Welcome to the Three Ocean's Tour Website
This is the story of our travels to the three oceans that
surround North America in a restored 1947 Tatra T87.
I hope you enjoy the site; please send me an email to
give me your comments. Producing this website has been a lot of work and
getting some feedback is always nice.
John Long - my email is
Chapter One - The Background
Chapter Two - Boston and the Atlantic
Chapter Three - Crossing North
America
Chapter Four - Vancouver
to Hazelton, B.C.
Chapter Five
- Hazelton to Dawson City, Yukon
Chapter Six - The Dempster
Highway to Inuvik, NWT
Chapter Seven - Alaska
to Victoria
Chapter Eight - Vancouver to
Los Angles to Toronto
Links to History and Technical
Information on the Tatra 87
Tatra 87 and 1935 Aerodynamic Bowlus
Road Chief Trailer
Rolleidoscop Stereo Camera Information
Chapter One - The Background
Go to Home or Chapter
1,
2, 3,
4, 5,
6, 7,
8
“Wouldn't it be great if we could read Czech!” ...
so started the planning for the three ocean's tour. My good friend, Gary
Cullen and I were pouring over three Zikmund and Hanzelka books that Gary
had just purchased, unfortunately in a language neither of us could understand,
but we could look at the maps and pictures and... dream.
The dream was to take a trip in our Tatra 87’s up the Yukon, Northwest
Territories and Alaska the following summer. Now the obstacles; neither
of our cars were ready. Mine, a 1947, was still being restored while
Gary's 1948 was in need of some engine work and a new rear drive shaft.
Gary took the direct route; he bought a restored Tatra 87 right off the
rotating stand from the Tatra museum in Koprivnice. All he had to
do was ship it to Vancouver, test it and hopefully it would be ready.
"... born with web feet because
the Tatra looked like a fish"
My Tatra 87 was another story. Originally the car had been bought
by a Czech doctor who immigrated to California in 1947 and brought his
brand new car with him. Now California didn't have very many foreign cars
in 1947 and the Tatra must have been particularly distinctive. As the story
goes the doctor married and was expecting his first child, but his wife
who didn't like the Tatra styling, was fearful that the child would be
born with web feet because the Tatra looked like a fish. This is California
after all! He decided to sell the car and John Morris, then in his
forties, decided to buy it. John drove it for a while but when racing a
Corvair the engine locked up, he lost control and spun out. The car
was damaged, and the engine was a mess. John brought the car home,
but never could find anyone to repair it, so it sat behind his home, in
parts. John sold the car to the famous Harrah’s museum in Las Vegas,
Nevada which put it on display but never restored it. Late in his
life John decided he wanted the Tatra back and purchased it back from Harrah’s
museum, but unfortunately John's health was not good and he never restored
the car.
I bought the car in 1992 and transported back to my home in Toronto
where it sat for a number of years. In 1997 I decided to restore it and
in September work started. It wasn't a fast restoration, it took
over two years and in October 1999 I brought it home from the restoration
shop for final mechanical work. Over the winter I worked late into the
night getting it ready for its first big trip to Boston.
During this time, I thought of an expanded plan. Why not have the Tatra
dip its wheels in the three oceans that surround North America, the Atlantic,
the Pacific and the most remote, the Arctic Ocean? The Atlantic would be
a relatively easy drive to a nice beach around Boston. The Pacific would
be a little more difficult requiring a 5,000 km journey across North America
to Gary's home in Vancouver. The Arctic would be the most difficult, requiring
driving not only up to the Yukon Territories but also over the all gravel
Dempster highway, past the Arctic Circle to the village of Inuvik, Northwest
Territories and then finally the Arctic Ocean. A fine adventure,
I thought to myself.
The first order of business was to plan the route and schedule.
After the Boston leg of the journey, I would leave Toronto in early July
to rendezvous with Gary and head up north starting at the end of July.
There were ferries to reserve, hotels and bed and breakfasts to book and
parts lists to compile. Gary's wife Karoline and I emailed weekly
with the latest agenda and bookings. Version 1.0 of the “Great Tatra
Trip Agenda” soon grew to Version 6.4 as things changed and booking were
firmed up. The return journey on the Alaska State Ferries was the
most important booking; only four ships a year left Seward on the Alaska
coast for our trip back to Prince Rupert in Canada. We booked on
the last ferry of the season at the end of August. Miss it and we either
had to wait until next summer or ship the cars back by freighter. Now that's
a deadline!
"...surely the Arctic Ocean would
be no problem"
All this planning seemed like wishful thinking as in the beginning I
could not even drive a few kilometers around Toronto without a breakdown
and an embarrassing tow-truck ride back home. But slowly restoration continued
as problems became solved and parts were rebuilt. In the spring,
Gary flew out from Vancouver to Toronto, to co-pilot the 2000 km test drive
to Boston. We were confident and excited. If we could make
it on the paved road to Boston, surely the Arctic Ocean would be no problem.
:)
Chapter Two - Boston and the Atlantic
Go to Home or Chapter
1,
2, 3,
4, 5,
6, 7,
8
Back in Toronto, armed with a full list of repairs, I worked continuously
trying to get the Tatra into shape. To give you an example, on the list
was: find and install new windshield wiper bearing, fix electrical shorts,
reseal oil lines, repair the gas gauge, fix the clutch, inspect the knock
in the cylinder number eight, redo the brake linings, reseal the windshield,
repair the brake fluid container which leaked and lifted the paint, fix
the gas heater and, on the “Nice to Have” list, install the stereo.
I had about two months before the second leg of the trip from Toronto
to Vancouver. I figured that I would need to leave around the beginning
of July to meet up with Gary in Vancouver for the start of the Yukon/Alaska
section of the trip that would start on the last week of July. In addition
to the driving time across North America, I also wanted to give myself
an extra week for breakdowns and possible repairs. During those two
months I worked like mad. The biggest problem was the knock in cylinder
number eight, which led to removal of the engine and camshafts.
While dismantling the engine I came to realize that the engine rebuild
was done very poorly. A year before I had shipped the engine back
to the Czech Republic to be restored, thinking that a restoration shop
specializing in Tatra's would know what they were doing. I was very wrong!
I found that half of the camshaft stud bolts had been stripped and not
replaced and most frightening was that two of the motor mount bolts were
stripped completely and just glued into the block! I decided then
and there not to trust an engine rebuild to someone that I didn't have
complete confidence in. I decided to have new studs machined and
to replace all camshaft stud bolts and motor mounts, installing Helicoils
wherever necessary.
The Tatra 87 engine is a pre-war mechanical marvel, an air-cooled V8
with hemispherical combustion chambers and over chain driven camshafts.
The engine is a very clever design with identical finned cylinder sleeves
and matching heads. The heads bolt down onto the sleeves in a design
that VW used afterwards for the VW beetle engine. The interesting
part is getting all the heads perfectly aligned so the overhead cam shaft
will spin freely. As each head is separate there is a bit of tolerance
in the total sleeve/head height. It took a while to figure out that shims
where necessary. After these were measured and installed, all worked
well.
"...why didn't he just read the
manual?"
Now you may be asking "why didn't he just read the manual?" Well
there is no repair manual for the Tatra 87, just a very thin owners' manual
with about four pages on how to repair the engine. Not much to go
on, so I used the manuals I had for the 1950 Tatraplan and 1957 Tatra 603
and guessed. My favourite section in the Tatra 87 owners' manual
concern the spark plugs; it states "Use exclusively the same spark plugs
as we do" without any description of the ones installed in the car in 1947!
Anyway, the engine was finally put back together and while I was not
completely confident in the pistons, rings and lower end there was not
much I could do without rebuilding the whole engine again and delaying
the trip. By the end of June I had finished all the "Need Done" items on
the repair list, but still had about 10 "Nice to Have" items. I planned
to fix them on the way.
