Another Moonshine Festival has come and gone, the good thing is that the memories remain. This year Gene (Green 50) set up the
White Knuckle Tour for us and, it was the best attended tour that we’ve had yet. The rout was picturesque and the... destination was delicious… I think we had a total of nine Flatheads on the tour and something like thirty people. As usual, I was busy socializing and I didn’t ever get an actual count of the number of participants.
I’ll digress, and let you know how our ride up to Dawsonville went. This year I drove my
’51 F-1 and got as far as
“Big Daddy” Don Garlits Museum in Ocala, Florida. Mike was riding with me and I just happened to glance at the oil pressure gauge and noticed that the pressure had dropped a bit. We pulled off of the highway and into a gas station. Upon inspection, we noticed that the PCV valve was letting oil exit… We also noticed that the fan and generator were slightly off center, letting the fan blades just touch the shroud at the bottom. We plugged the port on the PCV
(there were two and the rubber cap on the second one had come off) and I reached under the generator to lift it so Mike could snug the bolt. Mike gave the bolt one good turn and it sheered off…
Never, in all my years of messin’ with Flatheads, have I ever seen one of those bolts snap. Worse, it was a clean snap, flush with the intake manifold. We disconnected the generator and fan and drove the
F-1 to Garlits Museum and asked if we could leave it there for the weekend. They were kind enough to accommodate us, so we continued on in the modern cars that the others in the group were driving. I called
Kiwi Tony and asked if he had a bolt that he could bring to the
Moonshine Festival. He said he did and he would bring it. We pulled into the hotel parking lot, at just about 5:00 pm, and saw both Bill’s
’47 and Chuck’s
’49. We all got together and went out to eat.
Friday morning we left the hotel at 7:00 am and drove up to Dawsonville to meet everyone at
Thunder Road for the
White Knuckle Tour. Kiwi Tony has a friend, “Rabbit” who has a beautiful
’40 TuDor Sedan. Rabbit told me he had an 8BA intake manifold that I could have. He called his son and asked him to bead blast and paint the intake… Saturday morning, he gave me the freshly painted (
black, the color of the Flathead in my F-1) along with a full set of gaskets.
I can’t thank Rabbit or Tony enough for helping me out. As an added bonus, for me, I hooked up with a friend from my Army daze, who I had not seen in 44 years.
Getting back to the
White Knuckle Tour, we drove up to Blood Mountain and on to the BBQ. I’ll let the photos do the talking from here.
The Saturday Moonshine Festival was a blast as always and was attended by a bunch of
FordBarner’s. Again, I’ll let the photos do the talking…
Sunday morning came around too fast, as it always does, and the Florida contingent of the
Cigar City Flatheads headed home. We missed getting a chance to see Bill and Chuck Sunday morning, as they took off earlier. We reached
Don Garlits Museum around 3:00 pm and asked if we could come back Monday and get the
’51. Yesterday, Cliff and I drove up with my
F-150 and his trailer and picked up the
’51. I’ll pull the intake, etc. and replace it with the one from
“Rabbit”. All and all, it was another outstanding event and, I have to admit, I enjoyed the opportunity to ride in a bunch of very cool Flatheads on the Tour, etc. Thanks to Gene and his wife for all their help setting up the tour, to Tony and “Rabbit” for parts, and to all the guys and gals who attended the events. I’m already looking forward to next year.
