[T3] Gilmore Gathering

[Jim Adney]

While there were not as many Type 3s in attendence as I had hoped, I'm still 
counting it as a great success. The venue was awesome and the weather 
was perfect. There were 6 VW Type 3s, including 4 Invasion regulars and 
one local '68 Euro Notch. Scott ??? managed to sneak in his diesel 
converted Fasty. (Scott, if you read this, email me.)

The Franklins, US made aircooled from the early 1900s, were the stars of 
the show, but the real eyecatcher was a tiny '59 or '60 Vespa car. A real 
beauty, tiny. I think it's tires were 4.40 x 10s!  After that came VWs, Types 1, 
2, and 3 but no 4s. Corvairs, Porsches but no 914s, a couple of 2CVs and a 
Crosley, plus a couple of Briggs & Stratton and Kohler powered kit cars.

Jill's Type 34 won the award for attracting the most crowds and my '71 
Square won the award for Most Useful Car (Because it looks like it would be 
a great car to bring home car parts in, or to help someone move.)

If you are on Facebook, check out the John's Type 3 page, where he's 
posted lots of photos.

Dave & Gail Pallo had to cancel at the last moment due to family issues, and 
Keith Park's job sent him elsewhere. We missed all three of you, but Dave 
still gets credit for picking a good motel for us. Gail & Henry drove their Kia 
from Canada, and Gail is now our new Culinary Directrice, since she 
managed to pick good, interesting places to eat and drink without a single 
stumble.

We picked up some newbee attendees, Richard & Mary Spryer from Eau 
Claire, WI who drove their '71 Square, nicknamed Ol' Yeller. It was good to 
have their company to caravan with, and they were good company just 
sitting around, too. Sounds like we'll get to see more of them in the future.  

We had an almost uneventful round trip. The only drama was as we were 
trying to leave the Machine Shed in Rockford, after lunch on our way home, 
and Richard's fuel pump fuse blew on startup. Turned out to be nothing but a 
fuse problem, as a replacement fuse stayed good and the rest of the trip was 
easy. We also passed a couple Corvairs, traveling together on their way 
home, so they were probably also returning from the Gilmore. Anyone 
remember a black one and a dark red one?  

I did the numbers on our trip: 767 miles,29.85 gals, 25.7 mi/gal. Richard had 
more miles and he figures he averaged 28.5 mi/gal. My '71 is AT; His '71 is 
MT; that may be the whole difference. We drove most of the time between 
65 and 70 mi/hr.  

I just did the tuneup that I should have done before the trip, but didn't find 
anything out of order. Exhausts 1, 2, 4 were each maybe .005 instead of 
.006. All the intakes were fine. Interesting that the both #3 valves were fine. 
The timing was spot on. The hose for the vac advance was a bit loose, so it 
may not have been sealing well, meaning that my cruising mi/gal was not as 
good as it could have been. Finally, I checked the fuel pressure, something I 
may never have checked before. It was at 28 psi, so I raised it to 30, which 
will probably offset any mi/gal gain I got from fixing the vac hose.

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Jim Adney, jadney at vwtype3.org
Madison, Wisconsin, USA
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