text: Les and Annie Parker / photos: Don Flye

[Les Parker, S. Burlington, VT, is a familiar name to Rovers North customers. He and his wife Annie traveled to Petersham, MA, last September in typical British weather for a classic Land Rover event –ed.]

In its six year history, Don Flye’s All Metal Dash weekend has grown from its original intent of celebrating only “all metal dash” Land Rovers to including Series III’s, Defenders and other coil spring vehicles with plastic fascias. The spread of models invited has not diluted the original intent of the event one whit.

This year, my third return visit, confronted me with a dilemma. My Land Rover 90 (9 TEA, get it?) still suffered from the ravages of some woods off-roading over the Labor Day weekend, so I elected to drive the 97 Discovery with Sankey trailer in tow. I hoped that other attendees would understand that my choice of a vehicle now included only the Disco or Annie’s 1999 Volvo S70—and I knew that would never do!

Upon reflection, the Discovery proved the perfect choice. First we had to pack for ourselves, but also all of the accouterments necessary to placate our two dogs, Bene, a Jack Russell, and Fergie, a Smooth Haired Border Collie, for a 10 hour round trip drive. On a rainy Friday evening we set off with a stop in Cabot, VT, to pick up supplies from the camp and market garden of Fran, Annie’s mum. As I had promised to cook Saturday and Sunday’s breakfast for the attendees of the event, I needed all the implements possible. By 10:30 pm we finally arrived in Petersham, much to Don Flye’s relief.

Very courteously he agreed to let us stay in his rooms above the garage, a warm, dry place to rest our weary bodies. Around 6:00 am I awoke, dressed and made my way to reconnoiter the campsite and to start cooking breakfast; to my surprise folks had gathered already. John Camponolla, in charge of brewing coffee, greeted me heartily and let me sample the muffins he provided for everyone. Annie made some awesome scrambled eggs, bacon and some of her mum’s recipe blueberry pancakes with Vermont maple syrup (of course) from her cousins Ruth and Glenn Goodrich of Cabot, VT.

After we had put the gates into place, it was time for the morning’s Tech Session. Don had requested a lesson on Series transmissions, how they work and some common issues that can cause them to fail. With this in mind, I brought a copy of the Land Rover LT76 Overhaul Manual with me and some of the parts that need to be replaced on a regular basis.

We had copies of the Series I and Series II gearbox overhaul section of the Workshop Manual (AKA the Green Bible) and I explained the power flow through the transmission, the various gear selections and high and low
ratio options. The donor Series I gearbox had a suspected fault of being unable to select 3rd gear, so I went through the process of removing the selector rods and forks to enable all to see the 3rd/4th synchromesh hub. All was well, so I explained how to replace the broken synchro springs in situ, a common failing that can be corrected with the transmission still in place. After a question and answer session we stopped for lunch.

Mike Flye donned the chef’s hat and cooked a great lunch of burgers and hot dogs, kindly donated by the Flye family. This allowed time for the rest of us to browse the various piles of used parts that folks had hauled to the event for the swap meet.

Mike Flye had spent many hours in the woods shaping an RTV trials course, set primarily for Series vehicles. I walked with him around the course and we set what I considered a tight section of fourteen gates, with the idea that we would drive it one way with all the entered vehicles and reverse the order of the drivers/vehicles to get two sections for the set, out time for one.

After lunch we joined the enthusiasts at the RTV course. It was great to see three 109”s lined up for a drive through the woods. After the first two 88”s went through, I realized the course was set too tight; I duly altered the course and Saturday morning breakfast at cafe Annie’s all the vehicles went through. Then all the vehicles were turned around and the course was driven in the opposite direction; this made it interesting as several ruts had been made on the first time around. A second set of gates were set up, and we repeated the process of driving one way around and then driving the course again in reverse order.

Supper started with a convoy drive to a church supper where Don had booked a table for us; we dined on very good food, enjoyed great service and talk about the day’s events. When we arrived back to the Flye’s, a great bonfire with some fire “colour enhancers” and great people made all of us feel quite content.

The forecasted rain started early Sunday morning, so a bedraggled group broke camp and waited for warm coffee. Once caffeinated, a convoy took a very scenic drive through the Harvard Forest for about an hour and then
to the Petersham Diner for breakfast. There, our host awarded the Trials Course winners prizes donated by Rovers North. We made our farewells and all went our separate ways. We all missed regular participants such as Tom and Pam Bache, from PA, and Al Richer from MA, and hope they can join us in 2010. With new ideas for next year, why not add this fun event to your calendar?

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