My wife and daughter are checked in for their flight back to Miami, Richard Irving arrives on his hotel courtesy shuttle, we pack his bag in the back of the car and we go. Considering that the trip from Miami went so smoothly, I was considering doing it in one mad rush. After all, we were on the road for only 27 hours on the way up, why waste 7 extra hours on a night sleep when I could be having fun driving !

Flashback... throughout the festival, Richard kept telling everyone how nice the car was running and that it was the best E-type he ever rode in. Bad idea... he was asking for it !

Less than an hour into the trip, I notice the Voltmeter isn't as high as it should be. It doesn't look that bad and I just keep an eye on it. The optimistic side of my brain takes over the realistic side and I decide it's just the gauge... We all know how precise gauges are in a British car ...

First pit stop 220 miles from start, I open my wallet to find out I left my American Express card in Colorado Springs... another sign this trip wasn't going to be that smooth... will have use Visa to feed the hungry cat till we get home...

We press on, everything works fine, traffic on I 70 is pretty light but the Voltmeter is still low, actually getting lower and now below the 13v mark. Wrong side of the brain still in control at this time... we keep going.

Late afternoon, Voltmeter now really showing that we are running on battery power alone, I try to conserve energy by turning off the radio, radar detector, and run with lights off as late as possible. No big deal, must be the voltage regulator, I have a spare, we'll stop at the next large service station. We make it as the sun sets, the headlights seem real dim when I turn them on for the last couple of miles...

We pull in a service station before Topeka Kansas, engine won't restart. Get a mechanic to jump start the car, I check the voltage with a digital voltmeter, no charge. I change the voltage regulator, jump start, no charge. Check the connections, mechanic checks for a charge with his tester, we seem to be charging. Wrong side of brain still in charge, it's fixed. We feed the cat another 16 gallons of premium, grab a bite and we are under way. We lost about 45 minutes... not too bad. Still look like we can make it to Miami before Saturday evening...

We get on the Kansas Turnpike, still playing it safe with electrical loads, and gradually it became clear that whatever charge we had is no longer there. Before it really gets bad I pull over in a service station near Lawrence Kansas. No mechanic, no service, just gas and junk food... I park in a well lit spot and we start looking under the bonnet. Of course, we are interrupted every 2 minutes by people, asking questions and offering advises... " what kind of Porsche is that ?" "I haven't seen one of these in a long time..." " you are not afraid of driving a Jaguar for so long" etc... the worst comment obviously was the Porsche question ! we are in the middle of Kansas ...

After 30 minutes of checking connections, swapping regulator, bypassing the harness with jumpers, we don't get anywhere, still no charge.

Thinking at this point was : it's either the battery or the alternator. Since we were stuck at 9pm with no battery available but a spare alternator, I figured... what the heck, let's change the Alternator... I have all the tools we need and the service manual.

At this stage, I am too confused to really know which side of my brain is in charge.. optimistic or pessimistic. Richard, my passenger, owner of various Jaguars himself, probably thought there was a third side in there, the Crazy side but he probably assumed it was safer not to interfere.

We move the car to a more isolated part of the service area and at 10 PM, under a parking light, the bonnet comes off. First time I pull the bonnet off and it is heavy for 2 people ! I go after the alternator... Manual say that you need to remove the header tank to get the alternator out. Yeah, right, I am going to mess up with something that works, the cooling system and spill coolant all over the place. Instead I unbolted the leftmost fan bracket to provide the extra inch you need to pull out the alternator. It works ! safer than messing up with the cooling system and won't get the EPA on my back for spilling chemicals in middle of the Kansas farmland.

Then disaster **tries** to strike as I discover that the tip of the shaft on the spare is damaged and the last 2 threads are messed up. Huge struggle to pull the nut off the shaft, luckily I had my BIG toolbox with all the sockets, etc... and I managed to take it of.... Then more struggle to get the spacer ( between the fins and the bearing ) off the old alternator ... 20 minutes of struggling... then had to clean the new shaft with sand paper since it had gotten scratched from the vise grip I had to use to hold the shaft to pull the nut off...

Final struggle to fit the nut that hold the pulley since the threads on the shaft were damaged... about 1 hour of filing the damaged threads... luckily I had a file in my toolbox and I was able to do that inside the car... cold, but no wind...

By then it was 2 pm, below 40 deg with a windchill of below 30...

Put everything back together... fire it up and still no charge, re switched regulators, no charge.

We decided to head out to try to find a open station that would have a battery... funny idea at 3 am in the middle of Kansas isn't it ? ... and the battery ran for 20 miles before voltage gets too low to run the fuel pump , 200 yards from a Napa store ( closed till 8 am of course ). all local hotels booked up... some kind of convention is in town... yes, a convention in Kansas !

It's cold and raining now, we take a nap in the car till NAPA opens, get a new battery ( that was the only thing we didn't change...) and... no charge.

At this stage, it all survival instinct. No more optimistic, pessimistic, crazy... just we'll make it to Miami on our own. The thought of renting a Uhaul with a trailer was just unacceptable.

While they are recharging the old battery, I go to a service station they recommend where they should be able to help. The guy barely talks to me, one of these ignorant mechanic who thinks a Jaguar is supposed to be breaking down and that it's not even worth looking at it. Can't even get him to confirm to me how to temporarily wire the alternator directly to the battery to bypass the harness. Or maybe I just looked weird, dirty and unshaved, with grease stains all over my clothes, my jeans got torn during the alternator change after they got caught on a sharp corner of the radiator ...

Back to the Napa store where the old battery is charged, buy a charger ( idea was too run as long as possible during the day and recharge both battery in a hotel) and we head out trying to get as far as possible on battery power .. no radio, no radar detector, no lights, no windshield wipers,... it was raining but the chemical treatment I applied to the windshield really works !

So far we've lost about 15 hours...

About 200 miles down I 70, battery ( the old one ) got too low to run the fuel pump. Pull over in the rain, with trucks running by... the car coasts to a stop in the grass right next to an dead animal... so decomposed I can't tell if it's a dog or a sheep. he must have been hit by a truck, hope I don't !

I change the battery which thankfully is on the right side, away from the racing 18 wheelers... tapped the wires around the regulator, removed the ignition light diode, restart, and... got an overcharge ( 17.5 volts on digital meter ). Not good but at least we are getting somewhere !

We pull off at the next exit... next to a strip club... I guess even Kansas farmers need some form of entertainment. Had to shut down the engine with the kill switch since it was charging and feeding the MSD through the ignition light as I had removed the diode.

In the meantime I had called club member, Rick Hartwell, to get additional information on connecting the alternator, regulator and battery bypassing the harness. As I he first describes the regulator connections to me on the cell phone, I realized that at some point I had reversed the wires on the regulator... The electrical diagram I have doesn't show the marking on the regulator... Now we are charging the way we are supposed to. We'll make it !

When did I reverse them ? I don't know... probably when I put the original regulator back on... The spare regulator I have is not the Butec original with the blue cover but the cheaper silver square case regulator which has different terminal / markings... so I'm only half guilty.

What I really suspect is a loose wire somewhere, either on the regulator, or alternator. and then I messed up the rest by miswiring the regulator... I drove hard and fast through the entire trip, I went up Pikes Peak twice (the dirt road is extremely rough) and part of the JCNA rally was held on some rough rural roads. So altogether if that's the only loose connection I got ... that's not too bad ... oh and I left a lot of rubber on the parking where the JCNA slaloms were held...
Back on I 70, still raining but for the first time since living Colorado Springs exactly 24 hours earlier, everything is working the way it should... only 1300 miles to go which will turn out to be uneventful. The car ran beautifully, the rain cleared once we got out of the cold front after St. Louis, traffic was light and no problem except for the usual minivans and land barges napping in the left lane.

Since everything was going smoothly we decide to finish the trip non stop. State lines and cities pass by, Nashville, Atlanta... got a couple a fast runs in the middle of the night, new personal record on the car at ( can't print the number ) mph. Car is rock steady at high speed, no vibration, just pure power. Wish I could take it to a track to see how fast it could go !

We stop a couple of times late into the night to get a quick nap, I really needed it !

Then into Florida and on the turnpike where we run behind a group of fast cars, it's amazing to see how the V12 can sustain high speeds for a long time without showing any sign of getting tired !

And finally late Sunday morning we get reach Boca Raton where I drop off Richard and then back home in Miami. First thing I do is take a shower and then a good nap !

A month later, I learned from Thierry of Jaguar Doctor that the old alternator was indeed malfunctioning ! He had sent it out to be checked and rebuilt; that bad news actually felt good since it meant I didn't change it in the middle of the night for nothing !

Would I do it again ? you bet I would, or actually, you bet I will ... can't wait for the next JCNA Festival.