boot Camp - he's a Marine now! And I am proud of him.

What a great trip, I really had a lot of fun and will be looking forward to the next one. Terry is an amazing planner and always energetic and enjoyable to be around and Carl and Phil really know where the good drives are. To all reading this, we got Carl and his brother, Phil, to do this trip after they read about our trip last year, so don't hesitate to jump in on the next one. Be forewarned though, we do bag on each others cars and driving style extensively - so much so, that bystanders find it entertaining.


The trailer was not mine - I drive my car!…until I can’t and then I’ll be begging Terry to haul it for me. He also carries every tool you could possibly need.


I know, I know, the “wealth of knowledge” about the arch was stolen and not credited, but that crowd of techy/nerdy girls was really impressed with me, so I don’t care!


You forgot to mention my wiper popping off in the rain and then in my panic that it might slide off the hood at 70mph I stretched up to see it and promptly lost my hat on the Interstate.


I ended up with 1426 miles at 22.3 mpg average. That is astounding to me considering how hard we drove…well, except for Easy Street Terry.


I had a great time and grinned for so long my face hurt - looking forward to next year’s trip.

https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=172818&d=1663698317

[GTBradley]

https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=172817&d=1663698043 https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=172816&d=1663698030

https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=172815&d=1663698030 https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=172814&d=1663698030

https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=172813&d=1663698030 https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=172810&d=1663698006

https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=172805&d=1663697973

[GTBradley]

https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=172804&d=1663697973 https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=172802&d=1663697973

https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=172808&d=1663698006 https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=172811&d=1663698006

https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=172809&d=1663698006

[GTBradley]

Here's one where Terry is showing where he installed his engine.

https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=172806&d=1663697973

Don't worry, I had both my hands on the wheel the whole time...well, not the whole time:cool::


https://youtu.be/URklRPx0JL8