Archive for category Cars
I dub thee “Bionic Caddy”
Posted by RyanG in 1967 Cadillac Sedan Deville, Worklogs on March 11, 2010
It's been a while since I've provided an update about the progress of on the Caddy. Mostly because things have been slow due to a busy work and family schedule. Here's the rundown of what I have gotten done though.
I have rebuilt the carb, and realized that a broken vacuum pot on the carb was actually only used to crack the throttle open a bit and increase the idle RPM when the A/C was running. Since the A/C system is not holding pressure, and looks like it hasn't in many many years, I went ahead and removed this "extra" part. Hopefully this'll fix the hesitation problem that I detected on the few short drives I took.
Mystery Solved!
Posted by RyanG in 1967 Cadillac Sedan Deville, Worklogs on February 2, 2010
Well there she is, the source of my clunk! And, the way it’s sitting in there explains why the engine wouldn’t turn past TDC as well since that thing woulda been right in the way. So far as I can tell it’s a small(ish) washer that got folded in half. You can see a few more shots of it over in my Flickr set. What remains a bit of a mystery is how it got there. I’m guessing it entered through the intake, and it’s possible it was sitting on top of the throttle blades of the carb. Tough to say if it was there when I got it, or if I managed to drop it there while I was working.
All in all, there doesn’t seem to be much (maybe any?) damage from the whole debacle. The you can see both the cylinder wall and the combustion chamber for that cylinder, and they both appear unharmed!
Remember back when I described that one of the cylinders had a spark plug that had 0 gap and appeared damaged? Yup, you guessed it, that plug came from this cylinder. Makes sense, all of the steel for the cylinder wall, piston, and head are harder than the washer would have been, and the spark plug would have been a softer metal as well. Soft enough to sustain some damage from that thing flinging around in the cylinder. This also explains why it seemed fairly inconsistent, when that cylinder was not on it’s power stroke the washer would have happily just moved up and down the cylinder wall in place. Then when there was ignition in that cylinder, the pressure probably sent it flying around!
I also made another discovery while I was working. The bolt on the front of the crank that I’d been using to turn the motor over, doesn’t actually belong there! The balancer is simply pressed onto the crank with no big bolt to hold it on like you find on many other motors. It’s becoming more and more apparent to me that one or more people who’ve worked on this thing haven’t been terribly methodical, and clearly didn’t have a service manual to reference. In spite of that, the motor appears to be fairly low mileage and it quite good condition.
The plan now is to do some more inspection and measure things to see if they match the tolerances set out in the service manual. If everything checks out, I think I may just put her all back together and run her. Going to keep my fingers crossed that everything is as tight as it appears to be so I can get some miles outta this thing!
Engine Autopsy
Posted by RyanG in 1967 Cadillac Sedan Deville, Worklogs on February 1, 2010
I got the engine out of the Caddy this weekend! The first lesson I learned is that I should have either removed all of the pulleys and water pump, or removed the front clip of the car. I had a TON of trouble getting the motor out past the radiator core support! In fact, I wound up yanking the water pump off while the motor was in limbo just to buy myself a few more inches of clearance.
Once it was finally out, and safely on an engine stand, I started my investigation and search for the source of my “clunk” sound.
First, I yanked the intake manifold and the cover for the lifter valley. I found nothing particularly interesting there, certainly no obvious foreign object which would account for the noise I’ve been hearing. So, I tipped the thing over and started pulling out oil pan bolts and upon removing the pan I was greeted with what you see on the left.
Now I expected to find chunks of oil dipstick in the engine, since I’d previously reported that the dipstick appeared broken. What I did not expect though was that the dipstick would be so completely mismatched! The photo on the right shows the engraving of “Ford” on the dipstick. Apparently the previous owner just decided to toss whatever dipstick he had handy into the tube, and call it a day.
Not knowing what the original design of the Cadillac dipstick is, I can’t be sure, but it feels like this is a bit of a poor design.
If the dipstick is straight, and goes down the dipstick tube straight, it appears as though it’ll run right smack dab into the rotating assembly as you can see on the left.
As satisfied as I was with my discovery, I realized pretty quickly that this couldn’t be the source of the “clunk” I was chasing down. The bits of dipstick were simply too small and light weight to account for the sound I was experiencing. Plus, when I pulled the oil pan off, all of the bits were sitting right inside the oil pickup which means they were likely “stuck” there by suction from the oil pump any time the engine was running. So I kept inspecting, looking for any other foreign object big enough to account for what I’d heard.
After several minutes of looking around with a flashlight, I figured I’d start turning the motor and seeing if anything seemed out of place. I pulled all the plugs so that compression wasn’t an issue, and started turning the motor over. It turned nice and easy until it neared top dead center (TDC), where it halted and I couldn’t seem to continue turning it no matter how much (reasonable) force I applied. Perplexed, I went ahead and turned the engine the opposite direction. Again it turned smoothly until I had reached a full rotation in the opposite direction and it again stopped dead in it’s tracks. Hrrmnnn..
So that’s the current mystery, the engine doesn’t seem to turn over freely any more now that I’ve pulled it out, and turned it upside down! I knew it couldn’t be piston to valve contact, since it’s a hydraulic lifter motor and almost all of the lifters had lost pressure allowing all the valves to stay closed. So, more likely it’s piston to head contact. I didn’t notice any obvious signs of bent connecting rods or loose connecting rod caps so the cause isn’t readily apparent. Next step will be to yank the heads off and see if there is any obvious damage which might indicate which cylinder is causing the problem. The title to this post may be a bit premature, but I don’t suspect I’m going to find anything minor. Stay tuned as I continue to tear it down to find the problem!
No More Guesswork
Posted by RyanG in 1967 Cadillac Sedan Deville, Worklogs on January 24, 2010
Having discovered that both of the motor mount nuts were missing the Cadillac had earned a stay of execution. Early last week I purchased a new set of fasteners for only a dollar! After installing them I had expected to just start the car up and see if the “clunk” sound had gone away. Imagine my surprise when it cranked over and over and over, and over again without starting up!
I’ll spare you all of the details of troubleshooting the no start issue, but suffice to say I replaced my ignition coil, and second guessed myself countless times on the proper firing order and timing for this engine. At the end of the day, (I think) the timing was retarded by nearly a whole cylinder and one of the terminals of the coil wire was smashed.
My victory over the timing, and getting the car running was short lived though. It ran for only a few seconds before I heard the “clunk” noise I had been diagnosing, and it occurred a couple more times before I shut it down.
A new mystery has surfaced as well. I may not have already mentioned that my oil dipstick seems to be a replacement from some other vehicle, and that it seems like it was actually broken off near the end, so it doesn’t reach the oil in the crankcase. Well, in addition to that mismatch I discovered something else quite interesting while troubleshooting my timing issue. I had the motor near TDC for cylinder 1, but had gotten a bit past it, so I started to turn the engine “backward” to get it back to TDC. As I did so, I noticed that the oil dipstick seemed to be moving! Curious, I continued to turn the motor backward, and the dipstick continued to be forced out of the dipstick tube!
I’ve put off removing the motor long enough, it’s going to come out, and I’m going to do a very thorough tear down and inspection of motor. Hopefully, I’ll find the answers to all of these mysteries, and hopefully I’ll find that the motor is in good enough condition to use for a while.
The Surprises Continue
Posted by RyanG in 1967 Cadillac Sedan Deville, Worklogs on January 11, 2010
With things starting to slow down with my work schedule, I was actually able to take this weekend off! I got to relax quite a lot, spend some time with the family, and spend a little time in the garage with the Caddy.
You may remember from my last last update about the Cadillac, that I had a few outstanding mysteries to try to resolve.
First, let’s talk about the “easy” one, the Harmonic Balancer/Dampener. You see, it seemed have been bent or damaged at some point, since one side of it was closer to the engine than the other. This created a situation where it would “wobble” on the crank as the engine was running not cool! As was preparing to remove it, I pulled some of the bolts which hold the crank pulley onto the dampener. What I noticed is that when I removed the first bolt, which happened to be in the spot on the dampener where it was “pushed out”, that the dampener seemed to start returning to it’s original shape. After completely removing the bolts, and using a pry bar the dampener was back to it’s original shape! Turns out that someone before me replaced one of the pulley bolts with a bolt that was nearly twice as long, and it was pushing on the dampener causing the problem I observed!
Now, for the more onerous “clunking” noise. When I first heard it, I thought for sure that it was an issue with the valvetrain, so sure was I in fact that I pulled the passenger side valve cover off expecting to see a bent push-rod, or a broken rocker arm, or some other catastrophic failure. Imagine my surprise when I looked under the valvecover and found no problem what-so-ever! I even pulled the drivers side, thinking I’d misjudged the origin of the noise, no luck there either. At that point I had pretty much decided that the engine was going to come out, and I needed to do a complete inspection to find the source of the issue. I put my tools away and put the project on hold for awhile.
Now, as it just so happens in the meantime I read this little gem, which described another symptom which I’d just sorta ignored. I read down to the 6th post in that thread, and I had a light bulb moment. If my valves were sticking open, it’s possible that the “clunk” I heard was the rocker arm smacking the stem of a still open valve. This would explain why it wasn’t a consistent sound which increased with RPM, since the valve(s) may not stick on ever revolution and increasing RPM probably got the valves moving enough that they did not stick. So, the valve covers came off again, and all the spark plugs came out, and I began turning the engine over by hand, fully anticipating that I’d see one or more valves on the passenger side staying open. Sadly, I was disappointed once again as everything worked exactly as it ought to.
At this point, I was again convinced that the only solution was to yank the engine entirely and do a thorough teardown and inspection. I did a quick compression test which I’d been intending to do for some time. All of the cylinders were within a few PSI of 150, except for the # 5 & 6 cylinders, which were both just north of 170PSI. That’s a fairly good sign that the shortblock is probably in decent shape, and I’ll probably be able to run this thing once I solve the mystery of the “clunk”. So I proceeded to yank the wiring, and everything else I needed to on the top of the motor, then jacked the car up and headed underneath to disconnect everything down there. Once down there, I took a quick peek to see how hard it was going to be to access the engine mount fasteners. Imagine my surprise when I realized that BOTH of the engine mount nuts were missing!
It occurred to me pretty quickly that this could just as easily be the source of my “clunk” sound, the engine slapping against the crossmember when it skips a beat. And even makes more sense that it would be the passenger side since the engine rotates in the opposite direction! At that point I put the car back on the ground, put my tools away, and called a day. Today I am going to go buy some replacement nuts for the motor mounts, and hopefully install them soon to see if that solves the “clunk” mystery. If it doesn’t this time (for sure) I’ll be pulling the motor out to tear it down and inspect it.
The next mystery for me to solve is that the spark plug in the #8 cylinder had absolutely 0 gap! I’m hoping that it was just a mistake while installing it, and not a piston which reached up and slapped it silly (that could cause a clunking noise too), we’ll see soon enough!
Opening Pandora’s Box
Posted by RyanG in 1967 Cadillac Sedan Deville, Worklogs on December 2, 2009
So when I bought the Caddy, I knew it had a cooling system issue. The previous owner had diagnosed it as a leaking water pump, so that’s where I started. Little did I know what lay in store for me!
First, the 429 Cadillac motor which is in the 67′ Deville was only made for about two years, and in very low volume. As such, there is hardly any aftermarket parts available for it. I spent about two weeks trying to track down a water pump before finally finding one on eBay. One of the biggest issues was that I could not tell if the pump was a one, or two inlet pump. None of the illustrations showed any difference between the two. I finally was able to track down a Cardone part number, and find actual photographs of the parts. Turns out I had a one inlet pump.
So secure in knowing that I’d ordered the right water pump, and a number of other supporting parts (thermostat, hoses, belts, gaskets, etc), I started tearing things down. The first thing I noticed is that the apparent leak in the cooling system probably wasn’t originating from the water pump, but looked like it was likely coming from the lower radiator hose which was bulged and clearly distressed. This is interesting, since the pump that was installed was aluminum just like the original, and could possibly be the stock water pump!
I also took this opportunity to remove some other ancillary bits which weren’t needed or functional. Someone before me had already disabled the “smog pump” system by removing the hoses from the air pump to the inlets on the exhaust manifold, but they had left the smog pump and brackets in place, so I finished the job of removing those. I also removed the A/C compressor since that system had long since lost pressure and was not operational. Interestingly, the compressor was only held on by a single bolt!!
I noticed also that the mechanical fan attached to the water pump did not have a clutch, which is normally installed on the A/C equipped cars. I decided that rather than trying to reuse that fan, I’d go ahead and install an electric fan, we’ll elaborate more on that in a later post though. The radiator also seemed fairly new. Nicely painted, no bent fins and no obvious rust inside like there obviously was in the block.
One other thing I noted was that the harmonic balancer on the crank appears damaged. It kinda looks like someone took a big hammer and hit it, causing it to bend into a sort of taco shape. Going to need to probably pull that off and see what’s what.
So, having completed the water pump R&R and getting it all back together, I started the car up to pull it into the driveway and let it warm up before topping off the cooling system. I cleaned up a bit as it idled in the driveway, then went to “tap” the throttle to bring it off of high idle. Of course, the throttle stuck! After getting the pedal to come back up, the engine was still running, and all seemed well aside from a little smoke. Then, I started to notice a “clunking” sound that was coming from the passenger side of the engine compartment. Not really consistent, and didn’t increase or decrease with engine speed. Not knowing what it was, I quickly pulled the car back into the garage, and called it quits.
And that is how it has sat for several days since then. I haven’t had a chance to look into the mystery clunking noise, and the balancer is still misshapen. I had hoped to get some miles out of the stock 429 before doing an engine swap (which was always my plan), but it’s starting to look less promising that I’ll be able to do that. A shame too since I wanted to try to get a chassis dyno run or two in order to see the “actual” stock horsepower/torque numbers of the 429.
I’ll do a bit more diagnosis of the “clunking” noise, and see if I can repair the balancer without too much cost. Stay tuned here for more!
From Project Car to Hobby Car
Posted by RyanG in 1967 Cadillac Sedan Deville, Personal Expressions on November 22, 2009
I’ve owned quite a number of cars in my relatively short driving history thus-far. And a lot of them have been what I consider a “Project Car”. Now to me, that always meant a car which is pretty much your daily driver, but which gets lots of attention on evenings and weekends to either upgrade or (more commonly) repair it. These wrenching sessions were ALWAYS labored and rushed because, well, I had to drive the car to work the next day, or the coming Monday morning. This made working on the cars stressful, and burdensome, like a chore rather than a past time or enjoyable hobby.
Now that I’m a little more grown up, and have a family, our primary car (2006 Honda Odyssey) is quite new and is well maintained and needs very little (if any) attention. We also have my wifes car which is the second she’s ever owned, and is a little bit older (1992 Lexus ES300) but is also in quite good condition and is reliable. So that leaves my ‘67 Caddy, which is in need of a lot of TLC so I wrench on it, but the experience is different from that of a “project car”.
I had never realized it before, but working on a car can actually be fun! Don’t get me wrong, it’s always been rewarding, to see the results of your hard work. But when you have to rush to get done so that you have the utility of the vehicle when you’re done, it detracts some from the experience. I think I’ve stepped into a zone of having a “Hobby Car”, which to me means a car that I get to wrench on, rather than have to wrench on. A subtle difference to be sure, but very significant when it comes to the experience.
Take my latest project for instance. I had to replace the water pump since it (apparently) had a leak. Normally I would have run to a parts store, perhaps Friday afternoon or evening to get all the parts that I thought I would need. Saturday morning would come, and I’d remove the necessary parts to replace it. I’d discover that I forgot a replacement part, go to pick it up from the parts store then make some progress, and realize I needed another part I hadn’t picked up. Rinse and repeat the drive to the parts store a few times. Then upon reassembly I’d hit some snag where I either broke something, or lost a part, or was otherwise discouraged. This usually happens late on Saturday night, when I was starting to think I’d wrap the project up. I’d admit defeat, frustrated, and go to bed. Wake up late Sunday since I didn’t go to sleep til late the night before. Drag myself out to finish the job, usually repeating some of the frustration and parts runs and finally wrapping everything up late Sunday. Then, drive the car to work on Monday.
Now, however I get to really take my time. Identify the issues, order all of the right parts in advance, and even pick and choose the superior brands and have them mail ordered. I have time while the parts are in transit to clean everything up that I’m working on, removing rust, dirt, and old gasket material. Maybe even do some cosmetic things like painting. No hurry, I don’t “need” the car to be running to get me to work or take care of my family. I get to work on it at my own pace. I find that it’s actually relaxing, rather than stressful. How novel!
No doubt, the fact that I’m also able to work in a garage contributes to the overall satisfaction, but I think a lot of the enjoyment comes from being able to take my time and do the job right, with no looming deadline.
So for all you guys out there with project cars, consider buying a reliable daily driver, and make your project car a hobby car. This is advice that older, wiser gearheads have given me in the past, and I never quite understood it, until now!
The Explorer
Posted by MarlenaG in Cars, Personal Expressions on November 9, 2009
When I first discovered the Explorer it was in my Spanish class during a video group project presentation we were doing. One group accidentally left in a part when they were cruising around in their Eddie Bauer Explorer singing along with the Spice Girls, What you Want. ::chills:: Ewwww. I thought it was cheesy then when the song was at it’s height and it still annoys me to this day.
It was a cute car but it just seemed too trendy for my liking. I already was starting my love affair with Honda and Toyota. About this exact time my husband, who I didn’t know, was dreaming of owning an Eddie Bauer Explorer, along with a long list of other cars that he would so love to own. My husband has been a car guy from birth, honest.
I had a good friend that I knew since I was 13 that bought an Explorer after we graduated from culinary school. She was a personal chef for a family in town and had to do a lot of driving as they had a gourmet pallet and it was her job to keep them happy. She would drive all over town to get certain items from specialty stores as it was only the best of the best for this family. One day she got on the free way and didn’t see the car in her blind spot till it was too late. While trying to avoid hitting the other car she spun out of control and rolled the Explorer. She was hurt but not terribly hurt. I then was petrified of the vehicle.
By this time I was dating my now husband. I knew he wanted to own a Explorer one day. I saw the stats on the news, heard news story after news story about the vehicle being prone to roll overs and how the pillars in the car weren’t as strong as they used to be. Every time the car came up in conversation I would get knots in my stomach and would kindly remind him that he already had two cars and I had my own car. Why on earth would we want a fourth car? The topic would be dropped.
Three years later the topic came up again, by then we were married and my husband was in the process of selling his only car. To be honest the car was too small for my husband, when he hit 45mph in that thing his head would bounce against the roof and it was driving both of us nuts. He promised that he would be safe in the Explorer, that he would lower it and brought me so many articles about how if you were to drop it by 1 and 3/8″ it would be a whole lot safer. Some of these articles were written by professional drivers and the lowered Explorer was able to compete with some coupe cars in handling. I finally gave my blessing for him to buy the Explorer.
It was a great car, I even drove it for a while as I was trying to learn how to drive my new to me car which is a stick. It had great pick up, fantastic storage space. When I was pregnant and was too big to drive my manual car I drove the Explorer as I didn’t have to be too close to the steering wheel. We brought our baby home in that car.
My husband had made many modifications that made me feel more comfortable with us driving the Explorer on the regular. The suspension was more responsive, the brakes were incredible, the audio system was AMAZING. I began to trust the car to keep us all safe when it was dry out. I noticed that it got scary squirrely in the rain and when the ground was wet. I would pray that nothing ever happen to my husband or child while in this car, it seriously scared me.
Then one day, I was rushing home as I worked really late. It had just rained for an hour or more, sudden down pour in April. I figured I would take a faster route as I was engorged (did you really think I wouldn’t mention boobs again?) and was worried about my son having a melt down with my husband. I lowered the volume of the stereo and headed out. I kept reminding myself that I needed to be careful, that it just rained for the first time in a long time. I needed to be aware.
I sat at a red light and saw that it was safe to make a right on to the free way on ramp. I slowly pressed on the accelerator topped out at 10-15mph when the turn was completed. Then I fish tailed. I suddenly started chanting to calm down. I reminded myself not to touch the brake, not to touch the accelerator and no turning the steering wheel because that is how my friend lost complete control of her Explorer years ago. To just try to let the car coast until I got traction again. I soon felt the car calm, felt like I was in control again. I slowly pressed on the accelerator again, got up to 25-30mph and then felt the car begin to spin. I immediately took my foot of the accelerator and reminded myself not to turn, touch the brakes, not to touch the accelerator again. When I saw a construction sign directly in front of me I decided it was time to close my eyes, there wasn’t much I could do, I just didn’t want the accident to be any worse than it was going to be.
I opened my eyes when the car stopped moving. It was surreal, I wished it to be a terrible dream. Then I realized that I couldn’t get up, I couldn’t get of the car on my own. I was hanging from my seat belt looking at foliage on the median and couldn’t find my cell phone. That is when I screamed, cried, begged for help praying someone saw me and would help me. I finally found my cell phone and called my husband to get help and to apologize for destroying his baby, his car. I didn’t realize that my blue tooth was still connected to my phone, which I ripped off pissed that I couldn’t find my phone. I couldn’t hear my husband answer and not knowing he could hear me I spoke to the good Samaritan that stopped and called 911 for me.
I attempted to call my husband again and all I did was cry, I apologized over and over for screwing up. I felt like the worst wife ever. My husband responded the way a husband should, “Shut up! Are you ok? Where are you? I love you. Everything is going to be ok as long as you are ok.” I told every fireman, every police man, and every EMT, every Doctor and nurse I interacted with that night about how I destroyed my husband’s dream car.
My husband took care of everything for the next week, he was my knight in shinning armor. I don’t remember him moping or ever telling me bitterly that I destroyed his car. To be honest, I will be happy if we never own another Explorer, or any other SUV for that matter. I am happy it was me in that car as I am quite a bit shorter that my husband and I am not sure if he would have been able to walk out of the ER a few hours after being checked out. I am thrilled my son wasn’t in the car with me. That was my relationship with the Explorer, our break up was dramatic but long lasting.
Cars
I have had a great interest in cars for much of my life, it has been a means of freedom to me. I am a little prejudice when it comes to brands when it comes to vehicles, and you can tell what I prefer by looking at the makes of the cars I have owned in my short life. I have had a ‘91 Honda civic, ‘92 Lexus, and ‘06 Honda odyssey.
My mother’s history of cars haven’t been all that grand. She had an Ford escort when I was little and due to not changing a belt the engine was destroyed, sadly from then on my entire family got a bitter taste in their mouth from that experience. Then my mom had a four door VW rabbit, while my father drove a GTI. Mom’s car was named Tweetie as it was yellow and just a sweet little car, while my father’s was named Thumper as it was a fast car and when he shifted there was a bit of thumping as he shifted hard and fast.
The next car was a Sunbird and it was a tired, tired car. My mom bought it from my father’s girlfriend at a steal but honestly the mistress of the hour should have paid her to take it off her hands. I remember the roof was only foam and would shed every time we got into it, and a pen was the shifter. My mom needed a car, only for a short while as my mother finally left my father and relocated to be closer to her family.
The next family car was a Toyota Corona and I would spend my days sitting in the car pretending to drive, pretend shifting in the driver’s seat. I just imagined driving for a long time and merely stopping to have an adventure where ever the road led me. Then my mom got an old Honda Accord, and we were all so proud of her. It was a fantastic car that lasted for 7/8 years, turned out she got the one year of Accord that wasn’t that great and when it died, it died. They didn’t release that car in Japan which meant replacement engines were incredibly expensive.
By that time I was figuring out what my next car would be as my ‘91 civic hatch back simply didn’t feel all that adult. I sold it to my mother for a steal and bought myself my 92 Lexus. The civic took care of my mom for six months then began to putter and act up then we helped her shop for her current car, a Nissan Sentra. The husband fixed the civic which was renamed Put-Put as it became my little sister’s. Put put was just traded in for a Accord coupe as my sister was craving more horse power and something with a/c.
That is my current car history, nothing compared to my husbands, but three cars fit me and I love to do the long haul with cars. I also get emotionally attached so there is no reason to replace or trade cars all that often for me. I think one of the reasons my husband loves me is because we can talk about cars and have a debate as he is open to almost any and all makes and models, while I tend to lean toward the Japanese cars as they have been fantastic to both myself and my family. Hey, if it isn’t Japanese or German, my family has little to no interest. Terrible but true.
The X is dead.. Long live the X!!
Well, it’s finally done. Today I hauled the last bit of the Explorer to the junk yard. By this point, all that was left was really the front suspension, the frame, and the shell of the body. It was not a straight forward experience though, lemme tell you the story.
As you can likely tell from the picture the vehicle was pretty much completely stripped. The rear axle was also removed, since I have a couple potential buyers for that. So, I have only the front wheels to roll it on. Fortunately, a member of the Explorer Forum came out last weekend and grabbed a few items I had left which were going to be difficult to ship, and brought me a second spare tire, so the front end is rolling on two spares rather than my nice Cobra Replica wheels, which I also have a couple buyers lined up for.
So the question is, how do you move a vehicle that only has wheels on one end? The easiest answer was to get a two wheel car dolly to stand-in as the rear axle. Easy, right? Well it would have been, if there had been any for rent in town! I started the search yesterday, and called every rental place in town. None of them had the tow dolly I need. So, after hours of searching and coping with my own disappointment that I wasn’t going to be able to finish this project on schedule, I sucked it up and made an online reservation with U-Haul. Now, the fine print says that they’ll make good on the online reservation no matter what. So I figured they’d haul one in from nearby or perhaps magically produce one from their bat-cave warehouse. But, it was not to be only moments later I received a call from the reservation office. They informed me the equipment I needed was in Santa Maria, some 70ish miles away. I hymned and hawed for a while, but finally agreed to go pick it up from Santa Maria, and drop it off here.
So today it began, I headed out at 11:30AM since my reservation was at 1PM to pick up the tow dolly. It was my day to watch Quincy, so of course he came with me. The drive out was uneventful, made it in just under an hour, and didn’t even get stopped for speeding! Things went smoothly picking up the tow dolly, and I was off in only a few minutes.
So, first things first. It’s time for Quincy and I to eat, or it ain’t gonna be a pretty drive home. 
We don’t have Del Taco at home, so whenever I can I seek them out and patronize them. Quincy was absolutely STOKED to sit in a booster seat, and he ate like a champ (sweet!). After a quick lunch, we were on out way home.
The drive home was equally uneventful, but much slower. I just set the cruise at 60MPH and pointed us south. The drive home took more like 1.5 hours, but I didn’t want to find out what happened when/if I exceeded the comfortable speed of the empty trailer.
Got home about 3:40PM and the fun was not yet over. I had to get the trailer under the X, and get it all strapped down. That was a bit of an adventure. Quincy was done with his car seat, so I had to manage him while I jacked up the X and worked to get the trailer under it. Kinda wished I had another arm right about then. After some struggling, I got the trailer under the X, and strapped it down with a couple chains, and a pair of nylon straps.
Off to the junkyard at last! I pulled into Steel-Head at about a quarter to five. Cutting it close! I’d called them yesterday to warn them that this thing is really stripped, and they assured me they’d be happy to take it. After they saw it though, they were more than a little surprised at just how stripped the vehicle was! The guy helping me said “Seriously, you did better than my guys do”. This makes me happy. I love hearing that a project I’ve taken on has been accomplished at least as well as “the pros”. 
The downside of course, is that they realized there wasn’t anything they could sell, which they assumed there would be. As such, I had to pay them to take it which I fortunately anticipated.
After agreeing on the price, the forklift came out, and I started unstrapping the truck. It had shifted slightly in transit, and one of the chains, which I’d looped over a crossmember and hooked to itself, was completely bound up. I tried tugging, pushing the truck, everything I could think of. I was probably at this for about five minutes, battling in vain while the forklift driver waited. Then it struck me, I’ll have the forklift driver push down on the truck, compressing the suspension, and giving me the slack I needed! I emerged from under the vehicle and took two steps toward the forklift driver when he said “You want me to push it down?”. It’s like he read my mind! In reality, he was probably watching me, laughing, knowing what needed to happen and just waiting for me to realize it. Whatever the case, our scheme worked, and the X was free moments later! The picture to the left is the last one of the X. I learned later, as I was leaving, that the forklift driver was sitting there waiting for me to pull out of the driveway, I was in his way! You can almost sense the X’s despair, as though it’s standing before the executioner hoping for a last minute phonecall of repreive. No such luck this time!
I have to say, there are some mixed emotions. This is the first real “nice” vehicle I ever owned. The first vehicle I ever financed and paid off. The vehicle that my wife and I brought out first baby home in. The first vehicle I customized to this extent. Lots of firsts. But, it’s time to move on. It’s been almost exactly five months since my wifes accident, and neighbors were starting to ask questions, and I was growing weary of seeing it in the car port. Now that it’s gone, it’s time to move on to bigger and better things. Namely the Caddy. I’ll always have a place in my heart for the X, but I don’t think I’m going to miss it terribly.
Here’s to you X, you’ve given me and my family lots of good times. You’ve treated us well, and in the worst case scenario you kept one of my most precious possesions safe by sacrificing yourself. X, rest in peace.
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