<VV> The Route 66 adventure - Part 2 of ??

[J R Read_HML]

OK, I had mentioned that the owner had sent me two more pictures.  They can 
be seen at:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/hmlinc@sbcglobal.net/detail?.dir=/f3a1&.dnm=9fdc.jpg&.src=ph

Well, the deposit money was sent off by wire transfer.  Did you know the 
bank makes a charge ($20) to do that?  It was time to put my plans together. 
I found a reasonable air fair that would put me in there at 6PM their time 
on Friday evening and the seller had agreed to meet me at the airport.  I 
started looking at map sites on the internet and found out that it should 
just under a 2,100 mile drive from (get this) Lakewood CA to Glen Ellyn, IL 
and should take about 32 hours of actual driving time.  Now, I had driven to 
the Dallas convention in a day and that was something like a 900 mile drive, 
so this seemed (rather optimistically) like a doable drive for a weekend. 
The plan was to get 250 miles (more if possible) out of the way the first 
evening which would leave 1,800 - or two 900 mile days back to back.  Well, 
that was the plan.  We'll come back to this later.

I mentioned Dom Perino earlier and he comes back into the picture at this 
point.  He had recently driven a car back from CA himself and had a 
"roadside package" put together for that trip.  Various tools and parts. 
Stuff you would be able to deal with roadside if something stupid but not 
overly serious should occur.  So, he threw a few more items into the box and 
shipped it off to my seller's address.  That thing was like 40#s and cost me 
$66.00 to ship.  It was also my plan to return with the box still sealed!

So, now I'm even more committed (and maybe I should have been committed in 
another way - for being nuts), deposit sent off - plane ticket purchased - 
and "break open in case of emergency" box on the way to California.  It got 
really hard to stay focused on work when I kept having second and third 
thoughts about what I was attempting to make happen and how deep I already 
was into this and how I better stay OFF of eBay forever after this!

Well, that Friday finally arrived.  In the meantime the seller said I should 
hop a cab to his house.  Do you believe that he thought I was going to hand 
over the money in the parking lot of the airport and drive away?  No, no! 
Please have the car up on jackstands when I arrive, thank you!  The flight 
went well.  I spent most of the time going over the checklist of what to 
look at and marking the items which I felt were most important to me.  I 
also had Nader's book in my bag, but could not bring myself to open it.

The supposedly 10 minute cab ride took 20 minutes (seemed like an hour) - 
primarily because the driver did not have a clue how to find the place.  I 
arrived safely and met the seller.  Seemed like an OK guy, on the meticulous 
side (I liked that part), but somewhat stand-offish.  Maybe, because he had 
not yet seen the money?  The garage was closed and he did a sort of 
"unveiling" by opening the overhead door.  The car was parked nose in, so I 
saw the rear first.  From about 10 to 12 feet back, I just took it in - 
sighting down the left side, then the right - looking at the lines across 
the bottom grill, bumper, cove trim, body seem lines, and the engine deck. 
The top was up.  The top and tires appeared to have recently seen some 
Armour-All.  The car really presents well when clean.

Then I walked up and opened the engine lid.  Nice and clean, but the 
cocktail shakers are missing.  The first words out of my mouth were "When 
was it hit in the rear?"  His mouth just dropped open and he could not 
speak.  I don't think that he ever did answer that question.  Closer 
inspection showed a fairly well done repair to the left corner.  Some (not a 
lot) bondo used in the tail/stop light housing area and fresh (non factory) 
sealer where the vertical and horizontal sheet metal meet at the bottom. 
The repair is invisible from the exterior side.  Everything appears straight 
and I'm guessing that a set of cocktail shakers are going to bolt right in. 
The upper brackets are still there.  No damage on the right corner, but that 
one was likely pulled in order to replace the cove trim (at least this is 
what I'm telling myself).

The car was NOT up, so up it went.  The bottom side is beautiful.  The trunk 
floor still has the original oval.  I cannot find any rust - anywhere.  He'd 
done some touch-up on the interior trunk floor as the speckled paint turned 
to flat grey down there.  I guess that if you use the mat, it is not 
possible to keep a slight amount of surface rust out of there in ANY 
climate.  The front suspension will need some work, but it is not unsafe for 
my planned drive.  I went over the car pretty well, still forgot about half 
the items on my mental list, but did check out anything I though could be a 
potential problem within the next 2,000 miles.  We started it - has headers 
and turbo mufflers.  Sort of loudish, but not horrendous.  But, of course 
anything having to do with cabin heat has been blocked off, so I'm glad that 
I had already decided on a more or less Southerly route home.

The ride was - lets say - interesting.  The clutch pedal is on the floor and 
the brake pedal is not far behind.  I had already checked the master and 
knew it was full and fairly clean fluid.  Supposedly, brakes and hoses had 
been done just two years ago.  I did not catch it at the time, but the 
clutch took more than the normal amount of pressure to move it.  We went 
over some past receipts.  Saw a lot of names I know there - like Cal, Larry, 
and Wolf come to mind at the moment.  Anyway, without going into even more 
excessive detail, the deal was sealed and I was away by about 8PM.

End of Part 2

Hey folks, I'm driving a Corvair to - from Memphis this weekend.  Leaving 
Friday and returning Sunday.  My daughter is participating in a triathlon 
there and I will use the opportunity to see it and enjoy a Corvair weekend 
at the same time.  She wanted me to go to Brazil with here (following 
weekend), but that was out of the picture for me.  The point is, I have to 
get a bunch of work out, so it might be a while before installment # 3 can 
make it to VV.

For information on Lauren "Shark" Jensen, go to:

http://trifaster.freeservers.com/shark/index.htm

Attachments (if any) are scanned with anti-virus software.

Later, JR