Well, I had to make the trip to Spring Carlisle during my vacation. So I loaded up my regular car & headed up. I decided to ask my father if he wanted to tag along for the ride.

We got there Wednesday so Thursday was the first day we could make the swapmeet/car corral. While walking through the corral my dad saw an Elky he just had to have. After numerous attempts to talk him out of buying it it only made him want it more after doing price comparing.

He needed to stay in PA so I loaned him my car and decided to take his new Elky back for him. Good idea as I also bought some large woodwoking stuff I needed to get home anyway. All loaded down and driving at "good" speeds I still managed 18 MPG.

Total trip was 1055 miles and time was exactly 15hrs +15 minutes. That includes 4 stops for gas, each time going to the bathroom, buying a softdrink, gas and checking under the hood closely for any problems that might arise.

A little about the car. 87, V-8. Full gauges. TH350 tranny. The guy who did the car knew what to do to make it appealing as I love the "Royal Knight" decals whether they belong or not. Very clean car! I still feel there may be rust hiding under there. From what I can tell so far I can't find it, but my gut feeling tell me it's there. My dad says he doesn't care as he likes it. :) Mechanically I am VERY happy with it.

"The Car"
http://www.bsc.net/rigger/87elky.jpg

Man, you made some good time. That averages out to 69.18 mph with stops. Anyways, sharp looking car and the mileage it gets looks pretty good too. (mine only gets 10mpg on a good day).

Yep, that was real good time and I really don't have kahunas that big :? to drive that fast but the speedo gear ratio is off making the speedo slow so I just went with traffic. I guess I was going with the faster cars but I never topped 2,700 rpms. Most of the time I was at about 2,400. It turned out to be a beautiful riding car.

Actually at the end of the trip through backwoods Alabama I let her unwind and bumped the speed up a notch on some long straight aways.

Now to get back to work on mine today. Soon it'll be done.

Very nice looking car your dad has good taste!

I saw your Elky at Carlisle Thur. Very nice !! I was there all day until 8 pm.There was alot of Elkys this year to choose from,even parked outside of the corral area. Saw two 70SS ELKYS I really liked,But they were two rich for my wallet.I bet you enjoyed driving that "Royal Knight" back home.

Found a set of 87/88 M/C SS gauges,115 MPH speedo,with Tac for 30.00,Can't complain about that !! Also picked up some other good items at a good price.You can find a good buy now and than at Carlisle but not to often.

Sure enough, Thursday was the only day I could afford to go. $10 to park, $9 per person to get in, Disney pricing on refreshments etc. I am glad I brought a huge backpack there with me.

COOL You saw it. So you know the price that was on it. :) I feel it was a fair price IF it really turns out not to be a rust bucket with a REALLY REALLY good cover up. You were there until 8:00PM? Geez, once the rain started and we were already dead tired it was reason enough to go home. On top of that we got seperated and both of us waited in different spots for the other to drive by. Finally both of us gave up and drove on home. Got there right about the same time.

That's a DEAL on those gauges! Was it a full cluster? You had to of picked it up in an area I hadn't been because I was looking hard for those. I saw a 70 SS that sold first thing Thursday morning. What else did you get? I picked up a boatload of 194 bulbs since they were 20 for $5.

It was a blast to drive back. Only picked up 2 rock chips on the paint. :( The fan shroud is cracked now too. If you looked close at the car you'd notice it was set up to tow. Class 3 hitch, 6 pin trailer plug, cat pulled & duals added, 4 core radiator, new Monroe air shocks, new tranny cooler & a new fan clutch. Well, Jim Bob (or whatever his name was) neglected to put lock washers with the nuts on the fan. While I was driving it at about 11:00PM Thursday night in Camp Hill it threw the fan, nailed the shroud and bounced into the radiator. Put a nick in the radiator which caused a pinhole. It didn't throw the belts, so that was a good thing. A quick trip to Wal-Mart (in a different car of course) and I had new nuts with lockwashers. A little bit of Bar's Leak and the car was up and going. Total fix time was maybe 5 or 6 minutes. Fan shrouds are a dime a dozen down here so we decided not to go search the seller down and confront him since no where did we sign a "as is" disclaimer.

AL

I saw your Elky at Carlisle Thur. Very nice !! I was there all day until 8 pm.There was alot of Elkys this year to choose from,even parked outside of the corral area. Saw two 70SS ELKYS I really liked,But they were two rich for my wallet.I bet you enjoyed driving that "Royal Knight" back home.

Found a set of 87/88 M/C SS gauges,115 MPH speedo,with Tac for 30.00,Can't complain about that !! Also picked up some other good items at a good price.You can find a good buy now and than at Carlisle but not to often.

Hi AL,
Sorry to say I didn't get a chance to get a close look at your Elky.
I saw it from a distance ,it really stood out from the rest of the field though.I was planning to get a closer look later in the day after searching the field for parts.I like to get my parts first before looking the car corral over.It started to rain about 5:00,so we took our parts out to the truck and put on our rain gear than went out to the corral to look around.
The Tac and guages from the M/C SS I bought was the full cluster,I found them between the Grandstand and gate #3 They were on a table behind some other parts,kind of out of site.
Some of the other parts that I found was a console[ fair], 2- 68 Corvette ralleys with the "AG"code,They are the only 15X7 Corvette rally that will take the wide trim ring,68 only.I have 4 on my Elky now but I buy them when I see them because they are so hard to find.Other things were just misc pieces.
Sounds like you had your hands full at the beginning of the trip home.
Ditto on the food prices,I have a Red wagon we pull around to carry parts we buy, and on the rear I made a place to carry a cooler which is handy.

Too bad you missed it, I was hoping for someone elses input for what I missed.

I wasn't looking for anything in particular so we went through a few rows of parts first then hit the corral, between gate 2 and 3 and the grandstand. First place I hit once we went in was Honest Charley, didn't buy anything though. :( Once we were in the corral I saw my fathers light up and KNEW we would be leaving with something. Ater looking at numerous Elkies, Malibus, a Mini, and even a Nash Metro we came back to that car/truck and got it (or is it truck/car? :) )

Nice pickup on the 15x7 Vette rallies, yep, those 68's are VERY rare! I just finished putting on my 15x8 rallies on my Caballero today. One nut was on too good (rusted?) and like an impatient idiot I rounded it out with a 12 point socket. I learned my lesson as it cost me my old rim and of course the stud. Took 3 hours of chisling too.

I didn't see the console either. My interior is dark brown in the Caballero which is hard to find anything for so if I would of found it I would of had to repaint anyway. I just picked up a 86 MCSS dash that I'll be putting in soon. It's just the trim pieces and cluster. Thinking about keeping my bench in my Caballero but would like to make the swap to a 40/60. Of course my father is trying to get me to give up my Caballero and just take the '87. I prefer the fun of building my car so that's a no go.

AL