Mother's Day adventure

What a gorgeous day today! It was over 70 degrees and the warmest day of the year so far. We were heading to TK's mom's place today for Mother's Day and decided to take the 308 because the weather was so nice. It was 65 miles away and the longest drive so far.

A funny moment happened about 25 miles into the trip. I was in 4th gear at about 60mph when we approached some slower traffic. I downshifted into 3rd and zipped around a minivan to get into an open lane. The open Stebro must have made enough noise to irritate a guy in a Mustang GT two lanes over. I suppose he felt the need to display his manhood (in front of his woman in the passenger seat, no less) because he opened up his window, downshifted then floored it to prove he could make more noise than me. An noise he made too -- it sure was loud but it sounded like complete rubbish. TK and I both looked at each other then busted out laughing. What a clown this guy was.

On the drive down, something was strange. Because the car didn't have a stereo, the only sound in the cockpit was the sound of the engine and the exhaust. At cruising speed, every now and again, there was what I can only describe as a little burble in the exhaust note. Hmmm...strange. But the car seemed to be running well otherwise so I didn't think it was a big deal.

On the way back from TK's mom's place, we stopped at my mom's place. When we stopped, there was something that smelled like burning oil and some light smoke coming out of the engine bay. I popped the bonnet and had a look around. Down in the bowels, I could see the problem. One of the CV joint boots was leaking and was throwing grease onto the rear header. The grease was burning on the header causing the smoke and the smell. It didn't look too bad but will definitely need to be fixed.

After a brief visit, we were headed toward home. About 30 miles away, the car started to act strangely. There was a stumble, followed by some backfiring so I backed off a little. A few seconds later, the stumble went away and things seemed back to normal. A few minutes later, it happened again -- this time it was bad enough to light up the 1-4 Slow Down light. The 308 engine is a V8, but can be thought of as two 4 cylinder engines on a common crankshaft. Each cylinder bank has it's own distributor, ignition coil and carburetors. On this car, each bank has it's own catalytic converter with thermocouples to control Slow Down lights on the dash. The thinking behind the lights is that if a cylinder bank has a misfire or goes out altogether, the cat will overheat due to all the unburned fuel going into it and the thermocouple will alert the driver that there is a problem. This is what happened to me. There was a problem in the 1-4 cylinder bank causing some major problems. The strangest thing is that the problem seemed to be intermittent. The car ran normally for a few minutes, stumbled for a few seconds, then would be ok again. I was afraid we would be riding a tow truck home but the 1-4 bank never went out completely and I was able to nurse us home.

Next steps? I'm pretty sure the problem is in the ignition system. Since the problem is intermittent, I'm sure it will be a PITA to figure it out. And the VC boot? It doesn't look torn so maybe putting a new clamp on it will hold the grease in.