Spurgeon’s Vehicles
Events are in chronological
order. Acquisition of new vehicles are indicated in bold. Some vehicle events
overlap.
’93 SPURGEON
TECHNOLOGIES MINI BIKE (BMX + B&S EDGER)
Summer 93 (14)
When I
was 14, I, like all teenagers couldn’t wait until I could stop riding my
bicycle around. One of the kids living near me had this cool thing that he rode
around. It was a bicycle with an engine attached to it. I liked the idea, and
got started on my own version. I started with a BMX bicycle. I took out the
pedal assembly and chain. Next, I spread the rear forks in order to fit the
larger wheel-gear assembly in it. I got a large 12 inch belt pulley and
attached it to the rear wheel with copper wiring. I received a 2.5 hp edger
engine from my friend Greg Edlund. I bolted the engine on the side using a two
by four as a support between the bike frame and the engine. I did not use a
clutch, that would have been another $30. I used a straight pulley. The pull
starter was broken too. To start the thing, I had to just push it down the
street. There was no throttle either, so while I rode I had to sit sideways and
throttle the engine by hand. To stop I had to just put on the brake and stall
the engine.
Soon after I built the mini-bike, that other kid that had
one had his stolen. He saw me riding by one day and chased me down on his ATV.
He almost ran me over he was so mad. He thought that the one I was driving was
his. I just tried to avoid him. I got home and he went back to get his dad.
This is the kind of confrontation I wait for, so I ran inside and got all my
receipts for all the parts I used to build it. When his dad came over with him
I showed them. Then they apologized for the confusion and went home.
I rode that thing all over town. I can remember driving
it to my friend Greg's house up to 5 miles away from where I lived. I do not
know how though, because I also remember it breaking every time I went
somewhere. The copper wire holding the back wheel to the drive gear kept
breaking until there was almost nothing holding it together. I found that old
bicycle tubes worked the best to replace the copper wire. It was tough but
flexible enough to let it flex instead of snapping the wheel. The axle in the
rear wheel also kept breaking. This was because there was only bearings on one
side. The other side kept grinding through it. If I had kept it longer, I
probably would have fixed all these flaws. I ended up trading it to a kid down
the street for his mopeds. At least I would be able to register a moped and
drive it legally.
‘90 CHEVROLET CAVALIER
Summer 93 (14)
In the summer of 93, my
whole family got together to go on a vacation out west. Since I was still 14,
and without a license, so, my mom had to drive the entire time. On our way out
of Study Butte, TX, my mom decided that I could drive a little of the way. This
would give her a break, and would give me a little beginner’s experience at the
wheel while there wasn’t anyone around for miles. We were in the middle of the
’86
Fall 93 (15)
I
finally traded the Mini-Bike for a
’73 TX-125 AMF ITALIAN
HARLEY-DAVIDSON
Dec 93 (15)
When
the moped was about to die we took my cash and my moped to trade it in for a
Harley dirt bike. There were two bikes that were in my price range, a Honda
400cc street bike or an old Harley dirt bike. Because I was only 15, I was only
allowed to ride something that was 150cc's or less. I decided on getting the
Harley. They told me it was a Sprint but I found out later what it really was.
They did not have a title for it either. I gave them my $400 and my moped,
trusting them to process the paperwork for the title as soon as possible. They
delivered the cycle that evening. As soon as it got there, I got on and taught
myself how to ride a "real bike". This was the first one I had with a
clutch and gears. Months passed and I still didn’t have my title. They then
asked me for an additional $100 for the title. That was not part of the deal.
The dealer that I got the bike from was trying to get around the "Florida
Impact Fee", a fee to bring vehicles into the state. By the time I had my title,
a year after I purchased the bike, the "Florida Impact Fee" did not
exist any more. I had to do most of the work at the Department of Motor
Vehicles myself.
As soon as I learned how to ride, I started having
mechanical problems. Every week it was something else. It seems that I was
working on it more that I was riding it. I had to replace the whole electrical
system including the magneto and wiring harness. The bike had been switched to
a 6 volt system and the wiring had been seriously mutilated.
One
day I was riding to my friend Greg's house. It was near rush hour, so there
were a lot of cars on the road. I was almost to his neighborhood, but still on
a main road in the middle of traffic. All of a sudden, my engine, transmission,
and wheel locked up. I screeched off the side of the road while keeping the
bike up. I popped the bike in neutral and pushed it the rest of the way
to Greg's house. It turned out that my piston was bad, causing it to overheat.
I had the cylinder re-bored, and put in an oversized piston. Needless to say, I
eventually ordered the full repair manual. I also made good friends with the
mail order parts people. After two years and over $1400 in parts, I had an
almost finished Italian made Aermacchi AMF Harley-Davidson '73 TX-125.
’86 CHRYSLER CONVERTIBLE
Jan 94 (15)
This had been my dad’s car. I got it when he passed away.
It was a good car when I look back on it. It took everything I dished out to
it.
Taking it to the forest. Getting it stuck. Pushing it out
with a bulldozer we found, with the keys in it!
Driving it for the Homecoming parade my senior year.
(They ran out of classic Mustangs, so I had to fill in because I was the only
other one with a convertible.
Having it on two wheels around the Palmetto -
’82 Suzuki RM-80
S 96 (17)
What a piece of garbage! I got this heap from a friend of
mine. I traded him an even bigger piece that I wont even mention in this paper.
There were parts falling off of this thing from the very beginning. I spent $300
on it within the first few months of having it. I had to replace every little
screw because the kid that had it before me stripped all of them. There were
wood screws holding some of it together. I also had to have the seat recovered
and painted the fenders and tank.
F ‘96
After I had it put together
halfway decent, I had to go to college. I gave it back to the same kid so he
could try to sell it. Well he did not. He broke even more of it. Well I did not
have the money to dump in it now or later, so I put it in the back of my garage
and let it sit.
S ’98
Well,
it was still sitting here in my garage. Now I was running out of space. I
needed to sell it. The paint was kind of peeling off so I decided to try to
repaint it. Well, I screwed that up! It looked like garbage. It wasn’t worth
hardly anything, so I placed a free ad in the local paper for $100. One guy
came by, and turned out to be not that interested in it after he took a good
look at it. Then, the next day a lady called and wanted to see it. She came
over and after discussing it for a while she offered me $50 for it. I took it,
for a $300 overall loss. I helped her put it in her truck and hope I never see
it again.
’87 CHEVY TRUCK
S '96 (17)
The title itself, "pre-owned automobile" does
not serve justice to the majesty of a used car. They should call it "Motor
vehicle of which all resources have been exhausted and do not try to actually
try to drive it anywhere, because you will not make it to your destination
without spending a minimum of five hundred dollars for repairs, and at least
sixty dollars for towing expenses". If the vehicle is more than seven
years old you should probably add to that at least one day of waiting while
they find your parts.
My experience with the truck all started when I was a
senior at Spanish River High School in Boca Raton, FL. I had just received the
Palm Beach Post Technical Pathfinder Scholarship. This was based on my
knowledge of how things such as cars and motorcycles worked, not to mention the
experience I had working on and building those things. My mother out of the
goodness of her heart wanted to reward me for my achievement. She thought that
buying me a truck would be a good way to do that. See, the car that I had been
driving was falling apart. It would have never made it to Purdue University in
Indiana, which is where I would be attending school in the fall. That is over
two thousand miles away. We ended up getting five hundred and ninety dollars
for that car so it was obvious that I needed something else.
I had been searching through the classified adds for months
trying to find a four wheel drive truck that was suitable for my needs. I had
gone to look at several of them but none of them seemed to be worth my mom’s
hard earned money. We agreed to try to find a truck for around three thousand
dollars, but every time I showed her what that could get us, she offered to
shell out a little more cash. Finally, we found a nice looking 1987 Chevrolet
Custom Deluxe 10 Stepside. It was not four-wheel-drive, but we decided that it
was not totally necessary to have four wheel drive. Besides, four-wheel-drive
reduces gas mileage.
It is
really a nice looking truck. We agreed to finally buy the truck from Sunnyside
Auto and Marine in Pompano Beach, Florida for just under five thousand dollars.
Later that week we found out that the front left flip mirror was broken and
that there was a part missing from the emergency brake that made it inoperable.
The next day I received a speeding ticket. This was
because the speedometer was off, because the tires were oversized and the speedometer
had not been recalibrate. That was a two-hundred-and-five dollar fine. This was
just the beginning of my problems. Originally I wanted a
"fixer-upper", but my mom thought that we would have to many problems
with it. Little did we know, anything less than brand new is a
"fixer-upper".
We have had To perform several major repairs and have
over four thousand dollars invested in repairs... so far. The first of these
repairs was my fault. I was acting stupid and did an extremely light neutral
drop. This is where I put the transmission into neutral while going about 20
miles per hour. Then, proceed to slightly rev the engine, and then place the
transmission into drive. It always worked in the other car. Little did I know
that having twelve-and-a-half inch tires would make a difference. The result
was pretty much like putting the insides of the transmission in a blender. I
mutilated my planetary gears and ruined my pressure plates. The whole thing had
to be repaired. That cost me six hundred dollars. Not to mention, having to get
a new drive shaft because I warped it, and two new universal joints because I
shattered both of those, for one hundred and eighty dollars. Other than that,
Everything was fine... or so it seemed.
Over the summer I built a cover for the bed. I wanted
something to enclose the back without having to remove my roll bars. My only
option was to try and build something myself. I Obtained plywood from an
undisclosed source, and $90 worth of 2x2’s, screws, hinges, wiring, and other
stuff I needed. I drew up plans and built this awesome "living room"
for the back of my truck. It had speakers hooked up to the stereo and its own
interior lights. I wanted windows but did not have enough time to put them in
before I left for school.
I also worked on the wooden bed in the back. It had lost
its finish and become pretty cracked and rotted. I took the wood, and brackets
out and while I would be making and finishing new planks, I bolted a piece of
finished plywood in the back. It looked pretty good for a temporary bed.
The rest of the summer went pretty smoothly. Except for
the small leak from the speedometer converter on the transmission because it
was not exactly the right size. Finally, it was time for me to get ready to go
off to school. I took the truck to the transmission shop to have the leak fixed
which did not get completely fixed, and asked if I needed anything else for my
road trip that was approaching ever so fast. I also did some preparation by
myself. I changed the oil and filter, plugs and wires, and cap and rotor. I was
ready to go.
I was on my way. Four hours from home, I think you can
imagine, the truck died. I had to use the roadside call box to call a tow
truck. The guy hooked up my truck, a process that I would become very familiar
with. The driver took me to the nearest transmission shop because I knew that
the torque converter had gone out. Aal Transmission in Kissimmee, FL, probably
the most unaccommodating, slowest, rip off shop in the country was where I was
delivered. My experience there was ... amazing, to say the least. My truck and
I were dropped off at Aal Transmission at about 12:00 noon. The manager Mike
said, that as soon as they had a lift open, they would take a look at my
transmission. So, until then I walked to nearby tire store to buy a spare tire,
another thing my truck did not come equipped with. Around 3:00 I was informed
that I could put my truck up onto a lift that had just opened up. Mike then
said something like, "well you don’t expect us to push it onto the lift?
It is too heavy. You are going to have to call a tow truck to help you put it
up in the bay. When the tow truck lady arrived, I proceeded to push my truck
with almost everything I owned in it, around the building to the open bay. As
soon as I got it there, one of the mechanics drove another van into the bay
just as I was pulling up to it. Mike then said, "It’s too heavy for that
lift, we’ll have to put it on the lift out back." That was something that
he failed to mention before I pushed it to the other bay. I then started to
push my truck back to the other side of the building, where I started, where
the big lift was. The tow truck lady then called another guy to help us get it
onto the big lift, which was up a two-foot incline. After we got it onto the
lift it still took them two hours to look at it. Even when they did look at it,
all they did was take the pan-cover off which accomplished nothing. "It
isn’t going to be possible to look at it until tomorrow, so you better get a
room for the night. Frustrated, I then rode my dying bicycle the three miles to
the nearest restaurant and decent lodging for the night.
The next morning, I came back expecting results, since
they told me that my truck was the first thing that they would be working on in
the morning. Was I wrong? When I got there they told me that they couldn’t be
sure what was wrong with it until they took the transmission out and apart. I
told them to go ahead and get started. Another day of waiting went by and at
the end of the day something was still wrong. They had to take it back out and
fix it because something was still wrong with it.
On the third day they finally finished. I paid my bill,
which included a one year twelve thousand mile warranty, and left. As I drove
out of the lot I realized that it would not accelerate for crap. I dismissed
that fact, considering I had so much stuff in the back, but then I wondered why
it would not accelerate at least as well, if not better than before. I could
not worry about it though, I needed to be in Indiana the next day. I got to
school and unloaded all of my stuff, but it still did not seem right. A few weeks later I drove to
Indianapolis, which is about an hour away from school. It stalled while I was
driving away from my friend’s house. It would not restart, so my friend, Jacob,
gave me a jump. I got about twenty minutes away from his house and I was
driving up a hill and my torque converter went out again. Jacob’s dad came to
take me back to school, but I had to leave the truck on the side of the road
over night. All of the shops were closed because it was Sunday. When I got back
to school, I called Indiana Highway Patrol and told them my situation and not
to tow it. The next morning I called a tow truck and had them tow it to
McKinney Transmission on Indianapolis’ Northeast side. McKinney said that he
covered the warranty and took the transmission apart He found out that
everything that Aal Transmission had done was messed up. McKinney ended up
replacing almost every internal part in the transmission and had to rebuild the
transmission cooling system. That cost me another thirteen hundred dollars.
This one was covered by a two year twenty-four thousand mile warranty.
Weeks passed without incident. Then one night I was
waiting for some friends outside of Taco Bell. I was just idling in the parking
lot and it stalled. It restarted with no problem, but I could not figure out
why it stalled in the first place. I just over looked it thinking that my idle
speed was just to low.
About a week later my roommate and I were going go to
Pittsburgh. We were set to go. I was to go to my grandfather’s house to get my
bed box, a room that I built to slide in and out of the back of the truck. On
the way to his house to get it the truck stalled again. This time my
temperature gauge was buried (on the hot side). This was odd considering that I
had only been on the road for twenty minutes combined with the fact that I was
on the highway which usually makes vehicles cooler. I waited for it to cool off
and tried to restart. It would barely do that. The starter could barely turn
the engine over with a new battery. I made it to the next gas station, where I
called my grandfather to inform him of the situation. We thought that the
thermostat just needed to be replaced. Were we wrong! I let it cool off again
and then tried to make it back to the dorm. It was probably a bad idea to drive
it as far as I did with it overheating, but it turns out later that it did not
make any difference. I made it back to the dorm, luckily and had to tell my
roommate and the other friends that were going to go with us that we would not
be making the five hundred trek to Pittsburgh in my truck, which meant that we
were not going.
Several days later, I drove the truck to the Chevrolet
dealership to have the damage estimated. It took them two days to do that.
Finally, they called me and said that they wanted to show me the damage.
Well, to say the least, it was not just a worn out
thermostat. The guy at the Chevrolet dealership took me out to my truck and
showed me what was under the hood. They had taken the intake manifold off so
that they could see the top of the valves. There were four quarts of oil on top
of the valves. It looked like shit sitting on top of my valves. The oil had
partially solidified. They were not sure if I needed a new engine but strongly
suggested that I put a new one in to be safe. They wanted a little over three
thousand dollars to complete the job plus any other expenses that might be
incurred. I thought to myself "Three thousand dollars that I don’t have
right now for something that we are not sure even needs to be done? I don’t
think so." I told them I was going to have to arrange for the money and
call them back. That week I arranged for the truck to be towed to my
grandfather’s house by some small-town-tow-truck-guy from Beanblossom, a small
town, if not a village, near his house. Later that week I was at my
grandfather’s house for the weekend. I rode with the tow truck guy to pick up
my truck. When we got to Chevrolet, he hooked up the tow truck to the front of
the truck. He was going to take off until I suggested that he hook it up from
the rear so that the transmission wouldn’t be dragging. That would have
destroyed yet another transmission. He did switch it, and then he left with my
truck. I then went to the service desk and asked them to call me a cab. They
asked me if my car was being worked on, and knowing what they were getting to,
I said "Yes they were working on my engine, but I am still trying to work
out the money situation." They then drove me home in the courtesy van.
I found out later from my grandfather that when the tow
truck guy dropped off my truck, he was piss drunk. He then asked my grandfather
for a hundred dollars more for the towing than he said it was going to be. My
grandfather, being the honest, easy going guy that he is just paid him and made
a mental note to never do business with him again.
One weekend my roommate and I decided to go down to the
house and work on the truck. That weekend we took the engine out and stripped
it down, completely. We had to chip out about an inch of rock hard solid oil
from underneath the manifold. By then, we had to come back to school. A couple
of weeks later my grandfather took the engine to his favorite auto parts store,
Stiles Napa of Shoals, IN. He has been friends with that family for years. Well
they cleaned up the block and ran some tests. They found three huge cracks in
my block. One of them four inches long. The weird thing is that none of the cracks
were in the cylinders, where cracks from over heating usually occur. That
explains why it did not seem like there was anything terribly wrong.
Now we knew we had to replace the engine. Mom decided
that I should be concentrating on my schoolwork and insisted on having the
engine put back together and dropped in by someone else. I agreed, partly
because I did not think I could do it right, having only taken car engines
apart in auto shop class. I arranged for Napa to build the engine and for
another guy to put it in. It end up costing me about $2850 for the whole
project. When I went to pick up my truck we realized that we forgot my license
plates. I had taken it off to re-register it. I just drove to my grandfather’s
house without it. Luckily, I was not stopped during the hour and a half drive.
When I got to my grandfather’s house I put my plate back on and went back to
school.
I was out one night driving around with my friends. I
turned a corner and noticed a (pig) a police officer on my tail. I kept on
driving. Then he turned his lights on. I had about five people in the front
seat. He asked me for all the usual info. I gave it to him. When I pulled out
my driver’s license and gave it to him, I had my fake ID in my other hand in
plain sight. I did not even realize it. Fortunately, neither did he. He asked
me if I had built the box on the back of the truck. I told him I did. He said
that people don’t go around building things on their cars. (So you are saying
that all cars that I see on the road are stock? I don’t think so! ) Well, he
still gave me a notice to repair for obstructing my rear view. He said,
"You need to convince me that you can see out of the back." When I
asked how, he said, "I don’t know how, but you need to do it." How
was I supposed to know, if he did not even know, how I was to correct the
situation?
I had 15 days to correct the situation. I was leaving
campus the next day and would not be back until my time had expired. Then,
according to the ticket, the police had the right to arrest me as soon as I
came back. In order to avoid this, I went out to my truck with an electric
jigsaw and proceeded to cut a crude hole in the back of the box. Before I even
cleaned off the sawdust, I went to the Purdue Police Department to have the
situation cleared up. After requesting to have an officer sent out, they sent
out an older officer to inspect my truck. Walking towards it he said,
"That’s a really nice truck. What year is it?" I explained, as I have
many times since then, that it was made from all different years of trucks. He
looked at the ticket and said, "Did Officer *** write you this
ticket?" I said, "Yes." He just made a face that said to me,
"That guy wastes so much of our time by harassing kids and writing these
stupid tickets for offenses that don’t to be worried about." Really, I got
all that by the look on his face. After he agreed to take care of it, I was on
my way to my grandfather’s house. Later, we had a window put in that hole by
some screen and patio place for $55.
Getting
the truck stuck in the mud in Indianapolis….
It was time to go back home. My freshmen year was over.
All I had to do was take finals and I would be done. One of my girlfriends from
home asked me to go to prom with her. The problem was, it was the day after my
last final. I would have to leave the night of my last final and drive
overnight, through the day to get there in time. I planned it all out. I was
going to make it. I called her back up to tell her I could make it and she
said, "I was just kidding. We can’t go I do not have enough money to go to
prom." Well it was too late now. I was set in my plan. OK, so I’m not
going to prom but, I want to get home as soon as possible anyway.
My
last final was at 7:00 pm on Thursday. Well, I finished the test in 30 minutes.
They are scheduled for two hours. I went back to the dorms. Said goodbye to the
friends I had made that year. Then I was off. I had told my mom I would be
leaving the next morning so that she would get some sleep that night. One of my
friends from home knew what I was doing. I checked in with him periodically to
report my progress. Five states later and daylight at full power I hit Florida.
I did not think that Florida had been this long when I left. It took me another
eight hours to get home from the border. After 21 hours of driving, no eating,
lots of candy, $100 + in gas and falling asleep at the wheel a few times, I was
back in my driveway. No time for sleep though. I had people to see. After being
up for a total of 36 hours, I slept for two days.
While
at my grandfather’s house, a few weeks before I left school we built this steel
bracket to hold my motorcycle on the back. It is much easier to load it onto
this rack than to put it into the bed of the truck. Most of the time, I leave
my bike on the back of the truck just in case something happens to the truck
again.
That summer I got a job. Guess what it was..............
I was going to be a pizza delivery guy. Guess what I was
driving................. I was still driving my truck. Every once in a while my
mom would let me take her ‘95 Cavalier. But most of the time I was driving
"Ole’ 10 mpg." Hey, it was not too bad. I was still making $11 an
hour...after I paid for gas. I made some good money that summer. Nothing like a
real job, but good for a college guy during summer break. I bet I could have
made a lot more using a Honda Civic though.
Aug – Sep ‘97
Another year of school is here again. Time to load
everything up and go back North. This time I had some help. My roommate flew
down from Indianapolis to Fort Lauderdale just to drive back with me. I still
didn’t get much sleep. It is a big truck to begin with. Now, we had three
trunks on top and a motorcycle strapped to the rear bumper. I was just afraid
of us tipping over. Nevertheless, we made it all the way to school with no
incident. THANK GOD.
This year I have my truck and my kawasaki here at school.
I had a problem though. Each student is allowed only one parking pass. Well I
went ahead and got two. When they were processing my passes, they found out
about it. I had to give one of them back, so I gave them the bike pass. For the
next month, I just parked my bike right in front of the truck in the same
parking space. No problem, until one day I got a ticket for not having a
parking pass on the bike. Well I knew it was coming. It was just a matter of
time before the police bothered to get out of their patrol cars to check if I
had a pass. So, I called university parking facilities and they said that if I
had my hall manager write a letter, that they would give me another pass. No
one even knew this was an option. Well I paid the first ticket and got my new
motorcycle parking pass. The next morning, I had another ticket on my bike for
the same thing. I realized it was the same cop and figured he didn’t check to
see if I had a pass now. He just assumed I didn’t. I called parking facilities
and they voided the ticket. I tried to call the police department, but the
officer wasn’t there.
F ‘97
Remember that ticket I got for not having a window in the
back of my truck? I was working on my Kawasaki one afternoon in front of the
building. A patrol car pulled up. Let me remind you that this was the
university police. You can imagine everything going through my head because of
my past experiences with the department. Well he pulled up and rolled down his
window. He said, "Hey is that your truck?" I said, "yes." I
was thinking, Man, What is it that I am doing wrong now!?! He said,
"Didn’t you get a ticket from officer W***** last year, for not having a
window in the back of that thing?" I said, "Yes." Then he goes
on to say, "Well I thought you might like to know that to the benifit of
the entire department, he no longer works with us." and he drove off. I
couldn’t stop laughing.
F ‘97
One night, my friend Alfonso needed a ride home from
work. I told him I would pick him up "No Problem!" So, I went to pick
him up late that night as the mall was closing. Well, we were waiting for him
outside the mall entrance. People kept leaving the mall as they got off work. I
was in the fire lane but thought nothing of it. Then, a police officer pulled
up behind us. He flashed his lights like he was pulling us over. I got out of
the car to find out what he wanted. He told me that someone had called them
about a "suspicious black truck with a moped on the back". They were
obviously talking about me with my suspicious truck and my motorcycle strapped
on the back. He told me not to worry about it and to go on with whatever I was
doing. I guess my vehicle does look a little suspicious, but call the police on
me, for doing nothing? What the Hell!!
SPRING '98 (19)
5-3-98 Radiator hose
Summer ’98 (19)
I am so screwed! I am writing this in the middle of my
newest project. I have wanted to give my truck a paint job for a long time. The
problem was that the red paint kept chipping off. Then I would have to sand it
and touch it up with Cherry Red Krylon spray paint. The red paint goes on to
complicate things further. Because the red paint keeps chipping off, I can not
put any more paint on top of it, otherwise it will come off too. So, I have to
take all the paint off the entire truck. Well, I decided that if I never got
started that I would never get done. One night after work I went over to Home
Depot and bought a gallon of the toughest paint thinner they had, and sand
paper. So, I got started. A few days into it, I realized that I was dealing
with a lot more than I expected. Being a step side did not help either. It has
a whole bunch of little cracks I can not even fit my fingers into. It was too
late to stop a minute after I started, so I knew that I had to see this thing
through all the way. Over the next few days my friends and I continued to work
on it seeming to never get anything done. About four days into this
"little" project my mom received a letter from the property manager
ordering us to quit working in front of the house. See, it is against the
by-laws here. By this time, my mom was really on my case. I had gotten the
driveway dirty, and she was afraid of getting kicked out. So for the past two
days my truck has been sitting in my friends’, RJ and Carol, house. I wanted to
rent one of those storage garages to work on it but they do not allow you to
work on the premises. Now, I have no idea how or where to finish this project.
Tuesday I hope to be able to take it to my high school’s auto shop and work on
it there.
Luckily, I was able to take it to my high school’s auto
shop. I have been working on my truck there for the last three days. Every day
I get up early and work until I feel sick from the heat and the sun. Then, I
usually come home and go to sleep by eight. I feel like I never get anything
done. Today I went to sears before going to school to see I if I could get a
power sander to make my job easier. Nothing looked like it would work exactly
right. After an hour and a half of sanding today, I broke. I got the phone and
started calling to get estimates for local shops to finish the job. I packed up
all my stuff, went to return the painting supplies I had bought, and dropped it
at the first place to get an estimate. They called me back this afternoon with
an estimate of $2262. Tomorrow I will take it to another place to see which
estimate is the best. This project is killing me. I can’t do it anymore.
Well, I didn’t end up getting another estimate. I figured
I am screwed anyway. My latest estimate is up to $3125. You realize of course
that now, I am going all the way. New windows because mine are scratched and
rusted, new passenger door, and racing stripes. I figured if I am going to
spend that much, do it all.
My truck is still being painted and this week I am trying
to arrange to replace the wood boards that make up the floor of the bed. The
kits, precut are $250 for pine and $350 for oak. Like I have that kind of money
now! I went to a place and he said he would cut the lumber for $150 if I got
it. I got some PT (pressure treated lumber) at Home Depot for $35. It needs to
dry out , so it will be done next week. I also have to have my grandfather send
the hardware down because I thought we would get this done up there last year.
AUG '98 (19)
Trip back to school. Blowout. Goped Loaded with Plywood,
Box, Refridgerator
Strap melted by the first
time we stopped.
BLOWOUT
30 miles from ATL
Wrong rim
Cop left us
Took Goped to next exit
Called a service guy
No tow truck, just a pickup with equipment.
Cash only, ATM
UF grad '65
Back on the road with a $20 used tire.
Talked to a girl that saw it happen.
10/98 New engine
11/98 Diff rebuild / brakes / throttle body.
"hey, we cant predict what will go wrong. We can only fix what is already
broken"
‘81 KAWASAKI KE-125
Summer ‘97 (18)
That summer, I bought a 1981 Kawasaki KE-125. It belonged
to my friend Greg Edlund’s father. He never rode it anymore and it had been
sitting in his garage for the past six years. It had under 1400 original miles
in it and still had the break in labels on the dash. It looks good too. I gave
him $250 for it. I think we were both satisfied with the deal.
44
My goals for the future
are:
94 BMW 325is
97 Ducati 748sps
90’s GM Suburban
60’s GM Muscle Car (convertible)
99 Dodge Ram 4x4 Sport
MORE LATER
SORRY, THIS IS A LOT OF
TYPING