WOW !   Just think what milage you would get if you pumped your tires up to 80 pd's , clean your front brgs and use motor oil for wheel lube, wash and wax the truck and keep the windows rolled up   

I think I have you slightly beat on the distance, Zen.. years ago, on the way to BAP on a Sunday morning, I was rolling down the  W Road in my blue '62 Beetle.

I had traveled through the switch back turns, and the first ones at the top just below that, and was passing the barricade that they pull closed in the event of road closure, when I had the "sputter, sputter, brrrrrrrrr" happen... I knew I was out of gas, but the gauge showed nearly 1/2 of a tank.

Stop at the side of the road?

Wait for help???

I think not...


I tossed it in neutral, and let her fly... all the way down the mountain, slowing down only slightly now and then so I wouldn't lose my momentum.  I neared the roundabout at the bottom, glanced back, and saw the next car was a long ways back.  Sailed through the roundabout, and on down Mountain Creek road, past the aparments, and up and down a few slight hills and into the parking lot of the gas station in front of the Food Lion.. I never went back and checked the miles.. I think I might just for fun tonight.

When I lifted the hood to fill up, I figured out what had happened... The previous afternoon, I had lifted the spare out of the well and placed it on top of the fuel tank.  And managed to hang up the mechanical sending unit up on the tire.... 

I put the tire back in the bottom, walked around and looked... heh, what do ya know... I was outta gas... 

Interestingly enough, last night's episode of Top Gear US had a challenge to see how far you could go on one tank of gas.

My longest coast was not because I was out of gas.  Several years back I was heading out to meet the club caravan to the Southeastern Bug Fair at the Stevens County Fairgrounds (Taccoa, GA).  We had planned on going the Cleveland-Murphy, NC, Taccoa route, but Homer hung up in 4th gear at Cloud Spings Road waiting at the light to turn onto the I-75 North on-ramp.  No big deal. I accellerated up the ramp in 4th gear and headed on to the Bi-Lo in Ooltewah.  I told everyone there I would have to bail out on the trip through the Mountians since I only had 4th gear.  Instead, I got back on 75 south, went to Atlanta and took 285 to 85 north, got off on 985 and went past Gainesville and got off on the highway to Taccoa.  Once I got moving on the interestate it was good . . . up to that point it had all been non-stop, wide opened travel.  The highway to the fairgrounds was a 4 lane divided highway with no traffic lights up until about a half mile before the fairgrounds where it merged into a two lane and there was a traffic light.  Only problem is, there's a mountian you have to cross.  I lugged Homer over the mountian in 4th, and just we started down the back side and had built up a good head of steam, the exhaust vavle on #1 broke.  Do you know what the head of a valved bouncing loose inside a cylinder will do at 70 mph?  Trust me; it ain't pretty!     I pushed the clutch in and coasted . . . and coasted . . . and coasted.  I finally came to a stop in a wide pull off just past the one light on the road . . . directly across from the fairgounds.  2 hours later the club caravan showed up.  Travis Barefoot loaned me a tow rope and Moose towed me into the camping field.  I had 60 bucks cash and a screwdriver . . . and lots of friends.  By the time all my friends had gotten through pitching in tool and dollars, I was able to pull the engine, buy a short block at the swap meet, find all the tin (I had a single port, the short block was a dual port) . . . completed the engine, installed it and even pulled the nose cone off and fixed the shifter.  Sunday afternoon when the club caravan left for home, Homer was in it with a new engine and all 4 gears.

On the way out, I measured the coast . . . 5 miles.   

Of course when you are under the gun like that and working in a red clay horse arena (that's where they had us set up camp) you don't always get things just right.  A couple of weekends later going to the Birmingham show, my the drain bolt fell out of my oil sump going down I-59 and I dumped nearly 3 quarts of oil on Anthony's red '98 air-cooled Mexican Beetle.  Later that winter a heater box fell off going down Cherokee Valley Road . . . but those are storied for another time.   

Ok, I just watched the Top Gear episode. Rutledge won the 700 mile road trip challenge on one tank in a TDI Passat.

I saw that the other night!
he was doing like 45mph the whole way and never even heard the turbo kick in for like 600 miles!
The ford natural gas truck ran out with like 1/10 mile left!
made me laugh!
KC

I will get 700 plus on my 15 gallons. I know a lot of those passats are getting over 1000 w a vented tank fill.