Day 5 – Pioneer Village, rain, and bad wheel bearing

We 5 Model A’s (Bob and Pat, John and Judy, Jack and Don , Will L., and Bill R) and one modern (Sharon and Chris Pelikan) hit the road early yesterday and ticked off 100 miles and arrived at Pioneer Village in Minden, NE just about when they opened. We spent a big chunk of the day there looking at all the collections. Cars, trucks, tractors, farm equipment, bicycles, stoves, washing machines, airplanes, bells, radios, tools, there is one of everything under the sun there.

When we saturated, we sat down, had root beer floats and revised our travel plans a little. We made contact with John at Speedway Motors and arranged for an early morning tour of their museum, so we decided to stretch our day and get all the way to Lincoln, NE. We bid Sharon and Chris goodbye and hit the road again. In the meantime, it had started to rain, and it rained most of the way to Lincoln. Total mileage for the day, 235 miles. Jack and Don actually got here before us today, since they took a half hour jump start on us.

While at Pioneer, Will decided that he needed to do a side trip to Kansas (about 50 miles south), just so he could say that his A has been in Kansas. As the rest of us rolled into Lincoln, we got a call from Will, he was in a terrible rainstorm, lost, and had a front wheel bearing squeaking. We offered encouragement and kept our fingers crossed. He made it to our hotel, but I don’t think he would have gone much farther.

After dinner, it finally stopped raining so we started working and found that the inner race was seized on the spindle. I found an auto parts store that was still open at 9:50pm and bought a couple cold chisels and a propane torch. In the meantime, the guys were looking in the Model A roster and found Tom Woodman who came down and brought some heavy artillery in the form of a couple large hammers. It took a lot of pounding and chiseling, but we finally got the race off and dressed the spindle with a file. I gave Will my spare bearing and we finished at 11:30pm and fell into bed.

PS: The bad news - rain and wheel bearings, the good news - nice and cool. Today (Tuesday) we'll be crossing Iowa. Click any picture to see a larger image.