Including you, Oppo.

(pause for MOTHERFREAKIN' FERX MERSTERNG)

Life has been up and down, more up than not. A lot of ins and outs, a lot of what-have-yous, and there's a lot of Really Important Shit that's happened recently that I'll maybe write about later. There is much to be thankful for: my family is in good health, even if my wife and kids won't stop touching the damn thermostat. My job is secure, and my home has weathered California's storms relatively unscathed. I've been avoiding adult beverages during the week, antidepressants have changed my life for the better, and I've been reading a string of good books and finding new music. Drums and cycling continue to clear my mind, though I wish I had more time for both. All in all, I really don't deserve to complain about anything. Stress is ever-present in a thousand ways, but I think I'm better at taking it in stride than I have been at any other time in my adult life. A lot of things scare the shit out of me these days, from AI to anti-democratic tendencies, world war, and apathy about climate change. But I, personally, cannot change any of these things no matter how much I might fret. So I'm trying to look inward, locally, in my immediate sphere for ways to find the light in days so often shrouded in dark news. Oppo shines brightly.

I know several of you have undergone and are currently suffering numerous trials in personal lives and health, and I think of you often. Oppo has been a presence in my life for a long time, a positive force and supportive community, even when I've felt like I didn't care and nothing was worth it. Which was pretty often, at times. I hope that we remain that place for those who need it now. I have to admit that we feel less personal than we once did, but by and large I think this place has adapted well to its various changes, despite the occasional need for a Sebring Alert and intervention from @Curators in their tireless work keeping the unexcellent at bay.

I feel like I know some of you better than many who profess to know me in real life, and we definitely have more in common. I'll see a car or (insert esoteric interest here) and think of an Oppo more often than not.

Now, despite the incessant pace of life, the world's general state of madness, existential despair, and the occasional attention seeking drama & snark of late, I want to see how you're doing. This is a homie check-in: Y'all mean a lot to me, I do care, and I want to know how you're doing.

Back on its feet. Feels ok for an eyeball alignment. Hopefully I make it to work tomorrow. Next, get it on a rack, go over everything, and align it properly. Then LA Saturday? Pressure still on, but this is an immense weight lifted.

Guess I have to get my shit together now.

Submitted my car on a whim, expecting nothing because it's a piece of shit. Shit's in pieces. Ruh roh.

Gonna bring my bicycle in case someone makes an offer I can't refuse, so I can ride home and buy a Foxbody.

We got a cat. Didn't mean to, I'm not much of a pet person other than the turtle I've had since I was 8, a box turtle named Enzo. I love other people's pets, just never really wanted a dog or cat myself.

My coworker's wife, who works for Animal Services, brought him into the shop last week. I melted instantly. Then I made the mistake of showing him to my wife and daughters, which sealed my fate. He's about 11 weeks old and was found in a park with an irreparably broken leg which had to be amputated, making him instantly endearing.

This brings me to the name. What do we call a 3-legged kitten? Well, because we love Star Wars and I am a dad who is legally obligated to make bad jokes at every opportunity, I have named him Threepio. He is smothered in love by my family, and has spent an hour or more on my lap every night since we brought him home over the weekend.

He is so fluffy I could die.

I know how much Oppo likes pets, and we could all use a smile, so I had to share and hope this little guy brings a moment of joy to you as he has for us.

Neighbor gets interesting car. I walk over to look at car. Hour long conversation ensues. It is the way of things.

Story time!

We have this customer, who may or may not be a billionaire, but is certainly extremely wealthy. He has a legit pro-level golf course at his house. Apparently he had a hand in the invention of the bar code scanner, among other things. He's got to be going on 80 years old, if not more. (OK, OK, technically not a boomer, but the behavior tracks so it sticks).

ANYWAY

He drives a 1980 Mercedes-Benz 450SLC with over 700,000 miles on it in a George Washington's axe kind of way, and a ratty eggplant-colored 1964 E-type roadster which he bought new. I have bled on both cars several times. Today I told him I don't want to fix his R12 AC that I can't get parts or refrigerant for, and it would need to be converted to R134A, which requires everything and many thousands of dollars. And no one here wants to do it, because...

1: He is a pain in the ass, with unreasonable expectations.

2: His car is a pain in the ass, and is turning to dust. His dashboard would break in half if removal was attempted.

3. We can't get parts for it anymore.

4: Mercedes-Benz R107s are awful pieces of shit that do nothing well and I hate working on them. (ok, that's my personal, professional opinion, but I am in a group chat of at least 6 other guys who unite over this single fact. Accept it.)

BUT

That's not why I have brought you here. No no! I have brought you here to share his unbidden rantings on humanity and all the things that our subsequent generations should do to survive the apocalyptic wasteland that his is nearly done creating! He does this every time he comes in, so I've taken to sparring with him for fun. I think we both enjoy it.

To be clear, I do not punch at this guy's level of intelligence, he is incredibly smart and has done a lot, but he is also out of touch with reality on the ground for the rest of us and is deeply eccentric in a crackpot inventor kind of way. One of those smart people who will tell you how smart they are, at length, while missing the forest for the trees. I think he enjoys our little back and forths, and only comes here because we're about the only guys who haven't become completely sick of his shit.

As (if) you read this, keep in mind that he sounds a lot like Ross Perot with less accent and a little Dana Carvey, and that I am openly laughing through the whole thing.

I often forget that as an Old, some of my references are lost on the yoots. If you are too young to know the Perot/Carvey thing, here is an example:

....

OK, background complete, here we go.
To protect the innocent (?) I shall call him... Tim?
I swear to you that this is as close to verbatim as I can recall.

Bold is him, italics me:

----FIRST----

"Ok, got a minute? I'll tell ya something.. By my calculations, we only have 17 years left, max. The way things are, maybe 2030. Surface of the earth will be unlivable." (mind you, this is not because of climate change. It is nukes.)

Well who cares about your AC, then?! (I am clearly joking, in light of our previous conversation)

(office counterpart laughing, saying "disengage, disengage!"

"Know how we survive?"

Sure, Tim, rich people go to space, the rest of us live in squalor and fight to the death?

"You're wrong! We go underground! Do you know the temperature 10 feet underground?"

Yes, Tim, you've told me before. 58 degrees.

"Good memory, you've heard this! All around the world!"

Yes, I remember your last rant." (Yes, I said rant)

"You only need 2000 square feet 10 feet down for a family of 4! A vegetable garden above that footprint will grow all you need to survive!"

(nevermind the unliveable surface conditions, surely that will not affect food growth..)

Nice idea, but where, Tim? With what resources?

"You don't need resources, do it yourself!"

Diggers and land cost money.

"You don't need money, no, get a shovel!"

2000x10sq.ft with a shovel, huh? Where's the free land?

"All you need is dirt!"

Dirt costs money. Just the footprint is $150k around here these days, I don't have that. And I dug a 6 foot deep, 80 foot trench for my sewer connection, forget 2000sq feet down 10! (sensible chuckle, nevermind that most of the ground around here is sand & rock)

"Bah, you can... Did you know the Federal government owns 50% of the land in..."

They tend to show up with guns when you try to take it!

"Anyway, you get some dirt, you can do it yourself!"

"With my back surgery and metal in my shoulder?! I'm fit, but come on..."

....

"Where's the water, the power? Need to buy solar, that's not cheap"

"We need exercise! A bike! You put a generator on a bicycle, why, you can store 400W a day! You and your family get on..."

"Man, I ride bicycles 2,000 miles a year, it's the only time I find peace. I know that and I hate stationary bikes" (laughing)

"Ah, but... grumble... how old are you?"

42

"Hmm, you'll be 50... "(trails off, shakes head ruefully)

How old are your kids?

7 & 10.

"Those are the ones I worry about"

No shit.

"Are they in public school?"

Yes..

(shakes head) "Get em out of there!"

For what, private school? Speaking of resources, you have any idea what that costs?

"No no, self-taught, homeschool!"

Tim, it takes two jobs to support a family around here, my wife's only just been able to go back to work, and we were all just forced to homeschool our kids for a year and a half. No.

(Covid will get him fired up, too. It was a calculated risk bringing up the pandemic. You know how conspiracy theorist bingo goes).

"You can't lose hope!"

Too late! (I'm laughing loudly at this point).

"By the time you're 60..."

Come on, it's not like there will be social security waiting for us, and you just said we have 17 years, so who cares?

"Bah, you're being a fatalist!"

"Well yeah, welcome to late Gen X and everyone since. We didn't do this!

"But you can't lose hope!"

(laughing) Come on, all is lost!

"We've gotta work on you, I'm gonna come back and show you"

OK, Tim. Keep your windows down, get that fresh air while we can!

"I'll be back!"

---

This has been the first installment of ...

!The Rantings of a Wealthy, Eccentric Boomer!

Yesterday was three years with this car. Meant to post but got interrupted, much like this project. My own fault, really. There's a point when I lose steam. I let life get in the way or other things take precedence, and the world's worries steal my mind, focus, interest, enthusiasm. For these machines, passions, sometimes for life itself. It'll sit, disassembled and sad, and eventually be sold for no greater purpose than punching the clock on another unrealized dream. I can feel it because it's happened before, more than once. Please, not this time. Not this one.

My grandma once said, with a knowing look, that I was burning the candle at both ends. I didn't think anything of it then, because I was (and remain) an idiot, but she was right. Turns out she knew more about the unspoken family history than anyone ever cared to tell me. Now I know how it feels when that slow-burning wick is more like a fuse, why my mind works (or doesn't) in ways I've never understood. Three things have kept me from self-destruction: cars, music, and bicycles. These are the only ways in which I've ever felt a state of flow, maybe even grace, when the mind lets the moment drive. I imagine someday soon that only music and bicycles will remain as the only defensible way to find that place. There's an urgency to this. To that end, some quotes stick with me:

Cam Wayland in the Rennfilms/JoshyRobots Luft 6 clip:
"We're not going to get to do this forever."

A guy in a Grand Canyon doc, on his father's desire to move the family to the mountain West:
"Dad's dream died at the dinner table."

I want so badly to feel free with this unfeeling machine, this childhood dream, one last fling with internal combustion before the future necessarily takes it away.

My Califlorio rally friends are running the Eastern Sierra this weekend, and I miss them. That route was something I helped dream up over beers, having never explored that side of the range. Following along on the Overcrest rally adventures in Utah last week fed the flame, too, and the Faultline 500 before that. Multiday drives in the wide open West beckon, while the West can still be run wide open. There's work to do, and not just on the car. I have to make a point of it, and it has to happen soon. With perseverance and any luck, I'll be a better man getting into a better car, to find a better place. One day I'll launch into the Sierras and find the end of the pavement, then the end of the dirt, then get on a bike and find the end of the trail. Maybe I'll find myself there. I haven't seen him in awhile, it'd be good to catch up.

Oh man I love Mustangs I'm excited
Leaking!

Grabber Blue!

GT500 in prototype camo!

RocketBunny SEMA car!

Le Mans testing!

Mach 2!

Bullitt!

This is gonna be great, so good. Take my momey.

I like old trucks. Safe to assume you do, too. My particular love is Fords, but I understand the appeal of them all. Few things are as cool as a worn old workhorse still in service, proudly showing the scars of its years. I've only had one "old" truck, a purple & white '95 F150 4x4, but have long wanted something properly old. Here in California, that means pre-1975. I notice them everywhere. In fields, across parking lots, and Craigslist. I found this one when picking up dinner the other night.

I found my friend Shawn his 1967 F250 crew cab, 360/manual, for what amounts to pennies these days. Friends and acquaintances unintentionally scratch my itch with Ford, GM, Dodge, even International trucks of their own. My cousin buys and flips them regularly. I need one for myself, and that ball is now rolling:

I found this 1971 F250 Camper Special on Craigslist only minutes after it was listed, and immediately sent it to Shawn. Because that's what you do. As I'm sure it is with many of you, most of our text string is Craigslist ads, beer time scheduling, and dumb ideas. But this one looked a little less dumb than others, at least for us. It seemed very fairly priced (anything under $5000 for one of these, since my brain still prices things a decade ago), appeared to be in decent condition as a rolling project, and was in appealing two-tone instead of the common monotone light colors. The only hurdle was that it was 90 minutes away on a Friday evening and would need to be towed. As I recently purchased a car for my wife and...uh, accidentally gained a two-car project package deal in a matter of weeks (more on that in another post later), and by the way also have disassembled other stupid things in the garage, I was not in a position to grab it myself. A plan was hatched: Shawn would buy it, we would work on it together and I would provide as many parts as possible, then I would purchase it from him for the cost of his investment later. We've been friends since we were 5, and though we lost track of each other for a few years, we've picked up right where we left off and are furiously making up lost time. That makes this a perfect and seemingly inevitable, or at least overdue, buddy project. That evening, we hitched up "Ike," his now-trusty '67 F250, to a UHaul and hit 101 through the rolling hills to Los Alamos after work.

It was a fairly typical ranch truck, various dents and gouges, rust here and there, and had been sitting for awhile. But it would fire and run with a healthy sound and no scary smoke, and the old C6 engaged gear well. The roof was not about to peel itself off around the drip rails, and the cab corners were not holes where once was metal. The torn red seats were covered in the usual blanket, but the truck was complete minus one trim spear and a couple of hubcaps, and these days, it seems half the battle is having a full interior and trim to work with.

The dusty rural twilight time of day and sound of kids playing baseball in the street behind us could not have been more American as we cranked that long dormant V8, and while I am not often proud of this country, in that moment it felt right. Just a couple of American boys who grew up together in a small town, looking at a truck that's 9 years older than we are, feeling its soul in our bones. We decided this was the one, a deal was struck at $3800, and we towed it home that night.

Late night VIN decoding and parts catalog dives ensued, in which it was established that it was the 543rd vehicle to leave the San Jose plant in November of 1970. It was painted in Wimbledon White over Candy Apply Red, optioned with the 360FE, C6 transmission, and Dana 60 axle with 4.10 gears. It was sold new in San Jose, and has apparently been a California truck its whole life, ending up only 3 hours south of its birthplace. We were told that the engine had been balanced and the heads built for unleaded fuel, and that it now ran with 9.5:1 compression with a Holley 750 and Flowmaster headers. While we haven't confirmed anything but the carburetor, intake manifold and headers, it certainly has a slightly hotter than standard FE bark.

Shawn is a professional pilot, so when he's not on call in some exotic American city, he's a mad tinkerer on all things Ford. He used his first block of time to dig into the fuel system, finding rust, rust, and more rust. Predictably, it ran all the way to the tank itself. Thankfully, this is readily available, and he removed the seat to replace it right off the bat. No sense rebuilding that Holley to run rusty shellac through it. When he removed the seat, among other detritus such as nails, matchbooks, and shells, he found one Ace of Diamonds. I've never named a car, but he names most of his, and this one named itself. With that, I am very happy to introduce to you Ace.






April and May have been wildly busy months for a hundred reasons, but Shawn has been making amazing progress while waiting for me to have some free time to share. I'll try to share updates from time to time, but now, I have to go looking for more parts to catch up with him! Thanks for reading.

@AkioOhtori This is the worst idea I've heard in awhile, but you definitely shouldn't not do it. Just imagine the joys to be found in a car that looks like an E30 but doesn't work.

@CarsOfFortLangley WHY BACK IN MY DAY

@tophercrowder Not again!

See ya on the other side

@beefchips Depends on whose reman. Delco remans of older models have not had a great track record lately. I've seen quite a few bad Bosch units too, sometimes right out of the box.

@fhrblig I buy mine in bulk

@davesaddiction Well now it's just a Lincoln Mk8

@Fish-McSticks I know where to find a W12 that's already in a van it shouldn't be in, I'll just pull it for ya

@WBizarre I don't particularly care for the CLS styling, either, but the AMG makes the best of it. I'd do an E-class all day, but I was trying to keep things on the frippy end of 4-door style

@Mark-Tucker Nice! Fantastic color and truck.

@Sam-Blockhan The 3KGT triggers PTSD for me. Never again will I work on Mitsubishis. Possibly. That Corolla gives me tingles though.