Queen Mary

The Queen Mary somewhere in South Dakota. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

The other morning (Monday, November 28, 2011) I dreamed about one of my most memorable and all-time favorite vehicles, our 1979 Ford E-250 van, nicknamed the “Queen Mary.”
Normally I’m a small-car person, but fellow bus-drivers I worked with at Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, namely Levi Anderson and W.D. Johnson, suggested I buy a van.
It was mainly W.D., who drove me around in his trashy Ford van. But both he and Levi had vans.
I looked at everything, Chevrolet, Ford, Dodge. But as W.D. told me, “Ford makes the best van.”
I remember looking at a tired Chevrolet with over 150,000 miles. It was on engine number two, and transmission number three.
PASS!
I looked at a black Dodge custom-van. The guy had just purchased a new black Ford van.
I also looked at a gray Ford van done up as a love-nest.
“If this van’s rockin’, don’t come a-knockin’.”
No windows, and the back was done in three-inch black shag carpet with spider-lights on the ceiling.
A policeman pulled me over, and I had him see if it was stolen.
It wasn’t.
The motor, a five-liter Ford V8, had tubing headers, and they assaulted your ears.
I also looked at a six-cylinder unfinished window-van, and it was raining. Yet the windows were open.
Again, pass!
The year was 1985 or ’86, and our ’76 Volkswagen Dasher stationwagon, perhaps the worst car we ever owned, was falling apart.
It needed to be replaced. Yet I wasn’t seeing an attractive van.
They were too worn or customized. —I had no use for the motorized boudoirs.
On my way to see another van far east of Rochester — we were still living in Rochester at that time — I noticed the Queen Mary in a Chevrolet dealer’s used-car lot, also far east of Rochester.
I turned around and went back to look.
A custom-van, but not much.
Just cut-in side-windows and carpet, not unfinished or a boudoir.
I road-tested it, and had a dead battery.
The dealer had to come out and rescue me, and thereafter installed a new battery.
I made an offer, probably higher than I could have.
It looked like a five-liter SmallBlock, but it was the gigantic 460 cubic-inch BigBlock.
Pistons the size of paint cans.
10 miles-per-gallon.
Every 300 miles, 30 gallons.
No wonder it had been traded!
The salesperson had to drive it all the way to our house in Rochester to deliver it, about 20 miles.
Then I had to cart him back to his dealership.
Not long after I got it, I had a local shop install a trailer-hitch.
I decided to take it to my baby sister in Lynchburg, VA.
(She’s 17 years younger than me; I’m the oldest)
I would trailer the motorcycles of my brothers and I.
But one brother bailed. —The one from Boston, but at that time living in Fulton, NY as a job-site project manager. (He was constructing a nuclear power-plant.)
I’d use his trailer, but only trailer the motorcycles of myself and my other brother.
The van ran hot going to Lynchburg.
It never blew, but it ran hot.
It was beastly hot outside, and I had everything going full-blast to offset running hot.
100 degrees outside but with the heat on (all windows open).
Inside the van was an oven, and we had our dog with us.
We made it, but I decided the cooling-system needed complete overhaul.
Back home, about a half-year later, I drained the antifreeze and removed the giant radiator.
The radiator was big enough to heat an airport hanger.
I took the radiator to BJR in Rochester to be boiled out, but they suggested it needed to be recored.
The core was three rows thick, but the top and bottom tanks could do four, so I said do four.
That would require more antifreeze, but it would never overheat.
The bottom tank also had a transmission cooler in it, so I had to fabricate new tubing-lines to that.
I also had to custom-make the lines, to avoid a spoiler I was gonna install.
(Like a spoiler was gonna make something as big as a barn use less gas.)
During this project I got to appreciate what Ford had done.
The front-wheels were on elegant swingarm forgings that would make Old Henry proud. —They looked like something from a Model T.
I realized that gigantic engine was still good for the Pacific Ocean, even though the van was over seven years old.
The automatic transmission was a C6, a monster.
And the rear-axle was Dana.
“250” was three-quarter ton capacity.
The van had two fuel-tanks; 20 gallons each. (You could switch between either.)
40 gallons total capacity. If that thing ever torched, it would look like Armageddon.
I also replaced all the coolant hoses, all but one tiny one I didn’t see, the one that blew a few years later, which we fixed with duct-tape.
I began to consider a cross-county vacation trip, and we’d camp out in the van.
But for that it would need new tires and shock-absorbers. It also could use new wheels.
I contacted Frey the Wheelman in Rochester, and purchased four new wheels, 17.5 inch diameter, six stud.
I also purchased four new Michelin snow-tires.
I ordered Koni shock-absorbers, for self-installation. —I had installed Konis on my Vega, and they were wonderful. (They saved the car!)
So began our trip; trip number-two heading west.
Maybe not the Pacific this time, but at least the Rockies.
And this time no scenic routes; just get on the interstates and aim west.
We had two weeks. Our intent was to camp out every night, but motel the weekend.
But that didn’t happen. The van was so comfortable, we camped every night. We had a commode, and sleeping-bags on an air-mattress on the floor.
The only problem was ventilation.
It was near 100 degrees at the Missouri River, and we were in direct sunlight until dusk.
I had zippered screens over the windows, but the side-windows only opened an inch at the bottom.
Yet what an adventure this was.
110 degrees with the air-conditioning on, uphill to Mt. Rushmore, and it didn’t overheat.
And we didn’t visit Wall Drug.
We drove as far west as Montana, but then turned back to do Yellowstone National Park.
Bubbling stinkpots and Old Faithful. Weird things were going on in Yellowstone.
After Yellowstone we camped in a campground in the lee of the Grand Tetons.
It went down to 38 degrees, in July.
And next morning there they were. Every American, BY LAW, should see the Grand Tetons at dawn.
And the Queen Mary was gobbling it up, no problem.
It would have made the Pacific.
We pulled into a lonely gas-station out in Wyoming, and I heard a cheer out back.
“Slap another steak on the grill, Martha. 40 gallons!”
Down into Denver, and then west on Interstate 70.
Up and up we went, clear up to the Eisenhower tunnels, 11,158 feet above sea-level.
Then it was back down to Leadville; a continuous downhill rollercoaster.
In southwest Colorado we drove south into Ouray, which is inside a three-sided box canyon.
The only exit south is up the south end of the box, an Alpine highway.
Switchbacks and hairpin turns, just like the Alps.
We were on the “million-dollar highway,” its pavement supposedly flecked with gold and silver.
Finally a last look at Ouray, far below.
We also drove up the Pikes Peak Highway, and here we go again.
Every American, BY LAW, should be required to drive the Pikes Peak Highway, although I hear it’s now pavement. When we drove it, it was still gravel.
No mistakes. No guardrail. Thousand-foot dropoffs awaited.
And when you get to the top you sing “America the Beautiful” like we did.
After all, that’s where those words were written, as a poem by Katharine Lee Bates in 1895.
“Purple mountain majesties” to the west, and “amber waves of grain” to the east.
8.5 miles-per-gallon, although most of it was in second gear.
Back home the E-250 began deteriorating, the rust-worm. Salty slush was getting inside.
It got so it wouldn’t crank that giant motor when warmed up.
I had to let it cool so it wouldn’t have so much compression.
When I finally parked it, its C6 was leaking transmission fluid like a sieve.
I also put it back on the tires it came on, so I could sell the Michelin snows.
We nicknamed it the Queen Mary because it was so big.
Parking it at Wegmans was like docking a ship. It took two moves. First aim, back up, and then in. —Its wheelbase was 138 inches.
I finally had some charity tow it away, and I bet its 460 is powering a dumptruck or something.

• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and its environs. My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability.
• “Old Henry” is Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company, very much a pragmatist.
• “C6” equals a heavy-duty truck version of the Ford Cruise O Matic automatic transmission.
• “Wegmans” is a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester we often buy groceries at. They have a store in nearby Canandaigua, where I’d take the van. (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city to the east nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” It’s about 14 miles away. We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester.)