Pro Cars @ Burning Man 2011

[Chris Bruno - Deceased - 1962-2022]

I live in the city where Burning Man started. It has such a bad rap here that no one in my professional or personal circle has ever attended what is now a gathering of 50,000+ people in the Nevada desert. It would never occur to me to attend. But I belong to an eclectic athletic club, the oldest in the Western U.S., I believe, and one of the more colorful characters there, Danny Mac, is an artist, a metal-worker, who has a cool, psychedelic van that he uses to transport open-water swimmers to various points around the San Francisco Bay. He and I exchange mechanical breakdown stories regularly. Last summer when we were catching up he said he had tuned up his van to make the drive over the Sierras to Burning Man. "Burning Man?" I asked. "You go Burning Man?" Turns out he is a sponsored artist who makes coins on "the Playa" there out of scrap aluminum using a portable 50-ton press and this year he needed help--would I consider it? Only porn stars and drug addicts go to Burning Man I thought. But it would be a cool drive. I went. And the experience was extraordinary. The creativity of the vehicles up there nearly defies description. At seventeen, I was sent to Alaska to crew on my grandfather's salmon seiner. I slaved away for five seasons. They are memories locked in my subconscious. At Burning Man, an Alaskan Salmon seiner cruised by me as I rode on my bicycle. An actual full size Alaskan Salmon seiner with purse seine, flying bridge, crow's nest--just as I remembered it from my youth.

 

[Wayne Krakowski]

We only learn when we are open to explore.and thats as deep as I get,thanks for the post.

 

[Chris Bruno - Deceased - 1962-2022]

I forgot to mention what Burning Man does to your car

It gets it really dirty. I hate dirty cars. This was a challenge for me. You can see the purification ritual I went through at the end: back to San Jose Steam Clean for me. It turns out Burning Man is statistically safer than virtually any city that size during the event. There is no money changing hands. You can buy coffee and ice from the organizers but that's it. Everything else is free. It is a strange experience to skid to a stop on your Goodwill one-speed ($100) at the intersection of Dirt & Nothing and take a stool at a makeshift bar and order numerous Margaritas in a row (it's 100 degrees out) and not be charged for it. Neither are there low-paid employees who hate you because you have things better than they do. I think Oracle put up a big banner one year and the BM told them to take it down. There's not corporate sponsorship. It's very strange. Everything is on the honor system. Aside from seeing about 1,000 women riding their bikes topless in a parade, I didn't see anything that would be consider risque or unusual. No blatant drug use or alcohol consumption.

 

[John ED Renstrom]

after the first 50 go by you don't even notice the rest. of course that might be the free drinks

 

[Paul Steinberg]

Chris.. You should get the front baffle that goes directly behind the bumper fixed before you take your next trip with the car. It keeps the dirt from being sucked up from the road and through the fan. The air is supposed to go through the grille.. If you need a new one, you can purchase it from Rubber the Right Way in California...

 

[Chris Bruno - Deceased - 1962-2022]

front baffle

Thanks, Paul. I wondered about that. I'll get it corrected.

On my '51 Cadillac Miller Ambulance there is an aluminum shroud that serves that purpose, but it looks like it was hand made. It looks like it was just pounded out with a hammer--there are wrinkles in it from the construction. Is this something the coach-builder created? Should I just strip, paint it and replace it (for originality sake?) or try to do a better job having one fabricated?

 

[Richard Vyse]

Darn man, that took guts to run such a beautiful car in that mess. The next restoration they will probably find dust hidden away.

 

[Mike McDonald]

Dust!

I agree with Richard.... that would taken a lot of comittment to subject your nearly pristine unit to the DUST and bad roads! (*) The clean-up and never ending dust reminds me of the Movie ("VOLCANO") starring Tommie Lee Jones and Anne ("what's her name") starred in that Kevin O'Connell, us and about 30+ other Crown Firecoach Enthusiasts Members were hired for. They ground up and blew newspaper print for hours and days on end to provide for the "realistic" scenes of smoke and volcanic ash. Even though the production company (that I believe-recall was Fox?) pay us a LOT of money for our time and trucks, and hired a professional truck servicing company to come in and change all the oils, filters and detail all the vehicles that were used, for years later we were finding newsprint in some of the weirdest places on our fire engines. (*) If you ever watch the movie, our's was the ONLY CROWN (out of dozens on the set) on the set that had a "888" light in the nose (furnished by the late John Dorgan). That was our "trademark" for a while, in that every fire engine-truck or ambulance we restored for 10+ years had a "888" in the nose-grille or other appropriate spot. MM
www.crownfirecoach.org

 

[Paul Steinberg]

mY 1969 Miller Meteor 48" ambulance came from the high dessert area of Oregon. When the bumpers were removed, it was packed with a very fine sand in all the crevicies. Ed Renstrom said that he is still finding sand in strange places, and he keeps flushing it out of the undercarriage.

 

[Robert Davidson]

dust in the doors

I have the same thing happening with the International... Nebraska dust as fine a talcum powder sifts out of crevices and seams no matter how much you clean it out.... and there was a quarter inch of what I took to be rustcoating in the bottom of the doors but was actually compacted great plains dust!

 

[Steve Lichtman]

... Aside from seeing about 1,000 women riding their bikes topless in a parade, I didn't see anything that would be consider risque or unusual...

..

 

[Wayne Krakowski]

Everyone else is concerned about the car getting dirty,but our Steve catches the best part we all missed, thanks and yes

 

[John Royark JR]

The bad thing is most of the women that run around with no tops ate usually the ones that should keep them on

 

[Josh Gentry]

I have the same thing happening with the International... Nebraska dust as fine a talcum powder sifts out of crevices and seams no matter how much you clean it out.... and there was a quarter inch of what I took to be rust coating in the bottom of the doors but was actually compacted great plains dust!

my 73 S&S is also originally from Nebraska. I have washed it 3 times in the less than 2 weeks that I've had it home, and still keep finding dust in the crevices of the front bumper and other odd places. It was also caked on the bottom jams of the front doors. The first time I washed it really good, it looked like i had a ring of concrete dust around the car on the black top driveway.

Josh

 

[Kent Martinson - Deceased 1947 - 2019]

my 73 S&S is also originally from Nebraska. I have washed it 3 times in the less than 2 weeks that I've had it home, and still keep finding dust in the crevices of the front bumper and other odd places. It was also caked on the bottom jams of the front doors. The first time I washed it really good, it looked like i had a ring of concrete dust around the car on the black top driveway.

Josh

Ring around the pro car, ring around the pro car!

 

[Chris Bruno - Deceased - 1962-2022]

You Try Washing . . . You Try Scrubbing . . .

Ring around the pro car, ring around the pro car!

Kent, I figured out how to get those darn rings out; and empty out your high desert rig of all that sand, dust, talcum, cremains, etc.

See pics:

First: take it all apart.

Second: blast the shit out of it.

Third: powder-coat it.

Paul, red's a stock color, isn't it?

Paul?

Paul?

 

[Jeremy D. Ledford]

What project is this frame for?

 

[Chris Bruno - Deceased - 1962-2022]

What project is this frame for?

This project:

 

[Chris Bruno - Deceased - 1962-2022]

bead blasting completed

This project:

I'm using a body shop that has a 60' long booth. They specialize in painting cement mixers, cranes, busses, garbage trucks--huge industrial equipment. It was their idea to do the frame-off. "It's just ten bolts, Chris." Actually, it's a hell of a lot more than ten bolts. The work involved in repairing, replacing, rebuilding everything attached to the frame is an enormous project. More daunting to me than any other part of the restoration. And it happened so fast that I did not document the "before" state of things as well as I wish I had. The amount of high desert dust packed into that frame (along with a literal rat's nest) caught even my powder-coater off guard. He bakes the frame first, to get all the grease off and then bead blasts the shit out of it. He told me that until he was done bead blasting, I wouldn't be out of the woods. "You really don't know how much rust is on frame," he said, "until after the process is over and the metal is exposed." I waited on that fated day for the news. He said I got lucky and it was straight as an arrow. When he was ready to powder-coat, he reached into a hole in the frame and realized it was still packed with the talcumy-sand mentioned in an earlier post. So he had to feed his air hose through the inside and he said he was nearly blinded by the resulting sand storm. Oops. Sorry. (Please don't charge me more.)

The rationale for the red frame is that there is a story behind this particular ambulance. A very long story. You might even say a book. But I won't share the details until it's done. Why powder-coat? Well, after having Rob Shepard and Ed Renstrom beat the holy living shit out of me for not painting the frame a stock color, I thought I would piss them off further by powder-coating it and in the process earn the ire of the entire PCS. Have I done that yet? Given what I am going to do with this, I want the visual shock of opening up the engine compartment and seeing red. It won't won't have any commercial signage like my Criterion, which, admittedly, I have whored out for commerical purposes (and reimbursement @ 9 mpg). The only concessions to modernity on this one are the obvious ones: 12 volt, disk brakes up front, a second two-barrel to go with the stock 2-barrell and an Offy manifold to accomodate them both. I've already pulled the trigger on a brand new SuperChief, so I am not going to consider a beacon/siren combo, which I'm sure was stock. It was a 14 hour round-trip to look at this car. I must have done it three times. I was really uncertain about it. It is a ton of work. I pissed off the owner by suggesting that he might considering dropping the price by making it a package deal with a really cool bus he had. He was so insulted at the thought of a discount (!) he would not sell me the ambulance for his asking price. And he wouldn't return my calls. And he sent back a deposit check. I had to drive one last time to Boo Foo Egypt (those sands!) and track him down. He wasn't home. I parked the Criterion at the local casino and walked from bar to bar to bar trying to figure out where in a town of 5,000 souls he might be hiding. I found him slurping up pot-luck chili and watching NASCAR at this dive tavern. "Hey, Chris, whatchu doing here?" "Oh, just passing through town . . . say, if I gave you another hundred bucks, do you think you would sell me your rig?" Another slurp of chili. "All right." Then I nearly killed myself towing it home.

[Note: the light shades of silver on the body are all vintage lead-work. My body guy thinks most of it was done at the coach-builder. the bondo visible on the rear door must be from the '60's according to the former owner.]

 

[Kurt Arends]

It gets it really dirty. I hate dirty cars. This was a challenge for me. You can see the purification ritual I went through at the end: back to San Jose Steam Clean for me. It turns out Burning Man is statistically safer than virtually any city that size during the event. There is no money changing hands. You can buy coffee and ice from the organizers but that's it. Everything else is free. It is a strange experience to skid to a stop on your Goodwill one-speed ($100) at the intersection of Dirt & Nothing and take a stool at a makeshift bar and order numerous Margaritas in a row (it's 100 degrees out) and not be charged for it. Neither are there low-paid employees who hate you because you have things better than they do. I think Oracle put up a big banner one year and the BM told them to take it down. There's not corporate sponsorship. It's very strange. Everything is on the honor system. Aside from seeing about 1,000 women riding their bikes topless in a parade, I didn't see anything that would be consider risque or unusual. No blatant drug use or alcohol consumption.

Chris,
What brand of air filter is that that you purchased to replace your dirty air filter anyway? Looks to be a low-priced cheapy. Do not get cheap when it comes to oil or air filters, especially if you are running it in conditions like you have shown. A good quality air filter is probably as much or more important than your oil filter on your collector cars. Also, never blow the dust out of an air filter with an air compressor and re-use it!