The catch? It is in Charlotte, North Carolina, and his wife wanted it out of there within the next couple weeks. I'm in Baltimore, MD, and don't have a truck. Small matter. I have a friend with a full size van (he and his dad do commercial and high end flooring install) and a tow dolly. We used it to bring his MGB to my place to start work on it. I asked him last Monday if I could use it , and he said sure, just give him a day. I called Kevin, and we set up a date of this Monday, the 15th. Kevin e-mailed me pictures, and described the fact that he also had some parts from another car that he would let go with it. What a deal!
I set the day up with my friend, and double checked on Friday. He knew we had to be on the road bright and early (I wanted to be on the road by 5AM, as I was anticipating a 6-7 hour drive, load the car and parts, and another 6-8 hours back). he was all set.
Monday morning at 1:30 a.m., it all started to go rather awry.
My friend called me then to tell me he couldn't go, and the van was necessary for use on the job. A client that had a job scheduled had called Sunday and demanded they be there Monday to do the work.
Great. Now I'm supposed to be there Monday afternoon (and Kevin works nights, all I had was his phone number at home) and I have no way to transport the car. And it's supposed to be gone. Kevin's wife was expecting it.
All Monday morning, I scrambled to locate suitable options, from renting a Ryder van and tow dolly, both round trip, and one way from Charlotte to Baltimore. my wife got on the Internet and asked our fellow SCCA members for possible assistance, food and gas paid for. No one was available. Costs were prohibitive for round trip (I could buy a nice running car from a dealer for the same coin) and I didn't have a way of getting my car back from NC if I did the one way... I tried calling the only other person I know who has a truck that could do it, and waited for his reply. As it neared noon, Monday.
Finally, my friend's dad with the van calls me back and says if I wanted it, I could use the van and dolly Tuesday, but neither of them could go with, due to the workload. Fine, my wife said she could take Tuesday off work to co-drive. Ok, this is looking up. my other friend called back, and I told him the deal, but it looked like I didn't need his truck after all. I called Kevin in NC and told him the story, and that I was heading over after work (I had gone in, as I couldn't head down to NC) to pick up the van, and to assure his wife that the car was indeed leaving.
After work, I drove the 2 hours to pick up the van in southern MD, at their shop. Got the tow dolly hooked up, checked the lights. Nothing worked. Then I noticed that while the taillights and turn signals worked on the van, the brake lights didn't. they are single bulb taillights (a 2000 Dodge Ram van), so if the turn signals work, the lights aren't burned out. Checked fuses. Nothing. Played with the brake light switch. Still nothing. Swapped out the CHMSL relay. Nada. it's now 7:30 p.m. Monday. I called my other friend with the truck, who said, sure. Come get it, as long as I leave him something to get to work in. I'm already in the Battlestar Cadillactica, so I offer to let him use that. Fine. Drive the 2 hours back, pick up the truck, a full size Chevy.
I'm starting to wonder if it's all worth it as I drive up there, but my wife says sure it is, as the car will still only cost gas and food.
I picked up the truck, and we exchanged ideosyncracies (pump the Caddy's throttle twice before cranking when cold, use of the AC renders acceleration similar to the accruing of interest on a $2 US T-bill, the truck's front tire may go flat, the "service engine soon" light was checked, he says it's just a transmission code... etc). Head home, get to bed about 11 pm, to get up at 5 am. 4 just seemed too early at that point...
Got up, and got on the road by 6 AM, had to swing through southern MD to pick up the tow dolly, but that went smooth, and the route from there to NC went smoothly, but slowly. Since both of us were coming along and there had been no time to reserve a kennel or get our dogs there, our sheltie and beagle had to come along, so they could get fed and relieved at normal times (leaving them alone in the house from 6 am to who knows when is NOT an option...). We stopped at 3 hour intervals to walk them and let them stretch a bit, and had to drive slower due to the bouncing tow dolly. So we entered NC on I85 at 11 AM. I didn't realize that we were still 4+ hours from Kevin's house, south of Charlotte. Everybody says it's only a 6 hour drive from here to there, but they all do it at 80. So we rolled into Kevin's place at 3:30
When we arrived, Kevin had moved all the spare parts out to the driveway and yard. It filled his driveway... We were all wondering how it was all going to fit: there was enough spare bits to make most of another car (two more doors, a hood and decklid, two more interiors, boxes of mechanical and trim parts, etc.). The car itself looked pretty good, however. We loaded up the truck with almost all the parts (a very Tetris-like bit of packing that amazed my wife), and then went to load the car on the dolly. Had to remove the driveshaft, which went pretty easily, as the bolts were all hand tight. I thought that was great, but it should have been a warning...
Got the car on the dolly after a few false starts, and went to strap the tires in with the supplied straps. The ratchet mechanism required a 1 1/2" wrench, which my friend's dad had conveniently not supplied. Kevin went on a tool locating spree, and didn't have a crescent wrench or a pipe wrench for it. No neighbor help, either. Finally, he located a set of Cannel lock pliers, which did the trick. Enough little annoyances had happened, but the car was ready for the tip home. At 5:30 pm. With a minimum of a nine hour drive ahead of us. And massive construction on I85 northbound. So we elected to take I77 north to I81, and up the backside of Virginia. Kevin and his wife said it saved them 3 hours going that way vs. going up I85 to I95 when they went to New Jersey or points north. So off we went. Missed the turn for the street we wanted to get us to I77. Figured that bit out (hard to turn around a car on a tow dolly). Then we stopped at a gas station as we had previously planned to check tire pressures in the car, dolly and truck. Good thing, as one of the tire straps had come off. Got that back on and tight, thanks to a wrench borrowed from the gas mart cashier. But the only way out of the service station required driving a bit and finding a suitable turn around to get back on the road to I77. Turned into the first development I came to, and drove around for a bit until I could get back to the main street. Got to I77 on the south side of Charlotte at 6:30 pm. Geeze!
Half hour north of Charlotte, at 50 mph, with tractor-trailer rigs on my ass, the ominous warning which should have been heeded became fact as the right rear wheel of the Fiat became visible in my mirror. Not attached to the car. Yikes! Pulled slowly over, and the wheel and tire passed us on the shoulder! We watched as it cruised down the shoulder guardrail for 50, then 75 yards or so, all the while thinking "just stop already!" Traffic slowed near the tire, which was good for them, as it suddenly decided to bank right and head across traffic into the median, where it stopped. Traffic started again up there. I got out and headed toward the tire. I got about 50 ft, when I heard the squealing of tires and the rending of metal. I turned, fearing that someone had plowed into the Fiat/truck combo my wife was still sitting in. No, a 280ZX had plowed into the back of a Chevy S10 that was checking up for the slowed traffic in the left lane. My wife had the cell phone, and was a paramedic, so I figured that she could handle that end, while I decided to focus on retrieving the errant wheel. I found the wheel and tire about a hundred yards ahead of us. An impressive distance, considering the speed. As I came rolling it back down the shoulder, I found two of the Fiat lug bolts together, at about the point where it had changed direction and went across the road. They had apparently been in the wheel until it slowed to that point. No thread damage, so I picked them up and carried with. Got back to the truck, and my wife was talking to Kevin, to see if he had an idea where in the collection of parts, some spare lug bolts might be, and telling him about the incident. I said, no problem, I'll just take one from each front wheel. As I put the star wrench on the first of them, it twisted off with no resistance. Just a bit more than hand tight. Checked the other wheels. Barely more than hand tight. The passenger rear was the same, but had not moved. Wow.
As I was putting the wheel back on (no damage to the brake rotor in the rear, either), the police showed up to deal with the accident. After talking to the people involved, they came over and asked if we were ok. (Just fine, officer. Just have to finish putting this wheel back on.). They went back to talking to the people in the accident (no one was hurt) and after we got everything back together, I took off and they were kicked back, and waved at us. We waved back and continued on our way. it was now 7-7:30. With the rest stops, and periodic stopping to check if everything was still secure, and the fact that I hadn't realized I81 through Virginia went through the damn mountains, the trip home went a bit slower than the trip down. Working on pure caffeine, we pulled in front of our house at 4:00 a.m... took the parts out of the truck, unloaded the Fiat, and managed to get to bed by 5AM. Alarm went off at 7 AM. My wife went to work, and I got the truck ready to deliver back to my friend (who needed it this afternoon). I used it to take the tow dolly back to my friend's dad's place, getting back here about 1 in the afternoon. Now, I'm ready to sleep for a couple days.
But. Now we have enough parts to build two cars, and total investment so far has been about $300 (plus the $100 in new brakes we just put on the first car). my wife is quite tired, but happy, as it means that her car is very close to being done now.
The first one:
The "free" parts one:
