Gnarly Rust

Cian still talks about sitting in the front seat of the "B in W" as I followed behind watching them chug across the Richmond San Rafael bridge - willing that little car with all my energy to just make it to the other side. Since this was her maiden voyage and he was about as excited as a five-year-old boy could be, I "overlooked" the fact that the registration was two years out of date, that the car had been sitting for years without being driven and just prayed that my precious little cargo would make it home safely. Little did I know just how unsafe the car was. The next day, on Colin's first official mission to get this little baby rust free, he tackled the drivers side first. When he removed the carpet - the gas pedal came with it. Yes, the carpet was holding the gas pedal in place. Jeeeeeeee-sus! My stomach lurched. I let my baby sit in this thing? He drove 18 miles and across a bridge in this rat trap?? Suddenly, my bare bones model Nissan Pathfinder didn't seem so bad - it felt luxurious, safe and RELIABLE. I questioned our decision for a about a day. We don't just have 5 g's hanging off our money tree to be spending on 35 year-old cars. We also don't have a lot of free time - our weeks are jam-packed as it is. It is not like CJ is kicking around looking for full time projects when he is not working. Somehow though, he made steady progress in between getting kids to school, unscheduled dentist appointments for an emergency toothache, doing laundry, waiting at the hellacious Walgreens pharmacy on Third st. for medicine for emergency toothache (definitly need to yelp about that place when finished writing blog) , picking up other kid, making snacks, making dinner, making peace and cleaning up after these little mongrels....we decided our life during the week is indeed just one long, run-on sentence. After removing the center consul, the remaining carpet and cardboard sound insulation and asphalt floor pan sealer he started mocking up the floor pan patch panels from cardboard. He got the passenger side completed just a few days later. I know nothing about the mechanics of cars, but I do know what the floor pans looked like before and how they look now - and I know I am a little biased but it looks like a craftsman's work. He could have purchased the floor pans on the internet for $500, but opted for the "loving hands at home" approach - he bought sheet metal, rust converter and paint for just $42 bucks! Good thing, because I happened to find his latest "wish list," and I can just feel the credit card debt heating up! On the needs list - carpet kit, floor mats, door panels, front seat upholstery & foam, rear seat foam, shift knob, vinyl repair kit, driver side seat belt, rear center seat belt and interior trunk light. Ouch. But, after a few long (and hot) days of work he is still grinning from ear to ear, covered in grease and loving every second of this. It is pretty awesome. We have plans today on this sunny California Sunday and car repairs will have to take a back seat. But I must say I have somewhat of a transformed husband - listen up ladies! All it takes is a vintage car, a few thousand bucks and steady stream of Longboard Lager to make a really happy guy.

Get Started!

So, Cj got right to business this morning ripping out old disgusting carpet and just sussing out the "situation." He was really nervous about the extent of the rust - but he was pretty surprised that it was not as bad as he thought. So, there it is, a starting point! PHASE 1 - stop the rust. Then, move on to the mechanical part. Thankfully, the previous owners weren't scared to throw down some cash to keep the car in pretty good mechanical shape, so according to Colin he doesn't think this portion of our "little project" will be so bad. My perspective? When he kept muttering "somethings loose" and then urrrrrghhhh - I got a little nervous. Then I got a lot nervous when he scratched his head and said, "Annie - get a pen. We're making a little list of what we'll need right off the bat." Ok - ready! I started sweating early into our little dictation session - Kragen Auto Parts - look out for this man! He is coming for: front brake calipers, lower and inner control arm bushings, sway bar end link and bushings, front struts, lower ball joints, front wheel bearing seals, rear shocks, rear wheel cylinders, rear sway bar end link bushings, rear sway bar bushings, front sway bar bushings, a temperature gauge sending unit, exhaust hangers, fuel filters, air filter oil filters, fuses, oil, headlight and heater hose. Then he looked at me, and said "what??? it's the labor that costs money honey, not this stuff." Uh, yeah. I will check back on that one tomorrow. I feel an internal budget meeting coming on.

Bringing home "our" new project

We have not had a good year. No one has. We are looking forward to closing this year, and starting a new one in 2010. We don't have many people that mean the entire world to us, and my father was one of them. We started 2009 with the tragic and very sudden loss of him, and all of us have spent the months that have followed, well, lost ourselves. Shifting into a new, and very looooow gear of adjusting to life without him we have struggled with every single day since. We learned the hard way that we need to stop paying lip service to the casually over-used adage that "life is too short." Because it is so, so painfully true. We talk and cry about him nearly everyday, and one thing we saw clearly - once we started seeing clearly: make every day count. Stop living on borrowed money, pay off credit cards, love our kids up and certainly put a stop to the god-forsaken, never-ending car payments on these cargo carrying, 0-60 in three minutes, metal-traps-of-nothingness. Thus, our car search began.

My husband and I are a lot a like, and the one thing we have always shared is a love of cars. We aren't old (according to us, not our kids). We're hovering a little too close for our liking to 40. We have owned probably 30+ cars between us. Many of them fast, old, interesting and most important - really fun to drive. Then we had kids. Something happens to people when they have kids. Of course we want to keep them safe - but somewhere along the way it becomes acceptable to find a big ol' car in some un-interesting color that you throw in "D" and drift down the highway in a, yes - I will say it - "a family car." We have succumbed to this phenomenon, and like a bagde of shame I tool about in my cloth-interiored big ol' boring SUV...and I have the extreme pleasure of paying $329 hard-earned bucks for it every, single 30 days. No more! Yesterday we brought home (a paid for! Half-cash, half-check - it is really, really ours!) a 1973 BMW 2002 tii. Like every 35 year-old car that has been sitting, rotting in a driveway under an old oak tree for that last few years - it needs a lot of work.

She has already proven to be a little on the high-maintenance side. Within the first hour of owning her we have run out of gas (not her fault - ours) and CJ was promptly pulled over (which Cian LOVED) for really, really expired registration. To Colin's delight, it seemed the cop merely wanted to share his love of cars, ask a bunch of questions about the car and send him on his way with an ominous "good luck." So, after taking the kids (separately, so they can sit in the front seat) around the block about 50 times each, she is now retired to jack stands in our driveway. Hell, we live in suburbia with houses about 2 inches apart from one another and our neighbor has plastic toys in her front yard - so to be the only person on our block with an old car in the driveway on jack stands is somewhat astonishing. Starting today, we have exactly 12 months - almost to the day - to get this baby road (and family) ready! We will share with you our (ok - Colin's) progress as we go - and I am sure we will have our share of "stories" along the way!