I had a really good time at the Veterans Car Show on Saturday, September 7th. It was actually the first outing for my 1963 S1 Elan since I had rebuilt it – again. Hard to believe that it had been 25 years since the last rebuild. That one was necessitated by the side effects of backing into a curb and hitting an iron fence at 60mph at the conclusion (for me at least) of a 1992 Autocross event at Hawthorn racetrack. This current rebuild was not as necessary, but it was still much needed as everything was getting tired on my Sunday morning screamer. Since I had a spare Spyder frame sitting around, I put that under the car, along with re-building just about everything and giving the car a nice new flashy red paint job. But I digress...
So I was heading home from the Veterans show. Top down, sun shining, getting thumbs up everywhere when I heard a funny noise. Hmmm. Can’t hear much with the Super Trapp exhaust but I know my car and I heard something not right. I was at a stoplight at the busy intersection of Lake and Waukegan in Glenview. I turned down the radio and heard a clack-clack-clack noise coming out of the trunk. Oh crap – I know that noise. The electric fuel pump is sucking air because I’m about to run out of gas! The light turned green and I stuck up my hand to signal that I REALLY, REALLY wanted to move over into the right hand lane. I hit the gas and let out the clutch and the car lurched forward and died. I pushed in the clutch, turned the ignition key and got a little blip of RPM.; enough to power me through the intersection and to the side of the road. I gave a thumbs up to the nice people who backed off and let me coast to the side. I gave another hand signal to those using their horns.
I pushed the Elan into a bank parking lot and took assessment of my situation. I looked at where I was and realized I was about a mile from Joe Nepsa’s house. I called him on the cell and he picked up quickly saying: “I thought you were my wife calling me from the grocery store as she always calls me from the grocery store but I just got out of the shower and I’m standing here naked and wet so let me call you back in 10 minutes”. No!, wait a minute Joe I exclaimed. I’m out of gas.” Yeah, right, sure, bye” he said and was about to hang up when I said “Wait!”, and he realized I wasn’t joking. Joe quickly got dressed, got two gallons of gas at the corner gas station and was there in 15 minutes. All dried and fully clothed thank you.
As we were putting the gas into the tank Joe told me a story of when he and Carl Grabowski were taking back roads to one of the LOGS and he ran out of gas in the middle of Nowhere, Indiana. Carl drove 15 miles to find a gas station to get Joe back on the road. So this was more or less pay back for what Carl had done for Joe many, many years ago.
Sunday, September 8th and I’m enjoying a soggy but nice British Car Festival at Harper College when my phone rings. It’s Tim Stowe. He had just left his home in Palatine (not far), heading for the fest when his Elan broke down. He said it was acting like it was out of gas but he had just put in two gallons the other week so he just knew it couldn’t be that. It must be something else wrong. Hmmm. I told him I would call him right back. I knew Bill Greenwald had borrowed my trailer to bring the Cwik Europa to the Fest so I asked him if I could use his vehicle with my trailer to pick up Tim’s Elan. He said of course and handed me the keys. I then asked Paul if I could just take Tim’s Elan to his shop so we could work on it on Monday. He said of course.
So I headed over to where Tim’s Elan had broken down. We popped the hood and I unscrewed the top of one of the Weber carbs – bone dry. I then popped the fuel cap and looked down the hole and shook the car - hmmmmm. Tim handed me a long wood dowel rod and I stuck it down the hole – bone dry. Actually, just a little bit wet at the very tip, but not enough for the pump to suck. So Tim drove home to get a gas can and then drove to the gas station and then we put the gas in the tank with a little splash left to pour into the carbs and then zoom, zoom – the Elan started right up. I followed Tim to the gas station where he put another 10 gallons of gas into the tank, thanked me profusely and drove home.
So what this all means is that the next time you run out of gas or break down in the Palatine area, give Tim a call – it’s his turn.
