While we were at the meadow Jason noticed his front end making noise. It had been making a clicking sound on our last trip up Johnny Park road, which was only a prelude to it’s complete disintegration at Seven Mile. His front diff was shot, it sounded like the teeth on the ring gear were gone. Fortunately he had a set of chains, or so we thought.

Recently Jason had traded the 35″ Goodyear MTRs on his blazer for a set of 37″ Goodyear MTRs. It was a great deal, but now his chains were too small (actually they were 33″ chains, so may not have worked well on the 35s either). It took us a few minutes, but we with some straps and bungees we were finally able to get the Blazer all chained up. Amazingly enough the ELocker and the chains worked really well, and we were back to doing some wheeling.

We stopped for lunch, and decided that I should lead the pack since my tires were good in the snow, and I had four wheel drive. We set off up road 171 to go around the loop. Usually Jason and the Blazer leads, so breaking trail in the snow added some difficulty. The snow kept getting deeper, and the Scout being all locked up does not like to go straight down the trail. Several times I was steering completely into the skid and the truck kept moving sideways down the trail.

At one point I encountered a fairly large drift, the snow was well over my 35s. I had to make several attempts before I made it through, and during one of those attempts started noticing a pretty significant vibration in the drive train. Jason and Jeff were behind, and didn’t see my amazing blast through the drift, but I had them check on the noise. We figured it was probably a u-joint, and at that point had no choice but to press on. I didn’t have chains, so there were few other options.

We continued on, and at some point I missed the turn off for road 171 and the trail out (by this time we were all getting ready to take our broken rigs home). After another go round, which was easier since we had already made tracks, we got on the right road, but again this was new snow. The trail itself wasn’t bad, but the clearings where different trails met were really deep and hard to get through. Jason got off the trail and stuck at one point, and they had to winch him out. On top of it all, we had an all out blizzard going on.

I was starting to get nervous, both about the deep snow and about the unconventional noises coming from the front of the truck. We had a discussion, and decided to press on. I would lead, and hopefully Jason wouldn’t have too much trouble with just the chains. Fortunately that was at our last rough spot. The trail got a little better, I went a little faster and we started to make it out, until the Scout died.

Last year when we were on Moody Hill I had a wiring problem with the Scout. I was just going down the road and the wiring under the dash caught fire. The wire that burnt up supplied power to the coil, so I was able to just run a new wire from the battery to the coil and bypass the whole thing. I’m planning on rewiring the whole truck, but it hasn’t worked out yet. I had also added a toggle switch to this wire so I could conveniently start and stop the truck. The additional power wire bypassed the ignition switch.

As we were headed down the trail, my toggle switch decided to quit working and the truck quit. It took a few minutes, to determine the problem, but once we bypassed the switch we were up and going again. A few minutes later we were back to the main road, the sun was shining and everything was good in the world again.

After we stopped, we took a closer look at the Scout. It looks like my CV joint on the front driveshaft is shot. The angle on the front driveshaft is really bad, and we knew it was just a matter of time before either the CV or the u-joint blew up.

It was a good trip, but now both Jason and I have some work to do. Our annual Walden Sand Dunes trip is coming up in a couple months. I have to figure out a new plan for the driveshaft, while he has to figure out how to fix his front end so he stops having ring gear problems. Watch for more on both of these issues soon…

I’m not really in love with this tire or anything, just hate to see one without a mate. If I don’t hear anything I may put it on ebay or craigslist.

These pics are a couple years old, if anyone knows this guy and he has newer pics I would love to see them.

One item in particular that I’m sure will eventually be phased out are sealed beam headlights. Every time a headlight goes out in the old Buick I wonder how hard it will be to find a new one.

Thankfully, I’m not the only one concerned about this. There are several companies out there creating replacement lights using modern H4 bulbs.

If anyone out there has replaced their headlights with a kit of this kind, leave me a comment and let me know how it worked. I’m interested to hear.

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I think it’s fair to let everyone know that I have a love/hate relationship with auto parts stores. My first job after I graduated High School was with the local (and now defunct) Big A Auto Parts in Loveland Colorado. I was a Will Call driver and worked the counter for a couple years before I decided to do something else with my life. My experience has resulted in a very low tolerance for parts men (and women). I often do business at the local Checker because I know a guy there, but they are carrying fewer and fewer parts for my old car. I have found that the Greeley NAPA store generally has better luck getting the parts I need to keep my classic Buick on the road.

Thinking I should take care of my transmission leak, I stopped at the local NAPA store last Saturday. My Buick has a two speed transmission which I always assumed was a powerglide. It’s not. The actual transmission in my car is a switch-pitch Super Turbine 300. This transmission was used in Buicks, Oldsmobiles and Pontiacs from 1964-1969. It seems to be a good transmission, other than leaking it has always worked great, but it is obsolete. The woman at NAPA, who I admit did give it a good shot, couldn’t find a filter kit for it. She checked her numbers and they were no longer available.

The next stop was the Internet to see how discontinued these parts really were. I looked several places and couldn’t find anything. There were some discontinued parts available on eBay, but that was it. The whole idea was put on the back burner.

Today I had a thought. Perhaps Amazon would carry this part, maybe I should check. The Amazon automotive search interface is a little sub-par, so it took a while to find the right part. After entering the year, make and model of my Buick the parts were all just kind of listed there. Several transmission filters were listed, but they didn’t specify if they fit the TH400 or the ST300. One thing did stick out though, they listed a WIX filter for it. If you’ve never been the parts business you may not be familiar with WIX, but they are a filter company that used to carry many hard to find filters.

My next step was to visit the WIX site. I punched in the number of the filter kit Amazon listed for the Buick and confirmed that, yes, it was a TH400 filter. Fortunately the WIX site itself has a nice search tool and they listed the kit for a ST300. Returning to Amazon, I searched for that new part number, WIX 58880, and amazingly Amazon lists it as in stock.

The filter hasn’t been ordered yet, so it may not be as good as it sounds, but it looks like they have the right part and will send it to me. The moral of the story? Twofold I guess. First, if you work a parts counter out there, or own an auto parts store, be sure to check all your resources. The NAPA store should be able to get WIX filters, and it wasn’t like they were busy and didn’t have time to look it up. Second, if you are an owner of a classic vehicle, be sure to check everywhere for those hard to find parts. You never know where they will turn up.

Also check the photo gallery for some still photos of this trip.

My question is, does anyone make a quality timer unit that can be wired into the headlights. Ideally, it would also be sensitive to ambient light and make them come on automatically when it gets dark. I found one in the JC Whitney Catalog, but seems like there would be a better product designed for street rods or customs.

If anyone has any suggestions please leave a comment.