Ok -- for people who know me . . . anything I do seems to become an adventure. Old cars, typically end up the same way . . . there's just too many things that can go wacky for it not to be a thrill ride.
So we drive up from Blue Springs, Missouri to Liberty, Missouri in my father-in-law's 1992 Dodge Ram diesel extended cab 4x4 truck with a 20 foot trailer on the back. The last adventure we had was with bringing my 1991 Dodge Dakota back from St. Louis, Missouri -- which can be a whole story all by itself. The trailer we had this time was setup a lot better to get a car. I got there and traded cash, signed paperwork and my father-in-law started airing up the rear tire that was flat. We thought maybe we could just push the car down the road and roll it right up on the trailer. The street was kind of jammed up with cars parked all around, so navigating a truck and trailer wouldn't be very easy. I hopped in the car to steer it and the seat fell back and jammed -- it wasn't bolted in. In all fairness, I knew this already, as the seats were just sitting on the new floor pans that were sitting in there. (About $200 worth of patch panels already sitting in the car -- SCORE!) Then I proceed to get out and I wacked my head . . . . short little British cars. The emergency brake seemed to be stuck, and with the little rock holding the front wheel, I figured they wouldn't be much use. I guess I neglected to mention the lack of brakes to my father-in-law also.
So he thinks that he can just hold the car back and we'll just roll it down and onto the trailer. He pulls forward a bit and we hope that we'll be able to just slow it down. The next shocker was one of those true "Kodak" moments. He asks me to turn the wheels a bit as we start pushing it down the drive and I grab a hold of the steering wheel and "WHEEE!!!" . . . it spun like a Pat Sajaak was handing out a free spin. Well that made for a little interesting conversation peice. We sat back and thought about the next plan of attack.
We got the trailer backed up into the driveway and fortunately the car was in the right position that we could just roll it right on up into there with no problems. We strapped it all the way around and were soon motorvating home -- the car merrily bouncing along. The trip was uneventful and thankfully so. We backed in the drive and unstrapped the car. We let one of our cables be a guide and then we both got behind the car for the trip down the ramp -- "WOOSH!" About that time my father-in-law had his shoe lace under him and my docker shoe had the sole nearly part away. We managed to get the car down the ramp (2000 lbs or so??) and stopped before we ended up in a bush or dirt pile. We were a bit worse for wear, but at least it was on solid ground again.
I put the car on some roller skates -- but unfortunately I only have one set, so we put it under the front wheels and pushed it up to the garage. The lip of the garage in the concrete hung us up and the car was at a weird angle where we couldn't push it any further. I jacked it up and put the skates on the rear of the car and we pushed it around to straighten it up. We did great until the wheels on the car skates hit the concrete lip again -- the car kept going but the skates didn't. I've used those things before with no problems, but this is the first time I've had them come out from under a car. The right side came out with no problem, but the left side must have been just slow enough that the skate tipped up and snagged the rear panel of the car and jammed itself in the way. UGH!
I jacked the car back up and managed to get the car skate out of the fender. As you can see, it just snagged a little metal . . . some quick work with a hammer & dolly should take care of the bend and a little weld and it'll be good as new. When we were done moving it in the garage, we were both pretty exhausted. It's a small and light car, but it was well over 97 degrees even at 8:30 at night when we were done and the humidity -- like pea soup! The car seemed to be a bit better in my mind than imperson . . . or at least sitting in my garage. The worst of it all looks to be cosmetic in nature . . .but that's another story.
Ok . . . maybe not . . . but I've wanted to have a pic with a car worthy of GRM for a while. This one I think will keep me happy. At $600 purchase price, I could also squeak it into the $200x challenge at some point. I wonder how a stock motor with a shot of . . . . or maybe . . . . DOH! KISS
Anyway, just had to have a little fun with pics . . . if your wondering why they're all from the passenger side . . . it's because the driver side would leave me sitting on the floor. Hehehe.
