My 1987 Mercury Colony Park

[Tiggie]

I'd like to meet that setup on the road. I bet others will too. Lots of waves and thumbs up headed your way I bet. And at least one from here.

[sly]

Nice. have fun with that.

[gadget73]

Stock box Vic/GM mirrors are honestly terrible. Too small, and too far back. Lincoln ones are very slightly better but only because they are a little further forward. No tip-out wing window that needs to be cleared. If you want to tow with them then they go from terrible to beyond useless.

[jaywish]

Very smart adding that cooler

[Kodachrome Wolf]

That was a fun weekend. Got in fairly late, 12:30 AM Monday just to jump in bed so I could get up for work at 7:00 AM. Wagon put in some solid work this weekend and didn't miss a beat.



Photo dump below for anyone who's interested in tourist-y shots including the car and HO scale trains.

Anyway, left Thursday around 11:00 AM with my two other friends and all of our equipment and luggage. Kept OD locked out the whole way to see how it did running to Fuquay-Varina, NC where we were staying after the show each evening. Averaged a modest 10.2-10.9 MPG going up at 65 MPH. The I-20 section from Augusta, GA to Columbia, SC has the most grades so that section uses the most fuel.


Stopped at Buc-ee's in Florence just after the I-20 & I-95 interchange for lunch.


Chugged into Fuquay around 5:00 PM, unhitched at another group member's house, and we went into town for dinner. Not much else to report there, but Aviator Pizza there is the shizz.

The following morning we hooked back up to the trailer and headed into Raleigh and unloaded our equipment at the Jim Graham Building at the North Carolina State Fairgrounds. We also dropped the trailer there since there's no need to tote that everywhere all weekend.

Dropping equipment before the fun starts...


The Sipping and Switching Society of North Carolina (S&SoNC) was allotted 27K sq/ft of space for where the layout would go. This was our track plan. Having run just the perimeter alone, it was about a 50 minute run with the engines running at roughly a scale 50-55 MPH.


For anyone not familiar with this setup, the modules are all designed to connect to each other using a very simple design. Each module has three tracks from the "front" of the module placed at 8", 10", and 21" respectively. That way at each end of each module, the track meets up to the next one. All the modules use a simple dowel system to ensure they stay lined up, a waffle underside for rigidity, and we just keep them together using C-Clamps. The modules are all on folding table style legs with wheels, and the tops themselves are made of lauan plywood, so they're incredibly light, which makes moving them when connected and upright a breeze since you can roll 50+ feet around using two people. All electrical connections are done with 4-flat trailer (and Molex?) connectors. This allows the 40-50 of us to easily setup, connect, and build the whole layout in several hours. I think we had the track powered up and going in roughly 5 hours.

Bottom of one of the modules for reference. These are a little older being from the late 1990s. The oldest module regularly featured in our layouts is from 1976.


And how just a small portion looks when observed from a distance. It's shockingly efficient compared to other modular systems that use fixed legs and require unique bridge tracks between sections that can take even longer to make work and maybe only have 60 feet of track.



Anyway, a small sample of everything that was actually running at the show. There was plenty more that I couldn't squeeze in or get from friends, like the Southern's Belmont coal train that worked on the Saluda Grade, or the C&NW grain unit train, along with several classic art deco streamliner services of the B&O and Burlington Route. It's hilarious when you do see a 120+ car train modeled to scale and just works.
























Since Friday was the setup day, we really didn't run too much then except for testing. Saturday and Sunday the layout ran from 8 AM to 5 PM. Sunday at 5 PM the power was cut and that layout imploded on itself. We left at 5:30 PM with all of our stuff in tow.

There's plenty of good eats in Raleigh, but we stayed near the venue on purpose. We had to stop at the original Char-Grill before the land it's on gets redeveloped into a new building. The site developers say a Char-Grill will still be on the first level, but nothing beats the original.


No, not everyone there came in the wagon, but there were seven of us that rode down in it. Bless the load leveling system because it put in some overtime.

Also stopped by Brickhouse Bar & Grill since it's right by the tracks, so we could catch Amtrak, NC Piedmont, Norfolk Southern, and CSX while eating. They've also got a pretty decent El Dorado in their parking area.



Anyway, after the event concluded Sunday evening we beat a path home. I opted to run the car in OD on the gentle areas of I-95 and I-20 and grabbed an average of 12 MPG running 65-70 MPH. Had to lock it out clearing Columbia and on home due to the grades, but it performed gracefully.

We did stop again at Buc-ee's again for the 2nd to last refuel and made the push home from there on I-20.



Like I said, very fun weekend. Got to hang out with a bunch of folks I enjoy seeing at all of these events, got to run trains, got to drive a mobile conversation piece, and got to enjoy the company of my friends.

[p71towny]

Very cool! Box car hauling box cars!

[Tiggie]

Looks like a great trip. Definitely some memories made there.

[87gtVIC]

Nice stuff.

[gadget73]

"but you need at least a 1 ton truck to haul a trailer like that!"

[Kodachrome Wolf]

So the headlights are back up to acting up, but I don't think it has to do specifically with the headlights, but perhaps the instrument cluster.

That's not a great video, but essentially when the headlights want to act up, the instrument cluster illumination goes stupid on the fuel gauge side and there's a distinct back feed through the left turn signal and sometimes the high beam indicator. The high beams will come on in either park or main beam positions with the headlight switch. I've found if you turn the dimmer all the way down, you can turn on the parking lights or low beams without issue, but if you blip the high beams or cycle the left turn signal, the high beams become stuck on again. Turning the dimmer up also results in the same issue.

I do have an external headlight harness fitted, and I've only found I can overcome the high beam circuit staying latched on by using the factory high beam connections instead of the external ones. However, the cluster does not recover, but the high beam comes on a bit brighter and pulses when the left signal is functioning.

This started happening about two months ago, but it's been intermittent. This particular time, the cluster started working about 20 minutes after it started acting up.


Given the cluster printed circuit is from 1980, I'm wondering if there's a break in the ground lead somewhere that makes intermittent contact.

[87gtVIC]

Can the printed circuit be swapped from a non police cluster on the mercs? I know we can do it on the vics.

[Kodachrome Wolf]

Can the printed circuit be swapped from a non police cluster on the mercs? I know we can do it on the vics.

It can be. I've got a few spares laying around, so I'll start there.

[gadget73]

sounds like an open ground. I can't see the foil on the cluster causing the lights to actually malfunction, but it would certainly make the lighting within the cluster go dumb.

make sure the ground on the relay harness is good, and check the grounds for the parking lights front and back. I suspect one is going to be bad and its pulling current through something it should not be.

[kishy]

My initial thought is to get eyes on the wiring into the back of the cluster, and into the headlight switch. Maybe you've recently done that, idk.
With my wagon, which we established spent much of its life in your area of the country, the wiring into the cluster was all pretty thoroughly baked with the insulation falling right off of it. I had to put heat shrink tubing on a couple wires.

Agreed that the symptoms are "groundy" in nature but it wouldn't be a bad idea to make sure your wires still have insulation on them as well.

[Kodachrome Wolf]

My initial thought is to get eyes on the wiring into the back of the cluster, and into the headlight switch. Maybe you've recently done that, idk.
With my wagon, which we established spent much of its life in your area of the country, the wiring into the cluster was all pretty thoroughly baked with the insulation falling right off of it. I had to put heat shrink tubing on a couple wires.

Agreed that the symptoms are "groundy" in nature but it wouldn't be a bad idea to make sure your wires still have insulation on them as well.

I've got to lay my eyes on the back of the instrument cluster, but I have found that even when completely disconnecting the external harness from the headlight circuit, the issue persists, so it's a matter of finding the what.

I'll dig deeper once I have a little free time to give to the matter.