Its been a while since I posted anything, so this brings things up to date.
I took my car down to the Tubac car show on the 27th of January. Tubac is a location of one of the original Spanish Missions in southern Arizona. The show cars are driven on to the Tubac Country Club golf course and displayed there.
I loaded my car on its trailer the day before the show and put 2 gallons of 100LL av gas in the tank, thinking it would be more than enough for the short drive from the trailer unloading area to the golf course. Early the next morning I towed my trailer to Tubac and unloaded the Mirage, started it up and drove it a short distance to where a line of cars were waiting to get on to the golf course. There was a delay in driving on to the grass because there was frost and the club did not want to have cars damage the grass. After the sun warmed everything up, the line of cars began to move and I fired up the engine and joined the long line. I drove about a hundred yards and the engine quit. It turned out that I had developed a small leak in my fuel cell bladder and most of the gas had leaked out overnight. By the time I started it up that last time, it was running only on what fuel was in the carburetor float bowls.
The staff kindly towed me down to a spot close to the entrance on to the field.....no way was I ever going to make it up their short ramp over the curb on to the grass. It was just as well that it quit where it did. The organizers did suggest that I could load the car back on to the trailer and they would show me a back way on to the course, and I could leave the car on the trailer and park the whole rig in the “special interest” area. That worked; I was in a row with a Chris- Craft wooden speed boat and an Airstream Bambi travel trailer... There was quite a bit of interest in the Mirage and a number of favorable comments from people who I respect. To answer most questions people have had in the past, I made up a sign that explained the car's main points.
It was a disappointment not to be able to drive my car on to the course but it was still an enjoyable and worthwhile day. I ordered a replacement ProCell bladder from Fuel Safe and it arrived within a few days. Now to install it... lots of stuff needs to be removed to do that.
I also received my new set of race tires last week; now I need to have the old Goodyears removed and the Hoosiers mounted & balanced.
Regards, Neil Tucson, AZ