And this concludes the house search. After months of searching, 7 or 8 written offers, at least one instance of rage quitting, and many wasted weekends of kicking tires doors, we've finally closed on a house.
It has a detached garage with a skylight (!) and 120v 20a service (boo) which I'm working on upgrading to 220v 50a, it's in a nice little area, and we're super excited about it.
BTCC 850 for your time.
It's over. Shopping for a car has made me consider hating cars alltogether.
I posted yesterday about a craigslist transaction out of frustration. I'd met with a seller to test drive a vehicle. He said that he hadn't anticipated it selling so quickly, so he didn't have all the accessories and things together. We agreed upon a price, I put $100 down on it, shook, and agreed to exchange the remainder in cash for the vehicle and title the following day.
The following morning, he calls and says his sister wants to buy it. He says he's returning my deposit and keeping it in the family. This was exceptionally infuriating as we'd already agreed to a price, a time, location, and I'd put a small amount of cash on it. On top of that, this isn't exactly a common car and they're very difficult to find in decent shape.
Around 6pm, the seller calls and says his sister is flaking out. Truthfully, I was so mad at this point that I'd considered telling him to get bent. I calmed down a bit, we agreed to pick up the previous agreement where we left off, pending that we complete the transaction this evening- no questions.
Enter: The new DD. It's a 1996 Volvo 850 wagon, 5cyl, 5spd. 132k miles, and a fat stack of nearly every service performed, all at a local dealer.
Seller included the Thule rack and cargo box as well as a set of studded tires mounted to OEM steelies with hubcaps.
Also includes the original sticker at an even $33k, which seems like a bunch of money for 1996.
The stack of papers also included the original 1996 brochures, accessory brochures, and manuals.
Arguably, this is my favorite photo:
Yes, this vehicle does have the rear jumpseat. I cannot wait to fill it with blonde-haired children, absent from motion sickness.
Current plans are to do some baselining and maintenance, including new shocks and tires, replacing some of the light bulbs, fixing the seat heaters and the driver side mirror heater, and trying to track down some interior rattles. Expect to see more posts about this guy soon.
This isn't a BaT writeup or review- that'll come a bit later.
I woke up this morning, printed out the bill of sale, swung by a car wash with it for the last time, and stopped to fill the tank one last time. The whole process was kind of sobering and somber, if not a little saddening.
That's the last photo of it I took. It's odd, seeing the only constant over the past 6 years of your life drive away, but I'm happy for its future home.
Met the buyer at the airport, we spent some time going over the truck and some oddities of it, we grabbed lunch and chatted for a bit. I caught a train back home and he drove off to pick up some gear for his 4-day road trip back to California with it. He's a super great guy and I think he'll be an excellent caretaker for the truck in its next segment of life.
I'll definitely miss it. I already do.
So my partner's hand will look like this for a few more days, but it's back together. Everything went smoothly. Post-op recovery wasn't fun for either of us, but she's back on the mend and getting better!
This is Moki. She's office security, it says so on our website:
When security needs pets, security needs pets:
She took my chair for the rest of the afternoon yesterday as punishment for insufficient petting.
This past Saturday, a bunch of weirdos met up in a parking lot. They drove around, talked about a bunch of weird stuff, and called it a day.
Naw, just kidding. We had a solid and respectable turnout for the (first?) Colorado Oppositelock meetup. 9 (!!) people made it, representing a good chunk of the front range.
@Lanciere brought the Lancia
@Future-Next-Gen-S2000-Owner brought the Triumph Daytona triple
@MarquetteLa brought the R32 (MkIV)
@MUSASHI66 brought the 500 Abarth
@VincentMalamute brought the pinnacle of utility with his Transit (not pictured)
@fhrblig brought the Venue
@Grindintosecond brought the Flex, coming second with most cargo capacity + roof box
@2-Jeeps-and-a-Mustang-wants-a-Fiata brought the Mustang
and I brought the trusty 850 Estate.
Collectively, this made for 7 manual gearboxes, 2 auto gearboxes, two puppers, and 52 cylinders, with @VincentMalamute owning the most turbos (2.)
I've got a few photos below but check out others' including @MarquetteLa 's pics in this thread:
https://opposite-lock.com/topic/17626/thanks-to-all-the-colorado-oppos
Jealous? You should be! But fear not, there should be at least one more Colorado oppo meet before the end of this year. We discussed a late summer or early fall color cruise and briefly chatted about a potential 4x4 meet, as well as the possibility of a show and meet without a cruise.
There's also the AutoMezzi meet on July 18th if you'd like to see a special blue Lancia in person.
Thanks to everyone that made it out. It was awesome to see such great representation of Oppo and the eclectic mix of vehicles.
This is Fry. I haven't posted much about him, but he approves of the 850 wagon. More Fry to come in the future, if you're interested.
What? Lol, you thought it was a car? Maybe even a motorcycle? Hah.
Sucker. So gullible. I bet you'd even click this link.
Nah, it's not a vehicular addition, but it's a fabrication addition!
The Dynasty 300DX was produced in the early 00's and phased out sometime around the late 00's or early 2010's.
This one is in need of some refurbishment, it seems to peak at 92A with a foot pedal in standard remote operation (RMT STD) but will put out a full 300A in Remote Trigger Hold mode, (2t). I'm hoping it's something like a footpedal condition as the main board for these is no longer available.
Regardless, for the price, 92A is still a lot of juice for most of my applications and I think this will suffice nicely. Bonus points are that the torch, cooler, and other accessories would move to a new power supply when the time comes.
It came with a water-cooled torch, but no cooler so I'll be trying to track down one of these in addition to some more collets, lenses, a gas cylinder, and a suitable way to sharpen tungsten.
Oppo, prepare to see more photos of metal poorly adhered to other metal.
Several co-workers were feeling ill but decided they could "tough it out" and work through it. Currently 1/3rd of the office is now out with covid.
Covid is still around, not to mention every other illness we had before covid. If you're feeling ill, do your coworkers a favor and take some sick time, work from home, do whatever you need to do to not get the rest of your associates sick.
Oppo Tax:
Fry seems to really love this pillow.
@DuckDuckGreyDuck this looks like some kind of external force applied to the wood. Is it on a gate? Wondering if the gate slammed into something.
@functionoverfashion Thoroughly surprised that more manufacturers don't include factory booster seats. I don't have kiddos but watching my friends futz with carseats looks less than enjoyable.
The 850 wagon has a center armrest booster, and I suppose the 3rd row jumpseat is kiddo-sized and it comes with a booster cushion.
@Qaaaaa expecting to see the finest of TIG-stacked dimes any day now. You'd better not disappoint!
@AestheticsInMotion yammie noob has a video about the 'types of motorcyclists you'll meet' and the 'busa bro is always talking about how he's "finna put a turbo on that bitch."
@MUSASHI66 Fry does the exact same thing. No dice for the many soft, dog-dedicated surfaces.
Our kitchen has a cold concrete floor and he absolutely loves it on the warmer days.
@HFV 's post about the Lincoln Mark LT led me to a wikipedia rabbit hole yesterday, which in turn led me to the Lincoln Blackwood.
Produced only for the 2002 model year, the Blackwood started around $51,000US (~85k in 2022 money) Lincoln produced just 3,356 units before canning the product making the Blackwood the rarest and shortest-produced offering from Lincoln.
Oddities included a plastic-and-carpet lined bed with a split tailgate:
I remember seeing the launch of this at the auto show as a youths, wondering how they assessed that a "luxury pickup" could exist and questioned why a carpeted cargo area would be useful. Now, it's obvious that the pickup is just the Americanized version of a sedan and a carpeted bed with a topper makes total sense. Ahead of its time, perhaps.
As luck would have it, I ran across one on the commute home yesterday. Brace yourselves for a crappy photo through a dirty windshield:
Exciting... isn't it? ISNT IT?!
@Tripper said in Price For Mounting/Balancing Tires?:
@ibRAD The only places that do it that cheap near me aren't places I'd take the car.
There's a lot to be said for convenience. If your indie mech is close and trustworthy and saves you half a day of driving across town, I'd entertain that thought. Especially if you have a solid rapport or business relationship with this mech.
@Tripper Seems to be 20-25 for M&B around here, more if you price a niche indie shop or a dealer.
@e90m3 I feel like the root goal of these online automotive retailers is to 'be disruptive and make a ton of money' and not 'to offer a better product/service for customers, resulting in making money.'
