Friday, August 18, 2006
Uh, oh...
Ok, I need someone to talk me out of buying a 1950 Dodge Coronet with 285,000 miles on it. It's actually in decent shape inside and out...(it looks beautiful when you drive by it at 30 mph) been painted once and has some of the wide white wall tires on it. I don't need a project car right now, but if I had a vehicle to drive every day I'd sure as heck buy it. Those straight -6 motors are very straightforward and this one runs decent already. If anyone's in the market for an old Dodge, this one's only three grand... I could really see someone named DH driving it.
Thursday, August 10, 2006
More Torrid Heat...
Recently I'm only able to be outside from daybreak to about 11:30. Siesta at noon, then back out around 3:30 (it's still hot but getting cooler). This makes for extremely slow progress on the porch roof I'm building. Today at 10:00 a.m. it was 86 degrees. In the shade. Right now (2:30) it's about 98 degrees. That's cooler than yesterday (it was well above 100). Everyone seems to be a tad bit irritable.
I know I'm a tad bit irritable, which doesn't help me deal with a "friend" who was going to sell me the Bronco I was talking about. I acquired insurance and a temporary tag for it and rode up to Sumatra to get it. I only drove it about a half a mile up the road and back and gave him $1050 for the truck. He and his wife left for appointments with the kids and left me to clean it out a little bit. I then set out to drive it the 8 miles up to the Sumatra grocery for some fuel to drive it back down to Apalach, and about halfway there this shudder became apparent in the steering. I slowed down and said shudder became more violent. I didn't think I had enough fuel to turn around and go back to Mike's house, so I crept the rest of the way to the store. When I finally got there, the front left hub was too hot to touch. I put some fuel in it and waited about an hour before the wheel was cool enough to touch. When I realized the jack (Mike swore was there) was absent, I decided to cool the wheel and hub down with water and start back to his house. The cool down treatment worked, and at my new reduced speed I made it almost back to his house before the shuddering was anything significant.
Mike and his wife were gone, so I left a note saying that the title was in the truck and I can't afford to spend over a grand on a truck that I can't drive. (I've driven $500 vehicles for years and they all ran fine with a little TLC; this truck is beyond that point) Mike is giving me the runaround about getting my money back to me. He said "maybe sometime this week", and in the meantime I have insurance and a tag on nothing. He has a hard time with the fact that I don't want a check, even after I pointed out that I gave them cash.
I'm very perturbed and realize that there's no record of this transaction so he's got me by the short and curlies. Damn.
Ok, I'm done complaining for now.
Tune in next week when Prentice says: "Dang! I got a splinter!"
I know I'm a tad bit irritable, which doesn't help me deal with a "friend" who was going to sell me the Bronco I was talking about. I acquired insurance and a temporary tag for it and rode up to Sumatra to get it. I only drove it about a half a mile up the road and back and gave him $1050 for the truck. He and his wife left for appointments with the kids and left me to clean it out a little bit. I then set out to drive it the 8 miles up to the Sumatra grocery for some fuel to drive it back down to Apalach, and about halfway there this shudder became apparent in the steering. I slowed down and said shudder became more violent. I didn't think I had enough fuel to turn around and go back to Mike's house, so I crept the rest of the way to the store. When I finally got there, the front left hub was too hot to touch. I put some fuel in it and waited about an hour before the wheel was cool enough to touch. When I realized the jack (Mike swore was there) was absent, I decided to cool the wheel and hub down with water and start back to his house. The cool down treatment worked, and at my new reduced speed I made it almost back to his house before the shuddering was anything significant.
Mike and his wife were gone, so I left a note saying that the title was in the truck and I can't afford to spend over a grand on a truck that I can't drive. (I've driven $500 vehicles for years and they all ran fine with a little TLC; this truck is beyond that point) Mike is giving me the runaround about getting my money back to me. He said "maybe sometime this week", and in the meantime I have insurance and a tag on nothing. He has a hard time with the fact that I don't want a check, even after I pointed out that I gave them cash.
I'm very perturbed and realize that there's no record of this transaction so he's got me by the short and curlies. Damn.
Ok, I'm done complaining for now.
Tune in next week when Prentice says: "Dang! I got a splinter!"
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