https://carsandbids.com/auctions/3oYk6Djv/1994-mitsubishi-pajero-2800-td
The Pajero is now live on Cars and Bids. I've committed an act of pure capitalism and sent it in a no reserve auction. I'm hopeful it is a neat enough truck to not regret that decision. I'm slightly encouraged by the fact the two people are bidding on it 20 minutes after it went live.
Doggo had to approve entry first...
Often when I get something that says fragile on the outside, I do the mispronunciation and the "must be Italian" joke from A Christmas Story, but sometimes what's in the box actually is Italian. Or at least is some carbon that was laid up in a Chinese factory for an Italian company.
I very much like the feel of this frame frame, and the color spoke to my soul. When an endurance type carbon frame popped up in my size and a color, it was easy deciding what was going to happen with my tax refund this year. The idea with this project is to build a nice, carbon road bike to replace my current 2015 Scott Speedster 20, which is only an okay road bike (and aluminum). I love the way carbon road bikes ride. The plan is an Ultegra groupset, however it appears exceedingly difficult to actually purchase a complete group set in these Covid times. The back up plan would be to swap the 105 groupset from my Scott onto the frame for the time being and pickup some mechanical calipers.
The plan is also to initially build the bike with the stem, bar and seat post from the Scott, as the dimensions are close enough between the frames that I should have an eminently ridable bike with those old components on the new frame. Once I've ridden the bike enough to know exactly what I want for those components (and a pro fitting is also in the cards), they'll get replaced with nice parts.
The wheelset also arrived today. Part of me wanted to dive into a custom build from prowheelbuilder.com or the like, but the wallet was a lot happier with an endurance road focused DT Swiss ER1600 wheelset. I like 'em in the flesh. Moderately light at a touch over 1600 grams in a 23mm rim height, 24 straight-pull aero spoke setup and nice, sealed-bearing hubs, all for a reasonable $750 shipped. I was pleasantly surprised to see them already taped for tubeless out of the box. These will get some tubeless 28c slicks. I'm aiming for a light, but supple riding road bike for all the shitty pavement around Southern NM.
I've made the decision to list the Pajero for sale, so I got around to Svending it over the last couple of evenings. This would be the one and only time I've dressed the tires on it. I even reinstalled the 3rd row jump seats in the back.
I will miss it, and it certainly ranks as one of my favorite vehicles ever owned, but the amount of time I spend riding bicycles now confirms my desire to simply my fleet and spend less time cleaning and maintaining cars. Compared to a year ago, I still spend lots of time adventuring around the desert, only nowadays it is almost always on a bike instead of the Pajero.
I'll throw it up on the local list'o craig and marketplace, but I don't necessarily expect a local sale. I'll take some pictures of it this afternoon and start thinking more about where else to list it. Ebay seems like an option (and one that worked well with the racecar), and I might look into Daddy Doug's cars and bids. The full size, 4-door/turbo diesel/5-speed manual combo is fairly rare for imported Pajero's these days, but I don't know that this truck is at all BaT worthy.
No, I didn't buy an Alfa or Ducati, but I ordered some two-wheeled Italian anyway in the form a carbon road bike frame to build up. I've been low-key shopping for a future nice road bike, and the Covid-addled state of the bike market in 2021 has left pretty slim pickings for what I've got in mind. After thoroughly enjoying building my fixie from a bare frame, I've come to realize I'm not adverse to trying that again with the added complexity of brakes and gears. A few days ago this Cinelli Veltrix spoke to my soul in this lovely colour. This afternoon I pulled the trigger and placed an order. I'm excited by the idea of a sub-4lbs frame and fork combo.
This should be a fun, expensive project. I'm planning an Ultegra groupset and nice stuff for components. It'll probably take a couple of months to source all the parts. Once it is complete, I'll sell my current Scott to someone else wanting their first real road bike. From the beginning, I've never considered the Scott a forever bike. It was always just going to be a placeholder until I moved onto a nicer road bike.
With the realization that I'll be riding my current Scott road bike for a couple more months, I continued the bike theme this afternoon by dropping it off at the LBS for a going over and making the garbage front wheel slightly less garbage with a bearing overhaul and truing. The bike is better tuned than when I got it, but its really needs a going over by someone who does it for a living. I've been invited to join a Sunday morning group ride of some fairly fast roadies around here, and it seems like I ought to at least have a front wheel that is true and sans bearing noise.
Bike evening continued some further dropping of the stem on my fixie. I finally got around to playing with the spacers this week, and things feel very much better with the stem down 15mm now from where I was guessing when I put the bike together. Once I'm satisfied I've found the final spot, I'll cut the stem.
I got to clicking around folders of old pictures tonight, and the ones of my former C4 caught my eye and prompted a reminder of my early Oppo days. I stumbled onto Oppo in early 2016 as a regular Jalopnik reader that was starting to dabble in the comments. In the course of replying to a HHFP comment, I inadvertently clicked on his username itself and was taken to his profile page. From there I clicked links on all these interesting things posted to something called Oppositelock. I was hooked fast, and have been here since. Oppo actually changed my life in a number of ways.
At the time, I was daily driving a 1993 Corvette with the LT-1/6 speed manual combo on a 20k/year highway commute. It was a fun car and one I'm glad I owned. I may well own other vette someday, but probably never another C4. I don't I think I bring myself to own such a dated and compromised platform again, but it was fun to do for a couple of years. I bought it from the original owner (my parent's next-door neighbor) with 50k on it. I drove it for a couple of years and 40k before moving on. I was only able to use it as a big-mile commuter because my commute was entirely rural interstate with 2 stop lights and 3 stop signs each way. That would've been a brutal car to drive in stop and go traffic or lots of urban city driving.
I got an email with a FedEx tracking number for my Dura-Ace groupset that is supposed to ship tomorrow. Perhaps it actually does exist, although I won't fully believe it until it arrives at my door.
In somewhat related news, I rode my fixed-gear bike over to a nearby brewery for beer and bluegrass with a good friend this afternoon . Another friend of mine plays in a bluegrass/americana group was playing the brewery. It was the first time I've heard live music since pre-Coivd times, and it was sublime. Afternoon sun, live music and beer lured me into spending twice as long and drinking twice as much beer as I planned. When I was initially ready to leave other friends showed up, which led to more beer and staying out past dark and hours past when I planned to be home. This mattered because I didn't bring any headlights for the bike, and brakeless fixed-gear riding without light and with beer in the dark is probably an ill-advised venture. They ended up giving me a ride home, so all worked out.
It was a wonderful day, they type of which I haven't had since before Covid. Going out happened within a very small group over the last year, but going out on no notice, staying out, randomly running into other friends and then staying out more is something that hadn't happened over the last year.
The downside was that dinner was late for the head of household security. In general, now that I'm unsupervised at home I've been working to find the balance of time at work, time at home with the doggo and time riding bikes/socializing. It frequently leaves me feeling guilty, because Ellie deserves all my time and she can't come to work with me. Late doggo dinner and an extended scritching session got me forgiveness. All the good spots were scritched.
Have a good night, Oppo.
The Pajero [auction] is ending soon.(https://carsandbids.com/auctions/3oYk6Djv/1994-mitsubishi-pajero-2800-td)
I've gotten a ton of questions and comments about it in the last 24 hours, and talked to one bidder on the phone for an hour about the truck this morning. I have no idea what it is going to sell for, but I am cautiously optimistic.
@chariotoflove I deeply appreciate that this thread is progressing in a manner similar to the discourse of our meetings.
My secret Senna delivered in a big way yesterday. Thanks!
I wanted to go for a nature walk in the snow this morning, so I drove up to the base of the Organ mountains outside of town. Along the way it occurred to me I should take some pictures of the Pajero in its formerly natural habitat. The maintenance stickers on the truck indicate it lived its first life in Obihiro, Japan, so cold and snowy ought to remind it of life before getting imported and moving to the desert Southwest.
Snow is rare treat in the Southern NM desert lowlands. We get a few inches of snow once or twice a year in a typical winter. Highs will be back up to the 60's next weekend.
With a forecast low of 14 degrees freedom units tonight, maybe I'll shoot a cold start video tomorrow morning if I remember. It'll be grumpy firing up at first.
@mazda616 I saw this and thought "that's not gone well!" in my best inner Clarkson voice.
@chariotoflove Interestingly, both of the bidders that were going at it were dealers. The other one was in the Boston area, I think. As @drVanTraveler mentioned, perhaps these are dealers that sell toys to rich folks with FU money that don't care about the price. I think he's going to lose money on the truck, but then again I don't have much access to folks with stupid money to spend on toys.
@houstonrunner said in The pipe o' crack found the Pajero.:
@ita97 said in The pipe o' crack found the Pajero.:
I do get a chuckle that they copy pasta'd the description from the Cars and Bids auction.
I guess the buyer's fee gets you rights to the text?
I'm guessing Doug would say no.
https://www.zonemotorschicago.com/details-1994-mitsubishi-pajero-used-v464038013.html
I see my former Pajero has made it to the dealer that bought it, and a hit from the crack pipe was taken. Asking $40k for an imported truck that cruises at no more than 75mph, and even that not really willingly... I paid $13k for it shipped. He paid $15.5k on Cars and Bids (plus 4.5% buyer's premium, and probably $600ish to ship it to Chicago) which was probably $2-3k more than I think it was worth, given that you buy a Pajero from the importer of your choice today less for than $15k.
I guess they're hoping to find a rich person that wants a toy, and I wish them good luck. I don't think they'll get even half of thier asking price for it, but I could be wrong. Either way, I feel good about the small profit I made owning and enjoying the truck for a year and half and hope it ends up in a good home.
I do get a chuckle that they copy pasta'd the description from the Cars and Bids auction.
@shop-teacher said in That 2014 Tahoe PPV on Auction:
@ita97 How did that end up? If you made a follow-up post, I missed it.
https://opposite-lock.com/topic/14141/status-glued-to-my-screen/1?_=1621257329775
It ended up selling for $15.5k, which is about $3k more than I thought it was worth. I still need to do a write up on all the quirks and features of Cars and Bids, but it was good experience selling with them.
@rusty-vandura Cars and Bids works in a similar manner where any bid within the last few minutes adds another minute to the auction. It made the closing of my Pajero... exciting.
@vincentmalamute In a last ditch alternative, you might take the old fork and seals to a local hydraulic shop and see what they can come up with. If you're really feeling frisky and are good with calipers, you should be able to download the Hercules Hydraulics catalogs. For the most part, if it exists as a seal (and isn't for Deere tractor or earth moving machine), it should be in their catalog.
I got an email with a FedEx tracking number for my Dura-Ace groupset that is supposed to ship tomorrow. Perhaps it actually does exist, although I won't fully believe it until it arrives at my door.
In somewhat related news, I rode my fixed-gear bike over to a nearby brewery for beer and bluegrass with a good friend this afternoon . Another friend of mine plays in a bluegrass/americana group was playing the brewery. It was the first time I've heard live music since pre-Coivd times, and it was sublime. Afternoon sun, live music and beer lured me into spending twice as long and drinking twice as much beer as I planned. When I was initially ready to leave other friends showed up, which led to more beer and staying out past dark and hours past when I planned to be home. This mattered because I didn't bring any headlights for the bike, and brakeless fixed-gear riding without light and with beer in the dark is probably an ill-advised venture. They ended up giving me a ride home, so all worked out.
It was a wonderful day, they type of which I haven't had since before Covid. Going out happened within a very small group over the last year, but going out on no notice, staying out, randomly running into other friends and then staying out more is something that hadn't happened over the last year.
The downside was that dinner was late for the head of household security. In general, now that I'm unsupervised at home I've been working to find the balance of time at work, time at home with the doggo and time riding bikes/socializing. It frequently leaves me feeling guilty, because Ellie deserves all my time and she can't come to work with me. Late doggo dinner and an extended scritching session got me forgiveness. All the good spots were scritched.
Have a good night, Oppo.
@spacekraken I care about gearing and shift feel/quality more than I care about brakes, but that could also be partially a function of spending lots of time riding a bike without any mechanical brakes at all.