This installment of the Budget Beater comes to you from the road (Albuquerque, NM, to be exact). Yep, at this point in time the Beater's together, not totally finished, but in the midst of its shakedown run--Americruise '04.
Now, a nearly 5,000-mile-round-trip test run may seem a bit extreme, but what the heck. Life's supposed to be an adventure and I can't think of a better way to work the bugs out of a freshly built hot rod than a road trip!
So far I've run into a couple of minor hiccups: a slight oil leak caused by excessive blow-by (I didn't use a PCV valve) and one broken bolt on the front Panhard bar (must have got a cheap Grade 2 bolt mixed in by mistake). With those two minor aggravations handled, the rest of the first day on the road came off without a hitch. That is, of course, if you discount the fact that it must have been about a 120 degrees between Barstow and Kingman. Anyway, this morning we head out to New Mexico. I'll let you know how everything goes in an upcoming story or two, but for now let's get back and take a peek at some more of the beater as it goes together.
