Y.B.D.B. Happenings

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• The Y.B.D.B.'s do a Manx Club desert outing
  
• Dave resurrects Bruce Meyer's Manx and "New Yell'er" is born!
  
• Bruce and Dave visit Peppertree and buy (the bottom half of) yet-another-bug (YAB)
  
• Dave makes a VW body hoist and tells Barbara its a grape arbor
  
• Barbara and Sherri give Dave and Bruce the business regarding the "Bug Count"
  
• John comes home and finds a lot of suspicious parts on "New Yell'er"
  
• Bruce buys "Old Yell'er" from Dave...and gets it "smogged"
  
• Sherri finds out about "Old Yell'er" and the "Law of Conservation of Bug Count"
  
• Dave puts together YAB...reducing the apparent Bug Count by one.
  
• Alan searches for the elusive "toilet-paper fire" in Coyote Canyon
  
• The Manx Club Home Page debuts
  
• We go the the Baja 500 and provide (ham) radio support at Checkpoint #2
  
• Herbie the Baja Bug goes out in the trash (in small pieces, over several weekends)
  
• The YBDB's "do Baja" (600+ miles) with Bruce Meyer's and seven Frenchmen. (We almost don't make it back...but we did get a few pictures!)
  
• In Fish Creek Old 'Yeller spins an axle...and we apply the excellent Baja Towd fix
  
• Under threat of ???? Barbara makes Dave move YAB to Bruce's house
  
• Dave finally gets the Y.B.D.B. power blender working!
  
• Y.B.D.B. makes a (hot) desert run up Coyote Canyon. As expected, we are stopped just below Middle Willows at "The Fence" erected by the State to keep us toad-squashers at bay.
• Bruce pastes up a mega-photo of the Manx Dune Buggy Club and re-paints Bruce Meyer's prized cherry-red buggy Y.B.D.B. yellow!
• Sad Story: Lately it's been too humid for Anza-Borrego...thanks to El Niño. But it was time to get Old Yell'r ready for an upcoming Baja trip...no brakes...torn right-rear brake line...simple fix. However, the valve covers were leaking from mucho rock damage...so off come the old ones to be replaced with shiny new ones, and Dave (looking over my shoulder) says: Why's that head bolt loose? OOPS!!! (Thanks Dave...not something you really want to know about!) Decision time: No. 4 cylinder head-bolt stud pulled loose...wouldn't torque down. (But there are lot's of other head bolts...and the bad one was the one in the middle!) Decided to split the case and do the "case-saver thang" all around. New cam/follwers, new bearing set, and (while we're at it) new jugs and pistons (only $100/set...ain't VW's sweet!). Now it'll be a race to get the motor ready by the first weekend in October. (No spare: Herbie's old motor (YAB's future motor) was blowing oil out the No. 3 cylinder before we committed "Herbicide".)
• Happy Ending: Old Yell'r's motor went back together just in time for the four-day Baja trip (October 4-6, 1997). The motor ran just fine for the bumpy, dusty, dirty 500+ mile round trip from San Diego: La Jolla, Tecate, Rancho Veronica, Mike's Sky Ranch, Mellings Ranch, the National Observatory of Mexico (at San Pedro Mártir), Punta Colenet, Ensenada, Tecate, La Jolla. Tight as a drum...no oil leaks thanks to a new (by me) sealer called Yama Bond #4 (available at motorcycle shops). We made a trip report, complete with photos.
• The Y.B.D.B. Club braves the rain and does the Baja 1000 in San Felipe with the Manx Club, November 13-16, 1997. Stay tuned for pictures and (break-down) stories.
• We made our first trip to Anza-Borrego in 1998 with Bruce and Winnie Meyers. We took a few pictures with the digital camera. We were scouting routes for the April Manx Club event.
• We made our second trip to Anza-Borrego in 1998 (overnight this time) with five buggies. We took a few desert flower pictures with the digital camera. Due to El Nino(?) the Anza-Borrego Desert has seen a wet winter, and the flowers are out in force...the bugs are next!
• We're going back to Baja, over the weekend of March 20, 1998. Our destination is L.A. Bay via San Felipe...two days down, two (or three?) days back. Check back for a trip report. We have event T-shirts in the making!
• We made it back...but not exactly in one piece: the (now semi-paved) road from San Felipe to Puertocitos beat up our cars good. We broke welds and cracked structural tubing in many places from all the the pounding. (Maybe some of us drive to fast?) San Felipe was a zoo...Spring Break, plus the Baja 250 on Saturday. We drove over 1000 miles total and had lots of fun. We have pictures. Stand by for a trip report...but don't hold you breath!
• After some major fiberglass repairs to Old Yellr', in November 1998 we made our annual Baja 1000 trip with the Manx Dune Buggy Club (Manx's to Margaritaville). Three (yellow) buggies abandoned the Manx Club's 20+ buggies in San Felipe and headed for the Bay of LA, a repeat of the March 1998 trip, this time with a buggy full of Frenchmen. We made it back...with the usual complement of breakdown stories. Great fun!