New Kansas Tags
Got the El Camino tagged today. Yeah it’s only got two gears, but I actually kinda need it to haul some stuff off from the yard. And the more I drive it, the more I think I’ll be motivated to work on it. Not that I’m losing interest in the car, just haven’t really got the funds to get started! I decided to tag it after I found out it’s only $8.50 a month to insure the thing. And the pro-rated taxes on it were… $0.46. Ha ha. That’s a little excessive! I’m calling a state representative about these outrageous auto taxes!
I dig the new Kansas tags though.
Light blue with the Kansas Seal on it. Not gaudy. Just simple and clean. I like it. Now if only the personalized plates were as good looking! Oh and notice the expiration sticker. It’s a truck! Don’t be calling it a car!
Slowly but surely
I’ve got some more paint on the car. Only two coats on the hood and right fender so far and still have some wet sanding to do and such. But I’m happy with how it’s turning out so far. Better than what was on there. I can actually see light reflecting off the paint now! It’s a slow process, but it’s getting done.
07.17.07No turning back now!
I started painting today. I can see now why they charge $5000 to paint a car. It’s a lot of friggin work! I started with the left front fender since it had about the worst surface rust next to the rear quarter panels. First step was stripping the cracking paint and rust underneath. It’s hard to believe what’s underneath that paint. What just looked like a 12 in. x 12 in. spot turned out to be about half the fender that had started rusting. Everywhere the paint is gone is where rust was.
From there I took some body filler and tried to fill in some of the pit marks and make a smooth level surface to paint. It turned out okay. Probably could have been better, or I should have just taken the whole fender down to bare metal but I got it as smooth as I could block sanding it. It’s not going to be showroom perfect, but that’s not what I’m going for anyway.
So after stripping, cleaning, filling, sanding, cleaning. It’s finally time for!….masking. Yeah I know I should have removed the chrome pinstripe trim, but I couldn’t figure out how the damn stuff was held on. It’s some sort of clip, and rather than break all the clips trying to get it off, I just masked around it. Yeah, it’s a hack job, but hopefully my careful masking does the trick.
And NOW I can finally paint…with a roller. Haha. It looks kinda funny right now, just like the first coat of white you just rolled on a wall, but with some wet sanding, another coat or two, and buffing it’s supposed to look pretty good. The paint already drys pretty smooth and glossy, but it’s not perfect. So still a lot of work to do, but here’s what it looks like now.
All in all this took about 6 hours of work not including drying time for the filler and the paint. Of course it’s my first attempt at such things so hopefully as I go along I’ll get better and more effecient. But either way, I gotta paint the whole car now. Whether it looks like crap or not!
07.14.07Always getting in over my head.
In one post I complain about how busy I am, and then next thing you know I’ve taken on another project.
I picked up all the stuff today to start painting my car (the Toronado). This could be interesting. I found a guide on the internet for painting with Rustoleum. Not the spray kind, but the kind that comes in a can and you roll on. Who knows how well it’s going to come out, but the rust on my car keeps getting worse and worse, and it’s not going to start looking any better any time soon. So my only requirement with this project is that it looks better when I’m done than before I started. Certianly not going for a show car here.
I’m just going to be painting one panel at a time, that way I can work on it and drive it at the same time. Pics coming starting Monday (hopefully)!
06.19.07It doesn’t LOOK illegal anymore!
Rodney and I got the bumper and grill put on today at the radio station. I figured there was a reason the bumper was off. It’s bent on the passenger side, so I guess they were going to replace the bumper and never got to putting the new one on. Good thing I have another one in the bed!
06.11.07Whatcha gonna do with all that junk?
All that junk inside your…bed.
Here’s some pics of the car since I parked it at the station. Got the car cover on it. It’s for protection and also so people don’t complain about me having an old car full of car parts sitting in the work parking lot!
Without the cover it would look like this:
Upon closer inspection some of those parts could come in handy! You can see that the old parts car was similar, but there’s a definite difference in the blue.
I’m so anxious to get to work on it, but I can’t yet. Just a couple more weeks and I’ll be able to park it and start tearing into it. The first step is going to be laying everything out and getting organized. Until then she’ll just sit quietly covered waiting.
06.10.07No wonder!
Remember that old red car that was in too many accidents to count? Well I always had this little guy riding around with me as my co-pilot.
Ain’t he CUTE!?
But as we were packing, I discovered something about this little buddy that I should have figured out long ago.
WELL THAT EXPLAINS IT!
Not to be confused with another famous “Buster”.
Alright, I’m completely nuts.
Sunday I’m going to buy a 1977 Chevy El Camino.
So by now you’re either thinking…OMG!…WTF?…or just laughing out loud (LOL).
But before you judge my judgment consider the facts. 1) The car runs and drives. 2) The parts that aren’t on the car come with the car. Plus spare doors, bumpers, hood, trim, etc. 3) It’s $250. 4) It’s an F’N El Camino!
The idea originally came about when we decided to move and I wanted to get a rusty old truck to have around as a workhorse. I started looking around in the paper but never really found anything promising. Then I saw the ad for this thing and decided to call on it. The old guy who owns it was hoping to restore it one day, but now he’s on disability and just can’t do it. But luckily for me he’s collected a TON of parts for the car so a lot of what I need is already there. There’s a few things I’m going to probably have to buy like lower quarter panels and floor pans, but the beauty of it is they’re actually reproducing parts for these cars now so you can get brand new sheet metal without too much trouble.
The Good: It’s pretty much complete and fairly rust free. – It runs so I don’t have to tow it home. – Comes with tons of parts. – It has a positraction rearend. – It’s a hell of a deal for $250!
The Bad: The transmission doesn’t shift into 3rd gear. So it’s not going anywhere very fast. Could be a linkage, or could be something internal, won’t know until I mess around with it. – It has a wimpy 305 motor – Needs a new tailgate – Needs some paint.
It’s definetly a project. It’s not something I’m going to be driving everyday, not for a long time anyway. But it’s a car I’ve always wanted. And it’s something I can tear apart and not have to worry about when I get it put back together because I have to drive it the next day. Parts are realitivly easy to come by and fairly reasonably priced. I finally have a place to work on something like this and I’m excited to get started. My ultimate goal is to pull the engine and put a rebuilt big block in it, beef up the drivetrain and build something that will pull about anything short of a fifth wheel trailer. I don’t want something that will go insanely fast, that’ll get me in too much trouble!
It’s a long way off, but you gotta have a target in mind right? Here’s some potentials as to what I’m someday aiming for with this ride.
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If I were to go with single color job it’d probably be something like this. Red, orange or black. Sure mine isn’t an SS, but that’s never stopped anybody from sticking SS in their car before! Ha ha.
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Here’s an El Camino Classic like mine with a factory paint job. I really like this color combo and I have all the trim pieces needed for it. I’m a big fan of the rally wheels like this and plan on cleaning up the set that comes with the car and using them regardless of what I paint the car.
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The rear end of these cars just looks so bad assed! I hope to mount a Reese style hitch to the frame below the bumper for towing.
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I also think they look pretty good with a bed cover.
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So there ya go. The lastest nuts thing I’ve done. Don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll be subjected to my progress as I post it here on the blog. Any cool ideas let me know!
05.10.07Sweet! My jug shipped!
Well I got some more time to work on my car at work the other day and I decided to take apart the windshield washer jug to see where it was leaking. Unfortunately there was a big ass crack along the seam that would be pretty hard to fix. I had heard that GM actually still made these things for my car (weird) so I ordered a brand new one for $20 shipped. Nice!
It said the part was “on-order” and could take 7 days to 2 weeks before it SHIPS! But I just got my tracking number! Woo hoo! I bet no one has ever been so excited over a jug! Ha ha!
04.28.07What to do with my time (or lack thereof)?
Alternatively titled: Reasons I don’t need a Wii (right now).
It’s ~9:00pm and I just got in from working on my car. Did quite a bit really. Installed a new air cleaner gasket, new hood lifts (goodbye prop bar!), and adjusted the shift points a bit. The thing shifts so much smoother now. Don’t let anyone tell you 1/16th of an inch won’t do anything! …Anyway it was a very therapeutic session (despite the frustration) after a long day of remotes and work that started at about 6:30 this morning. My shade tree mechanic work didn’t take long, maybe an hour or so, but it’s something that’ I’ve been trying to find time for for the last two weeks at least. Just haven’t been able to squeeze it in.
There’s just so many things that I’m really interested in right now, and it’s hard to balance it all out to the point where you can look back on any one thing and see significant progress. I’ve been really enjoying Guild Wars as of late. Our guild just finished up a weekend long festival of games and competition. It was a blast, but it soaked up just about any free time I had due to the time that was required to get all the prizes together and organize the event. Not that it’s a bad thing, like I said I really have been having fun with it. But it’s a big reason why I didn’t get around to working on my car until tonight. Lame or not, judge me if you must. I’ve also borrowed a copy of the new Zelda game which I’ve only put about two or three hours into and is also a BLAST! But between everything else it kinda falls through the cracks. Not to mention trying to find time to just sit down and spend some time with Andrea (though she’s been playing alot of Guild Wars lately too hehe)! Sadly the blog has been suffering as of late too.
I know, I know. It’s life and everyone that is reading this can tell the same sad story. I guess I just wanted to express my frustrations and get it out of my system. Not really looking for answers because there aren’t any realistic ones. Just hunker down and do what feels right at the moment. Oh and about the Wii. It just doesn’t seem like it’d be a good investment, as in money in exchange for entertainment value. I have so much backlogged that I really enjoy the crap out of that I’m afraid the Wii wouldn’t justify the cost unless I completely abandoned everything else. I’ll get a Wii. But not until I 1) Beat Final Fantasy XII, 2) Beat Zelda Twilight Princess, 3) Beat all the missions in Guild Wars. That should take care of most of my backlogged video games. And then I can handle keeping an old car running and kicking ass in Wii Tennis at the same time!