In a middle age fervor I felt that I must have that special car or motorcycle and relive my youth. Several years ago I bought a rundown motorcycle. After rebuilding it to riding condition Samra and I took a ride down the road and quickly realized that one mistake would not be fun. The thoughts of what an accident would do to our family quickly shifted my focus to boating. This was a much better family level activity that would satisfy my search for youthful activities. Well that work great. . . for a while. But the need for that extra level of excitement was still tugging on my mind. I thought about four wheelers, but after remembering all the costs involved in our four wheeler experience with Chris. . . well that just took all the fun out of it. Been there. . . done that! What about rebuilding an old sportster like an MG. Then the time and money thing gave me inspiration to look on. Several years ago the rail buggy fad took over Elliott County and there were still some of them available at a good price. After a little searching I found that jewel that fit the bill. Literally Bill Utchek quickly approved of the buggy that I was looking at and I made the purchase.
Now there was the next phase. I had to make this thing road worthy again. I had a great frame and Motor. The tires and wheels were Good. . . maybe OK. But the brakes were. . . just not there. So back to my youth I traveled remembering all of those mechanical experiences I had at 744 Linda Lane. Maybe I didn't really want to remember all of those experiences. Seems like they were the results of complete automobile failures and desperation. I was determined to turn this all into fun today. What I had learned as a teenager all came back as I started taking that buggy apart. You know I owned a 1962 VW Bug and worked on it constantly. So, it didn't take long to get that buggy ready for the road.
At first I put some used brake drums and wheel cylinders to use and all was fine. For a while. Eventually I did away with the drums and installed rear disk brakes. This was a good time to replace all the wheels and tires with new much better balanced ones.
Because of a compression leak around the heads I downed the engine and installed copper shims under each head. The engine was originally build for racing and was run with aircraft fuel for its high compression. The extra .40 of the copper shims helped reduce the compression so I could run on high test gas. While the engine was apart I cleaned up the block and installed new chrome tins to give it a real fine look.
Last winter I recovered the seats with two tone read and black covers and installed larger chrome headlights.
Samra and I love to ride locally in Elliott, Morgan and Rowan Counties. There are plenty of country roads here to enjoy. Our highlight was a trip to Gatlinburg Tennessee. Our great friends the Utcheks took their buggy also. We towed them to Pigeon Forge and rode throughout the area for three days. We just dogged the weather as thunder storms drifted through each day. These buggys are great to tour the mountains, Cades Cove, and all the towns of the area. We hope to return to Gatlinburg again some day.
