My Thank You's start with a story.....
Since it wasn't raining when we left home, I put the bra on the truck to keep the road rash to a minimum. First stop was at Wild Bill and Red's house, pulled in and noticed truck was a little warm, so I removed the bra. As we drove out towards Niagra Falls the temp stayed just about 210, there was no backup at the Canadian border and all was good. Once we were at the hotel, we parked the trucks and walked to all the attractions.
When we left for Detroit, everything was fine until we hit the US border. There was a pretty good line headed up the bridge and it didn't take long for the temp to start climbing. I had to pull out of line about a dozen cars from the first booths. With the AC & circ on there was no movement of the main fan. At this point I called Quick Silver, told him what happened and asked him to post that I needed a fan. ( Thanks John!
) So we turned around to grab a bite, and let the truck cool down, with the hood up and the aux fan running. ( Thanks to Bill & Cori for hanging with us until we were ready
) We made another attempt and got through the first booths okay, but bridge traffic was still very slow, and the temp climbed again. We noticed there was an empty bus/camper lane, so we took a shot and drove that lane all the way to the border checkpoint.
I pulled off to the side and told one of the uniformed people at the bridge I was overheating, and she said sit right there, I saw where you were in line, when its your turn I will slip you back in. ( Thanks to her
) A couple of gentlemen in bullet-proof vests approached us as we sat at the border, but they said they were used to "hot rods" overheating there, and to get back in line. We got back in line and I turned the engine on and off only to move the truck. Once at the actual checkpoint, the official there did want to know what was going on, and wanted to look in the back. ( they didn't look in the back of Bill & Red's truck
) Once we were underway again and had air coming through the grille, the temp stayed just on the high side of 210.
When we pulled into the hotel in Warren, we checked in and right away checked the site. Quick Silver's message had been answered by BlueStreak, as well as SSRDen, HarleyGuy, Golfer2 and Mike in AZ. Blue Streak and I hooked up and had the replacement stock fan in and ready to go before the early arrival dinner at Buddy's. ( Thank You BlueStreak
, and Thank You Bill
for having the tool set ) When we got back to the hotel after the get-together, I noticed Mike in AZ's response to call him, but it was after 10 p.m. I called and of course it was 7 p.m. there, and he said he had enough time to put a fan together and pack it up before grabbing his plane. ( Thanks Mike!
)
The next morning I ran into Mike at breakfast ( he was the guy having breakfast sitting with the fan-sized box ) and when he was done with his coffee, we went out and removed the oem fan, and put in the new Mike's main fan. All this was with Mike running on about 2 hours sleep. ( Thanks again Mike !
) Things went fine from there, and the next day Jerry226 caught up with me and said someone else needed the fan now. So I passed it on to another Fanatic ( I think it was Gary ), who suspected his fan was on its way out.
So a big Thanks! to all who helped, and offered to help, to save the trip from being a disaster. You know that even if I could have found a Chevy dealer, they wouldn't have a stock fan on the shelf. And I would have paid as much, if not more, than what Mikes' improved fan cost. Thanks to the Fanatic Family for watching out for each other. That is really what it is all about.
Okay, now of course I need to thank HotRodGirl for all of the effort she put into this event. I know its ALOT of pre-planning and work to pull off an event such as this one. And even though she has more on her plate she she should have to deal with at this time, she made it to every event. ( she even made it through her speech at the banquet hall, when I wasn't sure she was going to
) I already told her once, but Thanks Deb, again, for all the work on behalf of all the Fanatic Family. The little white ribbons on the wipers were just a small token to let you know we are thinking of you and Steve, not just at the cruise, but everyday. And thanks to all of Debs' appointed helpers for the weekend, I can't remember all the names, but thanks to all of you.
And finally, Thanks! to all the SSR engineers/designers and LCC staff for taking time out of thier lives to come and meet with us. I was fortunate enough to be chosen to receive a memorial brick from the LCC, and had a couple of the engineers sign it for me. Then, at the Union Hall on Sunday, one of the LLC staff gave me a emloyee license plate frame. It is a blue plastic frame that says, "I BUILD QUALITY SSR's" with the UAW, SSR and GM logos on it. I thought it would look cool on the truck, but was worried it would get broken. But my wife came up with the solution, use it as a picture frame, with the patch and other pictures from the trip.
( Hey, Thanks Hon, great idea ! )
Had a great time, with friends old and new,
Jeff
( Cape Cod Blur )
and it doesn't get better than that either 
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