Returned from the wild west.
Welp. Had a pretty good trip. Job interview went well from what I could tell. Hopefully it didn’t go even better for somebody else.
Stopped by the old dealership. Gagnon Motors, not in business anymore. But I did get to catch the owner Mr. Gagnon himself! He actually remembered the car when I threw out the name of the guy that bought it. Even remembered what color it used to be! Pretty cool.
Said they stopped selling GM in 2000 and after a fire in 2002, he just salvaged what he could and uses it for his own shop. Had a good time talking to him, and he seemed to enjoy seeing the car and talking about the old days.
For me it was kinda cool to see the car come full circle. Not too many cars go 230,000 miles and make it back to where they were sold after 23 years. I bet when he sold this car in 1985 he didn’t expect it to outlast the dealership. 🙁
While I was out in BFE, I drove out to castle rock. Take I-70 to the middle of nowhere, then head 14 miles south down a dirt road and you find Castle Rock. Saw a sign for it while I was enjoying some DQ in Quinter, KS and had some time to kill so I figured what the hell.
So I guess even if I don’t get the job, I at least had an enjoyable day off.
Cruisin’ for good!
Most of you probably don’t know. But for probably a year now, I’ve been dinking around now and again with my cruise control on my car. It used to work here or there, and then it just stopped working all together. I replaced a bunch of vacuum lines, and even got a new cruise control computer and still nothing.
So I was up helping a friend of mine work on his 455 Olds and he let me swipe the cruise control servo of his 307 to replace mine. I finally got around to switching them out and it works! I drove all the way to Kansas City, up to Sabetha and back with cruise! Yee haw! Another thing to mark off the list of things that need fixed!
Photoshop fun
New shocks!
Well with decent days back, I have a list of things I want to do to the car this year. One of the main things is new shocks and springs in the rear. As you can see, the rear is kinda saggin’. It’s not too bad, but if anybody gets in the back seat it drops real low.
It needs new springs too, but for today, I’m just putting new air shocks on. It should be a pretty painless swap. But if you frequent my blog at all, you know that when I do something to the car, it usually turns out to be more than I bargained for! So wish me luck. Updates, later.
UPDATED:
Got it done. Took about 3 hours while drinking beer and listening to the K-State game (sucks they lost, at least it’s just basketball). As far as I can tell…problem solved. It rides a whole lot better, and the rear doesn’t sag anymore. When pulling the old air lines out I noticed that one of them was plugged. So the right shock was actually still holding air, but the left one wasn’t. I still think it needs new springs, because the left side still droops slightly, probably from having that leaky shock there so long. But that’s for another day.
Here’s the old junk that was in there.
Here’s the old, compared to the new.
Installed!
Holy crap! It’s level!
Unlike most of my projects, this one didn’t take much longer than planned. I figured 2-2.5 hours if everything went right. I was pretty close. Only issue was I blew a fuse when I plugged in my air pump to air up the shocks. Knocked out the radio and the dash gauges. Good thing I keep an assortment on hand! I just have to remember now not to use the cigarette lighter until I find out where the short is.
Yup, it’s always something. Gotta love old cars. =)
Welp, I guess I’m going to let them go.
All those parts I had for the El Camino. It’s looking like I’m probably not going to find another before I move and all those parts would be expensive or damn near impossible to move. So I’m going to see what I can sell and whatever I can’t sell I suppose I’ll have to just take to the scrapyard and get what I can for it.
It kinda makes me sad, but the plan is to take the money from those parts (which is a lot easier to move 😉 ) and put it towards another El Camino. One in a bit better shape that hopefully I won’t even NEED all those parts. Luckily tomorrow is supposed to be sunny and in the mid 60’s up here. I’ll get everything strung out and get some nice pictures and start posting around and see. It’s not the most popular body style, so finding a buyer might be tricky around here. If you know anybody with a 73-77 El Camino or Malibu send ’em my way! I’ll make ’em a heck of a deal!
I got a…huh?
I ordered a new set of GM keys for my car earlier this week since I lost one of my door keys. (Which I’ve since found. =P )
And last night I stopped by the post office and they put one of those little yellow slips in our PO box letting you know you got a package. Oh giddy day for me! But the office is closed, so I come back this morning. I tell the postal worker my box number and he retreats back behind some shelves full of packages and shuffles them around a bit. Soon he emerges with a box almost big enough for a small child’s head. (Sorry it’s the only reference I could think of.)
So right off the bat I’m suspicious. There’s no need for a package that big for four car keys. But maybe they just have a good deal on boxes like that, hell I dunno. All I know is I nor Andrea have ordered anything else. Once home I tear into the box to lay my eyes on these extremely well packaged keys. But I open the box and there’s a letter from Westar Energy on the top. HUH? I skim the paper and it says, “As a special thanks for enrolling in paperless billing, here’s a free compact fluorescent bulb. It’ll save you money in the long run.” Apparently part of their Go Green campaign. After digging throught he rest of the packaging. Sure enough it’s a light bulb.
Go figure. I’ve been getting my bills online for a good year and a half now. But its nice of them to still think of me I guess. Just an odd thing to show up in the mail…out of the blue…a lightbulb. Weird.
02.8.08Hey, this is kinda cool!
I was messing around on the internet today and did a Google image search for “1985 Toronado” (sans quotes) and my car is the first result! If you use the quotes it ends up like the 3rd result. LAME!
Nothing special. Just one of those “whoa” moments. Too bad it was from before the paint job.
01.17.08Settled on the El Camino.
The insurance adjuster got back with me today, sooner than I thought. The damage did total the car, as expected. We’re going to meet next week and exchange the title and they’re going to cut me a check for $850. I’m pretty satisfied. I’d have a pretty hard time selling the car for that much, even without the roof damage. I had the option to keep the car and get about $300 less, but I’d still be stuck getting the roof fixed which would be costly to get done right. Best to cut my losses and move on to the next project, I think.
01.10.08A couple last pictures.
Well the insurance adjuster is supposed to be intouch with me here in the next day or so. So I figured I’d get the El Camino washed off and looking as good as it CAN look. At least I can say I got some use out of it. Hauled a several loads of limbs out of the place and had fun driving it to work a couple days.
Never did get much work done on it since I started painting the Toronado shortly after I got this. Just got the new bumper put on, trim rings on the wheels and a couple odds and ends. Never did get around to getting the real tail lights working though. But sure seems like she came a long way since I got her:
I’ll probably save a lot of parts incase I get another El Camino of the same body style, or just sell a bunch of parts. Who knows. Either way I think I got my money’s worth out of it, and I can say I owned an El Camino!
01.5.08My El Camino project is no more.
Well the landlord came by today with a saw to cut down limbs. Instead of getting me to move the car, he goes ahead and chops one down above the car and wouldn’t ya know it punches in the roof. 
Luckily I hadn’t done a ton of work to the car yet. But I sure was looking forward to the spring and diving into it. Even found a new transmission to put in, and I had fenders, a hood, doors and a new rear bumper all ready to put on.
My landlord is a good guy and mistakes happen. He’s gonna call his insurance company next week, but it’s without question totaled. Dunno how much I’ll get, but I guess I’ll put it towards another El Camino.
Just feeling blue about it all.