Baby Blue
The story behind my baby blue constitutes perhaps the most prolonged and bitter trial of my young life. I now begin to realize that I'm only receiving my just reward for jewing a dying man of his prized posession.
It all began in the fall of my Junior year. A buxom young lass of thirty-seven parked on the side of the road caught my eye one night as Breaux and I drove into Santa Paula. The soft glow of a nearby street lamp illuminated her shiny skin, offering a brief hint of silky white leather interior as we passed by. My eyes followed her longingly until a bend in the road took parted us from view. I was smitten. And hopeful, as a black and red "For Sale" sign had been seen adorning the back window.
From there, our courtship was brief and tempestuous. Her owner was loathe to part, but failing health and a need to pay the medical bills sealed the deal at a rather healthy cut to the asking price. A week later I was the proud new owner of a '65 Mustang. And the story should here have ended happily ever after. But woe to man and his vanity. Nothing would do but that I strip this poor innocent of her innards, and build her anew after my own liking.
So Darren and I made a trip to LA to scour the junkyards for a promising new engine. We found and pulled a 302 small block out of a late seventies Ford cruiser, which was quite an experience. We also had to pull out a 451 for Grumbine. Fashioning engine hoists from seat-belts, and disassembling the blocks from the cars took the better part of a day. We later pulled into Hamburger Hamlet on the 5 for dinner, soaked in sweat, our clothes, faces and hands caked in engine grease and dust, and two full engine blocks jutting over the sides of the truck's flatbed. Our waiter got a nice tip, one I'm sure he wasn't expecting.
Finding all the necessary parts for the rebuild was a nightmare. Trips to various junkyards and shops around L.A. became my specialty. By the time summer rolled around, we had managed to rebuild the engine, but hadn't yet placed out the old one. Darren had plans to house-sit the Reyes' ranch outside Sacramento, so we decided to try and finish it there. Now that experience really deserves it's own story. I had planned on spending a week there, and ended up staying for over half the summer. Every conceivable thing that could go wrong did, from escaped cows to prolapsed sheep uteri, the wrong size pushrods and an oversize exhaust manifold, drunken gun-toting mexican neighbors, earwhigs, spray painting a 50k ton earth mover, a messload of cute kittens(!), Mr. and Mrs. Reyes, Mr. Darren's Uncle and leaky fluids on his driveway and toothbrushes, three different starters, a host of igition problems, immodestly ripped clothing, getting lost with Pat Carter in the slums of Sacremento in Darren's broken down rabbit, getting lost in San Fransico in Darren's broken down rabbit on an empty tank of gas. I finally admited defeat and had the Mustang towed back to school (thanks Aaron) while Darren headed home to Washington.
I then spent another two weeks hiding out on campus, trying to finish the car by myself while avoiding Mr. Collins and his questionable insistance that I PAY for such a priveledge. I won't bore with technical details, but I finally got it running on a beautiful Saturday morning. I took Ben Susanka into town to celebrate. That would be a short lived victory. Upon returning to campus, I decided it'd be fun to drop the clutch and do a burnout. Apparently this isn't a good idea when you have an engine putting out over 400 ft./lbs. of torque on a driveline meant for around 150. So after that shot out from under the car and sprayed the Blessed Serra parking lot in gas, I rented a car and drove home to Nebraska.
It took me the first month of Senior year to get it up and running again, and this time it ran for an entire week. I made occasional attempts at fixing it after that, but a new problem always crept up. Bad fuel pump, ignition and idling problems, you name it. Something finally broke that I couldn't figure out, and I had given up on it until tonight. All it took was a $35 distributor gear the size of a walnut. It's replaced now, and I pray that my baby's previous owner will now relent his curse from beyond the grave.
It all began in the fall of my Junior year. A buxom young lass of thirty-seven parked on the side of the road caught my eye one night as Breaux and I drove into Santa Paula. The soft glow of a nearby street lamp illuminated her shiny skin, offering a brief hint of silky white leather interior as we passed by. My eyes followed her longingly until a bend in the road took parted us from view. I was smitten. And hopeful, as a black and red "For Sale" sign had been seen adorning the back window.
From there, our courtship was brief and tempestuous. Her owner was loathe to part, but failing health and a need to pay the medical bills sealed the deal at a rather healthy cut to the asking price. A week later I was the proud new owner of a '65 Mustang. And the story should here have ended happily ever after. But woe to man and his vanity. Nothing would do but that I strip this poor innocent of her innards, and build her anew after my own liking.
So Darren and I made a trip to LA to scour the junkyards for a promising new engine. We found and pulled a 302 small block out of a late seventies Ford cruiser, which was quite an experience. We also had to pull out a 451 for Grumbine. Fashioning engine hoists from seat-belts, and disassembling the blocks from the cars took the better part of a day. We later pulled into Hamburger Hamlet on the 5 for dinner, soaked in sweat, our clothes, faces and hands caked in engine grease and dust, and two full engine blocks jutting over the sides of the truck's flatbed. Our waiter got a nice tip, one I'm sure he wasn't expecting.
Finding all the necessary parts for the rebuild was a nightmare. Trips to various junkyards and shops around L.A. became my specialty. By the time summer rolled around, we had managed to rebuild the engine, but hadn't yet placed out the old one. Darren had plans to house-sit the Reyes' ranch outside Sacramento, so we decided to try and finish it there. Now that experience really deserves it's own story. I had planned on spending a week there, and ended up staying for over half the summer. Every conceivable thing that could go wrong did, from escaped cows to prolapsed sheep uteri, the wrong size pushrods and an oversize exhaust manifold, drunken gun-toting mexican neighbors, earwhigs, spray painting a 50k ton earth mover, a messload of cute kittens(!), Mr. and Mrs. Reyes, Mr. Darren's Uncle and leaky fluids on his driveway and toothbrushes, three different starters, a host of igition problems, immodestly ripped clothing, getting lost with Pat Carter in the slums of Sacremento in Darren's broken down rabbit, getting lost in San Fransico in Darren's broken down rabbit on an empty tank of gas. I finally admited defeat and had the Mustang towed back to school (thanks Aaron) while Darren headed home to Washington.
I then spent another two weeks hiding out on campus, trying to finish the car by myself while avoiding Mr. Collins and his questionable insistance that I PAY for such a priveledge. I won't bore with technical details, but I finally got it running on a beautiful Saturday morning. I took Ben Susanka into town to celebrate. That would be a short lived victory. Upon returning to campus, I decided it'd be fun to drop the clutch and do a burnout. Apparently this isn't a good idea when you have an engine putting out over 400 ft./lbs. of torque on a driveline meant for around 150. So after that shot out from under the car and sprayed the Blessed Serra parking lot in gas, I rented a car and drove home to Nebraska.
It took me the first month of Senior year to get it up and running again, and this time it ran for an entire week. I made occasional attempts at fixing it after that, but a new problem always crept up. Bad fuel pump, ignition and idling problems, you name it. Something finally broke that I couldn't figure out, and I had given up on it until tonight. All it took was a $35 distributor gear the size of a walnut. It's replaced now, and I pray that my baby's previous owner will now relent his curse from beyond the grave.
posted by mittens at 9/30/2005 05:21:00 AM
1 Comments:
oh how i lust her! i recall spending one night with her in the backseat as we drove up the ojai valley to nicky's 21st birthday party, and I could barely say a word. of course i was also praying that we actually made it to the top of the mountain, because she was sputtering like it was her business...
good luck Daddy!
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