I flew from Oregon to Kentucky to drive back a 69 Satellite i purchased. The route i took was about 2200 miles. I would love to do it again. I was definitely over my head driving that car back with my limited knowledge plus the fact the car hadn't been on the road for maybe 15 years or so i was told.
I did have a few issues on the way home. Very first was when i got on the road and hit the brakes. The car pulled hard right, dangerously hard! There was no way i was even going to make it out of town like that. I was really lucky the guy that helped me check out the car initially had a lift nearby at his home and told me to come on over. Turned out to be a bad front brake line but it was Easter Sunday afternoon and the parts stores were closed. Before i left home i ordered a few spare parts and had them shipped to the sellers home. As luck would have it, i bought a couple front brake lines! I can't imagine having to do that in the parking lot of a Chinese restaurant with my limited tools and trying to bleed the brakes by myself. I would have been there forever.
Finally headed out of town the second day from Kentucky headed north towards Illinois. I took the backroads because i didn't know how things would go with the car and would rather be broke down on small country roads than an interstate. The car drove fine until i pulled into a tiny town Indiana town in the late afternoon for gas. When i pulled out of the station, the car wouldn't shift into 3rd so I pulled into a church parking lot to see if i could lookup possible issues on my phone. Transmission fluid looked fine on the dipstick. I though i might be screwed and then I remembered one of the members here mentioned making sure the kickdown linkage was all there and working before i started my trip. At the time, my knowleged of kickdown and auto transmissions was pretty much zero. I opened the hood and found the kickdown was there. Decided to push on the linkage not really knowing how the hell it worked and when i pressed down on it, it wouldn't spring back up. That didn't seem right so i limped to and O'reillys for a can of wd40. Sprayed the linkage pivot points and worked it til it sprang back up by itself. That was all it was. Sticky gummed up linkage. Shifted like normal after that.
Another issue was no brake lights or cigarette lighter which is really needed to charge a phone and have a map open. Someone had disconnected both. I connected the brake line but then the brake light would never go off. The brake pedal wouldn't come back far enough to reach the brake switch. I couldn't get the switch bracket adjusted and ended up rigging up a small pair of vice grips and some duct tape to make the pedal touch the switch. The cigarette lighter worked once i found the wire.
Replaced a fuel filter when it started running worse after a fillup. It seemed to get a little better but by the time i got to Boise, Idaho it would die everytime i stopped at an intersection if i didn't put it in neutral and give it a little throttle. I was close enough to home that i just lived with that issue. Also had to stop in Boise to change the drive side tire that had worn down to the steel. Yikes! Glad i stopped to check that.
I would love to do another road trip like that someday. I lucked out that i didn't have any major breakdowns. I'd feel a lot more comfortable doing a trip like that today now that i know a "little" more than i used to. Everytime i stopped people would come over to ask about the car. Got a lot of thumbs up and honks driving down the interstate too.
