Tuesday, December 17, 2013

The Back Stories: It all started out as a joke.... Drive for the Datsun Pt. 2


School that week was a joke, I was so twisted up inside, this crazy mixture of crazy excited, nervous and feeling of "Were they really serious?". I mean who honestly agrees to drive down to texas (A ten hour drive from here) and tow a car back on a whim? After what seemed like an eternity Friday finally came. I loaded up my stuff into the Cappy and rolled over to my friends place where our trusty ride awaited. The Plymouth Voyager, this little piece of soccer mom history was going to be our home for the weekend. Around 6 the 3 of us were finally on out way out of town with trailer in tow (This we later noted was the worst idea). While a tow dolly is quiet and nice when loaded that thing will hop around like a  water over hot grease when empty. Thankfully radio was loud enough to drown most of that out.

Crossing the Mississippi in to MO the first state.

Once night fell it seemed like we made pretty good time hitting Little Rock around 20:00 or so. From there things seemed to slow down, as those who have driven in the middle of no where. With nothing really to see it makes the road seem endless and bland. Thankfully we stopped at a  diner where we were thouroughly amused. Between the fun waitress who chilled with us to the manager popping up in the booth behind our friend and asking "Can I get some of dat?" it was a good wake up stop.
Sadly the stop ended too soon and we were back on the endless dark roads of Arkansas. Arriving in Fortworth around 5am, about 2 hours too early. So we did like most normal people, went to dennys. Of course we show up and it seems like every cop in the county is there staring at us, like we're up to no good. So we eat up and its finally time. 

Head over to the guys house and there they are. Orange one apart in the garage and Red in driveway just like he described her. Fire here up, take a spin around the block. Everything seems good and get down to business. Can't get him talked down enough to take both back but still get a great deal & he throws in an extra engine, half shafts, 2 carbs, manifolds and just about every spare part that wasn't attached to the orange datto. 

And with that we load up and head back to So Ill, in the middle of a monsoon. 

Finally the rain let up a little and it was my time again to drive, leaving my comfy chair and foot rest behind. 

30 minutes down, only 8 hours & 30 min left haha



Home :)

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

The Back Stories: It all started out as a joke.... Drive for the Datsun Pt. 1

My first piece venture into Imports. Like most good things this story started with a venture onto that great website known as Craigslist. I'm not sure where my love for small japanese cars started but for some reason my freshman year of college decided to be when the idea of owning one became a reality. For years I had cruised CL looking for a fun little car, and once I thought I had found it. A Datsun 510 Station wagon, it was powder blue, clean inside and out. Unfortunately that was back when I was still running around in the Lincoln and had no money to my name. So it never happened, then a few years passed, I graduated Jr College, worked some and then found myself down at school doing it again. Searching CL for that oddball car company agin, Datsun. But this time I found it, er well them. It was an add for a pair of 510's for sale down in the ever so close, Fort worth, Texas lol. Of course they'd be over ten hours away, and like that I wrote it off. Or so I thought I did, my friends knew I had been looking around for a project car and just happened to ask if I had found anything promising lately. For the sake of conversation I brought up the 2 510's in Texas not expecting what happened next. "Well I get out of class at 5 on friday..." And with that it was decided, the trip for the Datto's was a reality. Completely dumbstruck that my friends were willing to go drive 10hrs and tow a car back from Texas, I didn't even know how to react. Except freak out since this was, well, insane!



Thursday, November 28, 2013

The Backstories: 9C1, My first project



Hard to believe that my start on working with cars began 7 years ago already. Craigslist, it's my enabler, it all began there with the purchase of this non-descript Grey 1995 9C1 recently retired from the CPD fleet.

Day 1:


The first car I was finally allowed to work on. And the Lincoln that made all this happen, air suspension was shot, leaking timing cover, weak tranny and lack of power/FWD. While it was a sweet car it's untimely delapidation led to a great journey of car care and modifications.


1st Month:





Started slowly lol, cleaned up the interior. Installed T53 Trunk lights & 6J6 rear lights, also cleaned up the ugly plain rusty rims with a repaint & center caps.


Summer:



Got tired of the rust speckled and creased passenger side, and so began the sanding and rustoleum.

Final Setup:



Ended up choosing a royal blue and black satin color scheme in the end.16 cans later and we had this, despite the (in my eyes) meh spray paint job she would always attract comments here and there of people really liking it, and they were always surprised it was all done with spray paint.




While
 she was a great car and got me everywhere I needed and places I didn't know I could (Despite it's size she was a great offroading vehicle). She blew out 1st gear at the end run of summer. So with 134K on the clock
& needing to make the 380 mile drive back to school I ended up having to sell her. Put her up on Craigslist before work and by my first break already had 14 missed calls. Listened through the messages and found my buyer. Was a kid in automotive classes and was looking for a project. He and a friend came up in a 94 Caprice, took a look at it drove it around and shook on it. Since I still had all the wiring and other things in it he came back the next day to pick her up. His plans were to drop in a LT1, Rebuild the 4L60E, new posi-rearend & finally give her the real paint job she deserved. So happy to hear she was going to continue getting the love & treatment I had always wanted to do but had neither the time, money or skills yet.

And one final photo for the night

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Like most things, better late then never...

Sitting here contemplating the fact that work is yet again only 6 hrs away despite the holiday I figured it was finally time to try and start some time of record of all the chaos that is my slowly growing US & J-Tin collection & general love of things mechanical.