Spare Bumper? Don Thomson.

An old Cypress Gardens skier and long time Cypress Gardens Ski Factory designer, Don Thomson, is staying with us for awhile. His 86 SN is sitting in Kansas City Mo (actually in Lee's Summit just on the outskirts) and he would like some help. The boat had a new transmission installed, then a seal blew out and instead of sending the unit back for warranty, Don's mechanic decided to "fix" it with the result being a non functioning transmission. Don wants to either get rid of the boat or get it down to Fla where we will simply order up a new transmission and install it. 

Don has no plans to travel back to Missouri anytime soon so he asked me what I thought he should do. He has been in FL for a year now, and he thinks he wants to stay. Any ideas? I am sure he would be fine with selling it as is, or, if anyone has a spare bumper, Don would be glad to pay someone to haul it to Winter Haven Fl. I will post pics when he finds them. 

Thanks,

Tom

Yup. Don is a legend. He is 79 and still skis 3 times a week, plus he is the nicest guy you will ever meet. I think he wants to stay in Winter Haven, so he is trying to figure out how to uncomplicate stuff in Missouri. I may just make a 4 day trip up and bring it down.

Tranny guy Eric isn't around the site anymore.

Id figure there are a couple of guys down your way maybe named Art and Woody that know their way around a B/W transmission that could be real helpful or at least connect you with the right people .

And if you need it, here's the durrent contact info for Joe that owns Eric's business now.

I think he did most of the work while Eric socialized on CCF 

I agree. If anyone has a spare one laying around...........

The trip is pretty much done. We should have a thread just for crazy boat road trips!! (There probably is one that I missed)

So anyhoo, my wife and Don flew up to Missouri early on Southwest because Don had a bunch of admin stuff to do. Three of his cars and his boat and trailer needed to be reregistered because he is traveling so much that he is not in Missouri that much. To register your cars, Missouri requires an inspection, so part of the trip was doing that. Don was trying to sell the boat and the 83 Caprice, because he only kept the Caprice to tow the boat. He has an American Skier on a lift when he is in Missouri, so he did not need the boat. Don had also misplaced all the above titles because he had made a couple moves in the last couple years, so he could not even sell the vehicles until that was sorted out, hence the "in person" trip. 

To get a fair price for the boat, the transmission situation needed to be sorted out, so someone (me) came up with the bright idea of hooking the broken boat to the car he was having trouble selling, and driving them down to Fl where we could put a new transmission in, and then sell both! Genius! They spent 6 hours at the MO vehicle registration place.......where after jumping through many hoops they were able to walk out with current registrations on 4 of the 5 applications......BUT, MO will not hand you a tittle. It has to be mailed and it takes 2-8 weeks! Nice!

The 83 Caprice needed the standard starter fluid and battery charge after sitting for sale in his front yard. It has the 305 in it, so a bit underpowered, but we ran it around a bit and were satisfied it had a reasonable chance of making it. Here it was when Connie and Don showed up:

Connie and Don then retrieved the boat. The boat was minus the transmission, which was in parts at a buddies house. The boat was stored in a yard that was hard to get to due to ice and snow, so they got another buddy with a bigger truck to pull it down an icy hill and they towed it to behind Dons house. They hooked up the trailer to the car, the tires were new, the lights worked ,and they shot grease into the bearings. I showed up a couple days later after a trip. I jacked the trailer and checked the actual bearings. So after getting inspections, tags, plates, then picking up the damaged transmission from his buddy, we looked like this:

We got on the road early Wednesday morning from Lee's Summit Mo. We started pretty slow because we had 3 people, bags, and a boat transmission in the trunk of the Caprice, and we had some heavy ski making molds and wood in the boat. We looked like the typical folks you shake your head at cruising down the road with the "ass end down towing rig", ......but.....we were gaining confidence as the hours rolled by. We were having a real stable ride at 60mph. The hills had our speed stagnating into the 45mph range, but all was well. Five hours later, near Nashville Illinois,  Don was asleep in the back seat and Connie and I were chatting about what we were going to do when we got home.  We heard a rumbling sound that we thought was rough road. When it stayed loud, I realized it was car related, and realized it was transmission related so we should pull over. When I glanced in the mirror, I saw a massive smoke screen behind us. I mean it was impressive. James Bond would have been proud. Cars behind us were weaving so they could see. When we came to a stop, Don woke up and asked where we were. I jumped out and popped the hood and saw a pretty good fire and initiated the evacuation. It must have looked like this only with more smoke:

We used teamwork to fight the fire with a 6 pack of unsweetened ice tea and a gallon of spare water Connie wisely brought. We dug around in the trunk for a fire extinguisher, but it was not needed because the fire was out.. A really nice Illinois Highway Department guy showed up with a fire extinguisher because he saw the fire and we were all honestly laughing at the situation. I was on the phone to a tow truck when the fire department showed up because a few folks had called after seeing the blazing projectile running down the highway. It seems we blew a seal and the t-fluid hit the hot exhaust and caught on fire. 

The fire dept and the hwy dept folks left just in time for the Highway Patrolman to kindly stop and offer assistance because he had heard about the fire. Just then the tow truck from Gary's Tire And Towing shop showed up. 

They were fantastic!! It was a 5 person cab and could tow the car AND the boat! I hate to say it, but I was actually having fun. The folks were great, the situation could have been worse, but it was ludicrous enough that jumping out of a burning vehicle was so in tune with 2020 and the start of 2021, that you just had to laugh. 

Here was what was melted to the pavement:

Yada yada yada, the tow place had U-hauls, so we hooked up to this:

And pressed on. We had the car towed to a transmission shop where I will pick it up in a month. Our total down time was like an hour. We jumped in the U haul and looked at each other and said "That escalated quickly".  We were not as comfy as the Caprice with its big car ride and back seat, but we made it. Connie took the middle seat like a trooper and we had to pry her out for potty breaks, but another SN retrieval mission is complete.  

Hey Thomas,

You live in a beautiful place. We ate at the marina a few times. I know why Don likes it so much. I will tell Don you said hello.

Tom

Epic

john