I've had the itch lately to get another classic car. I've been cruising Marketplace looking at various Buicks and Oldsmobiles and Pontiacs and such, and I about fell off the crapper when I came across a listing for my old '74 Buick Apollo!

Here's what it looked like when I sold it six years ago for $6500.

It seems that the guy decided to fix the couple bits of rust bubbling under where the quarters met the rockers, and then scope creep got the better of him.

Much to my pleasant surprise, my wife immediately said I should make an offer. So I did. I offered $3000. It's a solid car, and mechanically it never let me down. We'll see if I get it!

UPDATE: My offer was accepted! I think I'll be picking it up next weekend. Man, I gotta clean out the garage!!!

To this?

As you can see, my 1974 Buick Apollo was a complete, handsome, and charming old car the first time I had it.

Here's the short version of the story. The car was the purchased in the early 2000's from the estate of a "little old lady" by the previous owner, who was a body guy. The car only had 13k miles on it at the time, but being a rust belt car still needed new quarter panels and some patches in the floors. The car was resprayed the original color, but with added metallic for extra pop.

I bought the car in the summer of 2007 for $5800, with 23k miles on it. My wife and I dated in it. I had lots of ideas and desires, but no money. We got married, bought the house, had a kid, had another kid. I ultimately decided to sell it because all I was doing with it was taking it out on the occasional Saturday night cruise by myself. I sold in in August of 2015 having put another 4k miles onto the odometer. Here's a rear 3/4 shot. You can see my wife's beloved '06 Mazda 3 in the background.

Frankly, I never regretted selling it. With that garage space, I was doing other fun things. I bought the Roadmaster wagon, rallycrossed the bajeebus out of the RallyMetro (still the best under $140 I've ever spent, thanks to @XJDano for that). Most recently I've been having fun on 2-wheels with a bunch of scooters and now my free motorcycle.

It was only in the last couple months that I started getting the itch to buy another classic. The spark for me was I began watching Vicegrip Garage on youtube. My wife got into watching it with me too. I figured if I sold a scooter and the motorcycle once I got it going, and maybe even talked my wife into selling her Vespa, then we could afford something decentish to enjoy as a family. My kids are older now. My 7-year old in particular loves to help in the garage, and even says she wants to be a mechanic when she grows up.

So, I started looking at classics. While most things were either rust buckets or nothing I could think of affording, it did appear there would be options. The reason I bought the Apollo in the first place, is because the value of it is way less than it would be if it was a '74 Nova ... despite the fact that the Nova was hit with the ugly stick in '73, and then hit even harder in '74. That paradigm is holding true still. You can't touch a Chevelle or a GTO on a 4-digit budget, not one you'd want anyways. But a Lemans or a Skylark or a Lesabre? There's stuff out there.

Then to my great surprise, I found my old Apollo for sale, from the very people who bought it from me. Then to my even greater surprise, when I showed the ad to Mrs. Shop-Teacher, she said I should make an offer! And then to my utter shock, that offer (which wasn't a lot over their then highest offer), was very quickly accepted!

Which leads me back to where we started. How did the car end up like this?

The couple that bought the car from me, were true enthusiasts. They had every intention of driving this car, and driving it a lot. They even put regular plates, instead of antique vehicle plates, because they wanted to drive it more than the AV plate restrictions would allow.

Once winter set in, they decided to fix the couple of problem areas in the body. It doesn't show in the pictures, but the lead joints where the A and C-pillars met the roof had reacted under the newer paint, and also along the drip rail. So they decided to shave the drip rails, which lead to a lot of surgery because its the drip rails that tie the pillars and the roof together.

This also caused them to pull the front and rear glass, where they found rust in the window channels that they repaired. At about this point they realized the paint that was on the car, because it was a custom mix (even though it started with the stock tone), was unmatchable. He said they tried something like 18 test panels before giving up.

Now they were into a color change, and the whole car got blown apart. Scope-creep had gone full steam ahead. They decided to murder the car out. They were going to paint it a dark Ford grey. They pulled all the trim and had it powder-coated black. And I do mean ALL the trim. They even had the wiper blade frames done.

They even bought wheels and tires, which they offered to sell to me separately. I think I'm going to stick with the Buick wheels myself.

Mid 70's American cars are known for giant bumpers that stick way out from the cars themselves. Urethane "bumper" fillers took up the gap between the bumper and the body. The Apollo was no exception, and the fillers were not in great shape. The rear one was even missing a piece (it fell off literally a week before I sold the car). Being Buick specific pieces, and having the durability of a candy wrapper, replacements simply do not exist.

When they bought the car, I told them how I'd always wanted to narrow the bumpers and tuck them into the car. They actually started the process. The bumpers were sandblasted, the bumper jack slots and trim holes were filled. I guess I'll have to finish the job and actually narrow the bumpers! Which, I reckon means I'd better learn my ass how to weld already!

But that still doesn't fully answer the question. WHAT HAPPENED? Scope-creep is only half the story. The other half of the story is, "We paid for a complete paint job."

A story as old as any. It happens with cars all the time. It happens with houses too. You trust the person doing your work, you pay them up front ... and they never finish the job. They got screwed, and they lost who knows how much money in the process.

I know exactly how much they lost to me. I know they spent a ton on powder-coating all those trim parts. The car has a new dashboard pad, new carpet, and a new package tray waiting for it that they purchased. Those aren't cheap. Foose wheels and Michelin tires aren't cheap.

It's a sad story. They spent so much money. They had such grand plans. And they got proper-fucked. They are very nice people. They went above and beyond to help @Miss-Mercedes and I get everything loaded safely. They did not deserve what happened to them.

I am putting this gadamn car back together! I'm doing it for myself. I'm doing it for my wife. I'm doing it for my kids. Hell, I'm doing it for them to. It won't be a fast process, and it won't be a show car, but it is going to be a car again!

He wanted to know why my truck was idling in the alley behind the bar a couple blocks away. As this was news to me, so did I.

Yes, my truck was stolen last night. Thankfully it was recovered with minimal damage. They scuffed up the front bumper on the wall in the alley.

And when they came to the dead end in the alley they abandoned the truck, leaving it running. For good measure they decided to smash the taillight as they were leaving. The pieces were all right there as it sat.

The feet in this photo belong to the officer who was collecting physical evidence. They are investigating, although the odds of them catching the thief are slim, at least they're trying.

I got an estimate for the damage of a little of $1100. If they do manage to catch the fucker, I'll sue the prick for that. Until then I'm going to put a taillight in it and move on with my life.

How did they steal it? By taking advantage of me being a dumbass who not only left the truck unlocked last night, but had a spare key in the ashtray. A crime of opportunity. I don't have any cameras, and none of my neighbors cameras captured anything.

I'll have to be more diligent about locking the truck from now on, and more to the point not keep a fuggin' key in it ya damn moron! (That's me yelling at me.)

It was a sucky way to start the day, but ultimately I am incredibly lucky. This could have ended SOOOOOOOO much worse in so many ways.

My daughters both participate in cub scouts. Last night was their pack's Pinewood Derby competition. They both improved. My oldest even won a few of her heat races. It was a good night.

Anyways, my wife is the den leader for our big one's den. All the leaders made cars too. She decided to make a Bandit, and if I do say so myself ... she freakin' KILLED it!

Eastbound and down!

The Buick is back home, and I'm damn happy to have it. But oh boy is it in a lot more pieces than I thought it was. I still would have bought it if I had known, but the timeline is definitely a lot longer for getting it back on the road than I thought. Oh well!

I stopped by my favorite cheap body shop on the way home with it. Unfortunately I was given the, "We really don't want to do it, but here's the price" price. So plans B, C, and D will have to be considered. As soon as I figure out what they are.

A HUGE thank you to @Miss-Mercedes for all her help today dragging this junk heap home!

No, it's nothing sordid.

Actually, quite the opposite. With the support of Mrs. Shop-Teacher, a few weeks ago I took on a booth at a very nice local antique mall. It was one that we used to go to regularly, before we had kids. Then we tried going again when my oldest was two, and that did not go well.

This July, now that the kiddos are nine and seven, we decided it was finally time to go back. When we went, we found the place had been fixed up really nicely, but they had lost nearly all of their vendors that sold anything interesting to men. I sensed an opportunity, and so I put an application in to be a dealer there, which was quickly accepted.

I named my booth Pop's Work Bench after my dad. My motorcycle crash delayed getting the booth going, because I couldn't lift anything, but now it's in full swing and things are selling well. I'm selling tools, diecast cars, and other "mantiques."

I actually started this display case in woodshop class during my junior year of high school. I can't tell you how many times I moved it unfinished. Well, 25 years later I sent my teacher (who I am friends with) a picture of it finally finished. @fintail will recognize much of my diecast stock. I bought a LOT of stuff from him back in the kinja Live and Let Diecast days. This is but a small fraction of it. As I figured, 80's diecasts are selling QUITE well. 90's/2000's Johnny Lightnings are selling pretty well too.

My goal for this is to make some amount of money, but I have no delusions about this being anything but a hobby business. That's why suddenly I've been going garage sale-ing on my scooter. I need to make sure I have enough inventory to get through the winter. And frankly, it's been a lot of fun!

If you care to, you can follow Pop's Workbench on Facebook. As somewhat of an old, that's really the only social media thingamabob I know how to use, and barely so (please tell me if that link doesn't work, because I'm not sure I did that correctly). If you don't want to do that, you can count on seeing posts about it here too, just not as regularly.

I loaded up the family yesterday and we drove 250 miles up into western Michigan. Traffic/construction were pretty brutal, so with only two short stops that took us six hours.

Today we met @454ssracetruck and his delightful wife. The purpose of the truck ostensibly was to pick up these minibikes he gave us.

The bikes aren't QUITE rideable yet, but getting them still blew the girls minds. They had no idea that was part of the equation. They thought we were just going to see my friend's farm/animals.

We then spent several hours both seeing the farm and meeting the animals. Cows, goats, pigs, chickens and giant shaggy dergs!

Oh, and we did do some riding. He had a little Honda semi-auto dirt bike, a little Chinesium 2-stroke ATV, and a Honda quad as well. Didn't ask how big Amy of the engines were. My little one's hand are still too small to work the brakes, so she rode in front of me on the big quad. My big one rode both the ATV and the dirt bike. She was actually much more comfortable on the dirt bike, and rode that a ton. I had to call it after a while. She didn't want to stop, but I could tell she was getting tired. Overall she did phenomenal. I'm super proud.

We stayed a lot longer than I planned (we drove back this afternoon/evening), but we enjoyed every minute. Thank you @454ssracetruck and your wife again! We had a great adventure today, and it's always nice to meet new friends

I have a summer birthday. Actually, I turn 40 on Tuesday. For my 8th birthday I received the coolest thing ever at the time, a calculator watch. Unfortunately, before the end of the summer, it was stolen from me at the local pool.

32 years later, my wife has righted that wrong. I received this 80's hotness for Father's Day.

I smiled every time I looked at it, for the rest of the day.

We spent the weekend as a family up at Road America for the IndyCar race. A good time was had by all. Full report to come later this week.

This little baby turned nine years old yesterday. I don’t understand how that happened, or where the time went. It simultaneously feels like this was taken six months ago, but also a lifetime ago. I guess technically it was a lifetime ago, her lifetime so far ago. I genuinely can hardly remember what life was like before her.

She was born at 4:27pm. Yes, I can remember that because it’s a famous engine displacement size. It took an emergency c-section after four days of torture and turmoil for my poor wife. It was by far the scariest event I have ever lived through, and chaos doesn’t begin to describe what a shit-show those four days were.

Then I got this moment. Alone with my new baby, the room was warm and dead silent. Just me and my little peanut. That was the moment that I knew I would never again be alone in this world.

It was also a sad moment for me, as it was seven months nearly to the day after my mom had passed away. This little baby would have been her first grandbaby, and my mom would have been such a wonderful grandma. It was only then that I understood how much my mom really loved me, because now I could feel it for my daughter.

The love you have for your child is a feeling that knocks you right on your ass when it first hits you, in the best way possible. It’s unlike anything else in the world. There is no way I can explain it. If you have kids, you know.

The turmoil wasn’t over either. While the baby was healthy, mom was in rough shape. There were another four days of scariness ahead of us. At a few points we couldn’t help but wonder if mommy wasn’t coming home with baby. Thankfully, our worst fears did not come to pass.

Being a dad is the best thing ever. I’m so happy to have this kid and her little sister. Nothing could be better. Nothing. It doesn’t matter how shit your day at work was, when one of those girls comes running at me, arms in the air, screaming “DADDY!!!!” Everything bad in the world goes away, and all there is left is love and life.

As I have struggled mightily for the last several days with deceleration backfire on my project 2012 V-Star 250, and have commiserated with you all, true to form you’ve been extremely helpful. You’ve offered great suggestions and tons of help. Now, all of it was wrong, but that’s not the point. You’ve been there for me, because you’re the gadamn best.

In the end, none of you knew the answer, but in my Failed. I have failed post, @sn4cktimes said “Have any sort of emissions stuff? Like a charcoal canister, or fume return lines etc? O2 injector tube into exhaust? I assume nothing like any of that stuff.”

Well, there was SOMETHING like that. I didn’t know exactly what it was, but I decided to take another look at it. The V-Star has two teardrop blisters on the front, tucked up under the fuel tank. The one on the right is the air intake/filter housing. The one on the left contains this … thing.

Now, as I was putting this bike back together, I was using the length, size, and shape of the vacuum and fuel lines to figure out where things went. Unfortunately I didn’t disassemble the bike, and the factory service manual had no diagram for them. I had figured out the two big lines went to that … thing. I had not even noticed the small little vacuum hookup on that little canister looking dealy.

I dug through a parts list, and found out that the little canister deal is called an “Air Cut Valve Assembly.” So, what the hell is that supposed to do? I consulted the google machine, and the first result was, “The air cutoff valve is a simple but vital component of the carburetor system on GL1000s. Its function is to eliminate backfiring on hard deceleration (throttle fully closed). Hard deceleration creates a high vacuum signal in the intake tract which activates the valve.”

Well butter my butt, and call me a biscuit.

OK, confession time. There was an extra vacuum line coming off of a T in the intake manifold that I couldn’t figure out where it went, so I did the logical thing, and plugged it with a screw and a zip-tie. Now, that line wasn’t long enough to make it to the air cutoff valve, but the previous owner may well have cut the line. So, I went and bought a foot of vacuum line, hooked it up and … GREAT SUCCESS!

I've now ridden 22 miles, and while it has popped a couple of times ... it is a carbureted v-twin after all ... it has not backfired once!

All that bullshit I went through. All that frustration. All that wrenching. Ugh! Oh well, at least the valves are now adjusted. It was coming up on the service interval for that anyways, and they did need doing. And I now know this bike like the back of my hands, so I've got that going for me, which is nice.

Anyways, thanks for being there for me along the way Oppo! You've never failed to be the best!

@Urambo-Tauro said in Hennessey strikes again:

@Tripper said in Hennessey strikes again:

Yeah and he probably stole those extra horsepowers off of another client's car.

THAT's what I was expecting to read when I clicked "Hennessey strikes again"

This right here. Me too.

@RallyWrench I've been wondering how this project was going. Enjoy the drive my friend!

@Powered_By_Howard That's excellent!

@RallyDarkstrike said in This weekend just ... it knocked it out of the freaking park:

Also.....@Miss-Mercedes is going to buy that Flixible, isn't she...

Doubtful. He's priced it way too high.

@Mark-Tucker Hang in there man. The hardware store job probably wouldn't be too bad, but you'll have a lot of weekend hours for sure.

@jminer obamanotbad.gif

@AestheticsInMotion Are you freaking kidding me? You said you have trackers on everything, any hits on it?

Man, this sucks.

@MasterMario Toys and talking to them are both key. There are times when it gets annoying, but I think it's worth it.

@Ad-absurdum-per-aspera It's very appropriate that it was the first thing of interest we saw, the morning after Miss Mercedes' wedding

@HoustonRunner said in This weekend just ... it knocked it out of the freaking park:

@Shop-Teacher said in This weekend just ... it knocked it out of the freaking park:

Oh, and all that driving we did with a 7 and 9 year old in the car? No screens. None. They watched like 20 minutes of Spongebob in the hotel, and that's it. They read books, they colored, they played with their stuffed animals, they looked out the window, they talked to us. That's how it's done!

That is some A+ parenting all around. We were good for a while, but both my wife and I have been busier than normal at work and have eased restrictions a bit. We need to rein them back in, though it is hard with kids in middle and high school where most of their school work is online.

I'm not going to claim there are no times when my kids aren't zoned out in front of a chromebook or a tablet, there are. But we try to keep it reasonable, and we never EVER take them on the road.