Dave SweetappleHave you ever heard the saying, ‘Don’t jinx yourself?’ Well, I guess I may have done just that! In my last column, I suggested that you should always be prepared for the worst. Well sometimes you can’t believe what gets thrown at you.
The Maine Winter Romp in Benton takes place in the cold of mid-February, so I decided to have my Series III 88” hitch a ride to Maine in January. My friend Mike Kenney was heading to Scarborough, ME, with an empty car trailer. I thought I could get my Rover closer to the upcoming event and avoid the tiring, chilly, four-hour drive across New Hampshire highways from Vermont. Our mutual friend, Mike Capozza, who lives in Scarborough, offered to let me leave my Rover in his yard until Winter Romp.
A day before Winter Romp, fellow Newfoundland native, Matt “The Newfie” Dawe, took the train up from Brooklyn, NY, to join me for the weekend. We drove to Capozza’s in my luxurious 2010 LR4, enjoying the modern conveniences of heated seats and handsfree phone calls. Upon arrival, I found my 88” inside Mike’s garage getting the once over (because Mike can’t help himself). With new anti-burst door latches installed, all fluids topped off and the tightening of obvious rattling bits, Matt and I were off to the hotel in Waterville. Mike Kenney and his son Rowan met us in Scarborough with his Series IIA in tow.
About halfway to the hotel, I noticed that my Series III’s heater did not, in fact, deliver much heat. With the sun already down, it felt a little frosty inside the cab. Upon inspection, the heating coils produced heat, but the blower had gone on strike. Nothing could be done on the side of the road, so we continued to Waterville. By the time we arrived, the hotel parking lot teemed with Land Rovers, and familiar faces filled the lobby. That first night is always low-key with expectations of maximum winter wheeling the next day.
Before breakfast the next morning, Mike Kenney ran over to a nautical supply company and purchased an in-line bilge blower. The 12-volt, 3” blower gapped the hose to the heater and instantly filled the the cab with heat. Oddly, this marine bit fit perfectly into the hose and heater. (Years of YouTube tutorials had prepared Mike for any mechanical challenge presented to basic auto repair.)
When we reached the event area, we formed a small group of five trucks; Rob Wollschlager, Mike Kenney and me in our respective Series 88”s, Forrest Clifton in his highly modified 109” and George Wollschlager in brother Rob’s Australian Perentie 110. After chaining up at the Power Line Hill and saying hello to a few others, we headed off into the spiderweb of trails that form the vast network at Bruce Fowler’s Sebasticook Millennium Green. It was the first day of Romp, so some trails were barely touched; fresh snow from the night before had blanketed them.
You never know what the weather will be at the event; temperatures could be well above or below freezing. This year, Maine had experienced a decent deep freeze before we hit the property. After several trail runs, we stopped at the top of “Pit of Despair,” where nearby, John Vallerand grilled large, juicy scallops for his Virginia guests. (We might have had a few, too.)
Continuing on, we entered the aptly named trail called “Kickass.” What seemed like a likely cakewalk turned into a lengthy recovery endeavor. Rob bounced effortlessly through this section with a minor crack here and there in the ice floor. However, brother George immediately broke through the thick ice due to the weight of the 110. He winched out of that hole only to break through again about thirty feet beyond the first one. Forrest moved forward next but followed the same routine.
When my turn came, I looked for other routes around each of the two, crater-sized holes in the ice. On hole one, I hugged the trees to the left and got through with only the passenger side wheels dipping slightly into the water. When I got to the second hole, there was no way through but to go head on into the muddy slush. When I made the plunge, the whole front end went underwater. I could hear the hiss of the icy mixture surrounding the engine block as steam poured out from the bonnet.
That’s when I realized that I hadn’t plugged in my controller cable to the winch, or released the hook and cable attached to the bumper. I carefully climbed onto the bonnet, rolled up my sleeve and shoved my arm down into the frozen mixture to complete the two forementioned tasks. The frigid water induced numbness so complete that I could not feel the controller’s plug. I asked Mike to hook on to the rear of my truck and tug me backwards out of the hole. Once he did that, I was able to extend the winch cable across the ice hole to one of the other guys who attached the strap high on a tree across the gap. I slowly went back into the hole while keeping full tension on the winch cable and pulled myself right up the other side. Mike went next and followed the same procedure.
Once we all made our way through “Kickass,” we meandered through the woods for a while longer until we entered the “Beaver Pond.” This section of trail is an approximately 75-foot channel of busted up blocks of ice floating in door-sill-deep slush. In the same order as the previous trail, one by one, we all entered the water. As I got about halfway through the wading process, I thought, given the racket, that a massive V-8 muscle car had passed me. I looked out both sides before I realized that my Series III now sounded like a dragster. When I emerged on the other side, I inspected the undercarriage. I had managed to shear off the header pipe where the flange meets the exhaust manifold. The welded ring on the top of the header pipe had completely separated from the rest of it, leaving a gap from the motor to the exhaust system. One of those cinder block-sized pieces of ice had smacked the pipe with such force that it just gave way. I loudly made my way back to Bruce’s house and parked the truck next to his garage where we would “try” to fix it the next day, in daylight.
After another fun night of catching up with Rover folks at the hotel bar, we got up the next morning to tackle the job at hand. Neither Mike’s and Rob’s 88”s would start, so we left them at the hotel parking lot. When we made it to Bruce’s house, we discovered that mine would not start either. During the previous day’s adventures, water had entered all three starters and froze them overnight.
The first issue to tackle with my truck was the exhaust, which could be an easy fix if we were able to reattach the ring to the header (down) pipe. Bruce kindly let us push my Series III inside his garage and told us the location of all the welding bits. Matt, a skilled welder, assumed the job wouldn’t present any real problem. Unfortunately, the stainless steels exhaust system had fused the down pipe to the intermediate pipe due to years of high temperatures. Without separating those pipes, our only option would be to cut the pipe. We tried banging on them, pulling them apart from different angles and we heated the coupling to the point where it was an almost-transparent cherry red. For as much as we tried, we were unable to get them apart. But, to my surprise, after sitting inside the garage all day at fifty degrees, the Series did start again, so I was able to back it outside under its own — if loud — power.
Feeling bummed about missing the entire day of trail riding, we piled into Mike’s pickup truck and headed to the base of the Power Line Hill. I called Andy Polovny, Brooklyn, NY, who answered the call while scarfing down a bowl of chili at the warming hut. I explained our situation and inquired about the availability of his Winter Romp Uber service. Within minutes, he showed up in his RHD Discovery 300 Tdi, followed by Dan Marcello from Brooklyn Coachworks in his original Camel Trophy Defender 110. They took pity and provided us with a few laps in the woods, which hit the spot after a long frustrating day.
Long story short, my Series eventually made its way back to Vermont where I installed a new exhaust and high-torque starter thast I ordered from Rovers North. She’s back on the road and purring like a kitten — for now.
[For more information on the Maine Winter Romp or other east coast events, contact VermontRovers@gmail.com @vermontrovers -ed.]