Capt & Fierochicks Final Fiero Road Trip

Well we made it, 550kms and smooth sailing. I almost forgot how much I loved driving the 88GT on the open highway.   We must have saw no less than a dozen cars pulled over by your friendly local police, plus one major roller over accident where the pickup was on its side blocking traffic around Olympia, and a nasty fender bender around Seattle. Aside from that, it was clear sailing. Average speed was 70mph, with a few sprints to 90 to get around some slower moving trucks and a bunch of time in the 65mph cruise. We took the longer way around and jumped the 205 before Vancouver Washington and shot over to Oregon City then down 99E to Canby and Aurora. The plan was to stop in Canby and grab one of those Grandpa burgers and give it to my dad when we got to his place in Aurora. Sadly they didn't have a Grandpa burger, but he got the drift when we handed him a Papa Burger and told him we tried for a Grandpa burger.

           We could not have asked for better driving weather, about 30 mins south of the boarder, the rain stopped the sunshine came out, it was around 15C or so.  Windows down heater on to a mix of heat and fresh air.    It was perfect mix of Cool enough to keep the engine temps great, and just warm enough to have the windows down letting the wind come through the cabin.      

So far this is the one pic I have handy.  This is in my dads front yard with the 88 before I removed the trailer.   It's really amazing how much room we have when we come down.  However by the time we are going back up, that trailer is going to be piled with stuff and straps all over hell.  I actually did the trailer wheels black yesterday as it just look so out of place with black 88 wheels.  Then I decided to give the tung of the trailer a nice shot of red paint, then gave the dull black finish on the fenders a good shot of clean gloss black TremClad.     Trailer ran awesome. 

I'll try and shoot More pics as we go.  I got a few more contacts from PFF members in and around this area. So we'll be meeting up with them as we cruise around.  

Take car up there guys.

Well Good night everyone.  Its around midnight now and its been a long day for me.  I'll post up every few days with updates on how the Fiero and the Pregnant Wife are doing.

Good to hear you arrived safely.

Weather up here is yuck. One sunny day due on Saturday, then back to sleet and rain on Sunday.

FieroZen

Hey Everybody.   Just wanted to give a heads up.  I unlocked my PPC phone and was able to pick up a Portland area Sim card.   Emails will still go to myphone@captfiero.com however texts and voice calls will not come through on my normal number. So if you call me or leave a voice mail for me, it'll be a week or so before Ill check it. If you really need to talk to me semi emergency, send me an email to the above address and Ill send you my local Oregon number.  Cool thing is Its only 10 cents a min vs the $2.00 per min I was paying on roaming rates with my cdn SIM card in my phone.   So if you are sending Text messages or calling my normal number it won't go through and I wont be checking the messages for at least 2-3 days at a time.

             Right now we are at a hotel in Seaside, we’ll be heading to Astoria in the morning to see a Fellow V8 Fiero owner that is going to give me some tips on painting a Fiero and then south towards Newport/Lincoln city to see the famous Purple Pavement Eater Fiero.     

Everything is going awesome here with us, put 1400kms on the 88GT since we left BC and aside from a minor fuel issue due to the Oregon gas being crappy.  

 

Take care and we’ll see some of you soon and some of you in a few weeks.

 

David and Lisa Bergquist

 Gt lights on a notchback? That's kinda hard to do isn't it?

Ah cool. Thanks for the pointer.

Well we are home.  I am slowly going through the pics and video.   I figure you guys will like to see the hauling trailer pics more than the Personal Vacation pics, so I sorted those first. 

As I left Aurora the trailer felt really bad, I didn't know why, I thought just the weight must be making it funny.  At 45mph even the smallest rut seemed to make the trailer pull and yank the car around.  I was thinking at that rate, it would take me all day to get back to Canada.  As I sped up, it got a bit better, 60mph and it felt alright.  I was noting that I really had to keep my foot in it to keep up to speed and 5th gear was useless to try and accelerate in, 3rd and 4th was needed to make it up any steep hills.  I was really starting to question the trip.   Scroll down to the trailer wheel pics to hear what the issue was.

First layer on the trailer, we filled the tool box with all the tools and gear we bought.  I actually took it to the scales to check the weight.  More on that later.

We loaded the larger heavy items as far forward as possible to keep the tongue weight as much as possible

Lisa picked this up at GI Joes, its a large canvas bag meant to be strapped to the roof of a car, it was the perfect size to hold all our luggage and then strap it to the trailer.  This proved to be really handy.

We started packing things around the tool box first.

Well that was almost it, I started strapping everything down, then Lisa comes out with 3 more bags of stuff we bought, and they are too big to fit in the trunk.

So they got tucked on top of the load box and then tarped and strapped.   We bought this spiderweb cargo net that worked awesome.  It goes over tarps and luggage and keeps the tarps from flapping in the wind at speed.

We bumped into Dave Mcgauge (spelling) from Jet City's at this stop in Washington.

I double checked all the straps and chains and lights and nothing had moved even an inch.  I was very happy.

Suspension barley even looks loaded.

Canadian Inspection form and ratings

USA Ratings.

Continued from 1st paragraph

Now these pics are more important than you think. Note the tire pressure for full load. 60psi.   Well most loads on the trailer are light, body panels, set of wheels and tires, light luggage.  So I had the pressure down to 30psi so the trailer did not bounce all over hell.   Well I never even gave it a 2nd thought, until I got on the road home.  We drove about 120 miles with the trailer yanking the car all around, ruts would have the trailer swaying back and forth, really hard to maintain speed.   That was until we stopped for breakfast at a drive through, and I grabbed the tire pressure gauge and checked the tires.   They are rated for 60psi COLD when loaded.  They were at 30psi and fairly warm for a tire.   I ran over to a gas station, payed the 25 cents to use an air line, pumped them both up to 60psi warm, put both the rear car tires up to 38psi warm, and hit the highway again.

        Man what a difference.   I knew before I even made it down the freeway on-ramp   FRACK ME, DUMB $HIT, Bone Head.  Granted this is only my first year using a trailer, but still, not to do something as simple as check the tire pressure in the trailer tires before making a long trip.   I had checked almost everything else.  Oil, Water Trans fluid, lights, Just never checked the trailer tires. 

                    I hit the highway and it was smooth as silk.  I made a few higher speed runs just to check stability and it was rock solid.  We were sitting at 70-80mph with a few spots we were up to 85mph.  (120kph-140kph)  Our first fuel stop took 6 gallons for 120 miles, the second tool 5.2 gallons for 150 miles.   I was really happy with the improvement. 
 

The box got kinda squished for the vice, but as I said earlier, we loaded the front of the trailer with as much to the front as possible to keep the tongue weight as high as possible.

Bench Top Drill Press.

Double chains with 4 enclosed hooks.

Ok weight check time.  This are in KG as we were back in Canada when I finally found a truck scales that was closed that I could use.
    Weights are trip weight with Lisa and I in the car and 1/2 tank of gas.
 
Front axle,   1386 lbs

Front and Rear Axle 3520lbs

Rear Axle  2134lbs

Rear Axle plus Trailer Axle 2772lbs

Trailer axle 638lbs (note car is still holding the tongue so this is only the weight the trailer axle is holding. 

So total weight of car, Lisa and I, plus trailer and cargo is 1890 kgs  (4158 lbs).

I was not carrying a spare tire, or jack, as I removed them for extra space.  The front compartment was loaded with emergency tools and computer gear, (laptop, digital camera ect)
The rear compartment was loaded with other breakable stuff we bought that we did not want to load into the canvas bag, and Lisa didn't want me putting in the tool box.    We had the car packed extremely tight even with the trailer.  However for the first time in the history of our Fiero Road Trips, we did not have to stack things in the passenger compartment.  Which made it a much more comfortable drive.    We left Aurora at 10:30am and had made a couple stops to do some shopping on the way up, wasting about 2hrs, and still make it through customs and back at home by 6pm.   The customs office was a breeze, I was sure they were going to haul me in and expect the cargo and open everything up.   However we pulled up, showed them our passports, handed them the receipts totaling around $600 for the stuff we bought, the "Gift Letter" from my dad for the tool box and tools he gave me.  They asked if we had any guns, tobacco, alcohol or fruits, we only had 3 bottles of wine and a few packs of cigarettes.  They handed me the receipts and passports back and said have a nice day, they didn't even so much as open the trunk on the car.   I was totally surprised and happy.   

LOL, my Dad is a gun / weapons nut.   I was doing one last check as I put the box on the trailer, and in the back of one of the drawers was a REAL hand grenade, The powder had been removed, but unless you flipped it over and looked at the bottom, it looked like a real live grenade pin was installed as well.  I didn't pull the pin to see if the igniter was still installed, I just gave it back to my Dad and said uhm, customs might get the wrong idea if they found that.  Was worth a chuckle at the time.        When I told my dad that customs was a breeze, he said Dang I shoulda sent you back with twice as much.   However next trip down, won't be in a Fiero, unless I can find a way to get ICBC to approve a car seat in a Fiero.

One has to ask?

Does the Fiero rear spoiler help produce enough good good airflow to create a pocket of stability behind the car for the trailer to sit-in?

Seems so.........