Hello! Story time. I'll try to be short, and let you all ask if you really want to hear about interesting details, so I don't fall victim to my usual long-windedness. (Though it probably will be a futile effort.)
I've been mechanically inclined as far back as I can remember, but was not entirely encouraged in that. (I think my parents didn't want to live in the house with everything half-apart and half-working.) I taught myself some things, picking up skills as one does with a house and family and broken stuff.
I also liked to drive fun cars. Fixing cars seemed like "the ultimate frontier"--intimidating and intriguing at the same time. It seemed like it would be an awesome thing to save an old fun car from the crusher and take it as far as I could. But, life went on: wife, kids, job, responsibilities. I drove minivans for close to 20 years.
While I really liked the look of Camaros and Trans Ams back in high school, it seemed like the Mustang was the performance car I kept crossing paths with. My roommate in college had an '84 4-banger notch, which was the most fun car I'd ever driven to that point. At our 5-year anniversary, my wife and I rented a mid-90s convertible and drove it from Vegas to the Grand Canyon and back, the story of which is still a joke between us.
Fast forward to 2015: kids are grown and in college. I'm on the hook to buy the wife a car, since she had just gotten her license for the first time ever in her 40s. Her choice? A Mustang, didn't have to be fancy. Of course, I didn't listen to the latter part, and found an '05 GT Premium convertible. Black, with red leather seats. Gorgeous condition, for the most part. And "for the most part" was my cue to start toying with my long fascination with car fixing. Brakes, sway bar links, oil changes, fuel filter...
Only problem: having gotten her the car, she had the wild idea that it was hers, and she could drive it all the time if she wanted. Which meant I couldn't drive it (much). So she's tooling around in her awesome-mobile, and I'm poking around in the cheap Toyota I bought to learn stick on. So yeah, after nearly 30 years of driving boring cars, I now get to watch other people have fun while... still driving a boring car.
So I did the only logical and practical thing: bought an '89 GT off Craigslist that made it home, but only barely. Now I'm living the dream of tired out-of-shape muscles, rust, and expensive parts, saving a fun car from the crusher and taking it as far as I can.
I'll start a build thread for the '89. Where's the best place for those?
I've been mechanically inclined as far back as I can remember, but was not entirely encouraged in that. (I think my parents didn't want to live in the house with everything half-apart and half-working.) I taught myself some things, picking up skills as one does with a house and family and broken stuff.
I also liked to drive fun cars. Fixing cars seemed like "the ultimate frontier"--intimidating and intriguing at the same time. It seemed like it would be an awesome thing to save an old fun car from the crusher and take it as far as I could. But, life went on: wife, kids, job, responsibilities. I drove minivans for close to 20 years.
While I really liked the look of Camaros and Trans Ams back in high school, it seemed like the Mustang was the performance car I kept crossing paths with. My roommate in college had an '84 4-banger notch, which was the most fun car I'd ever driven to that point. At our 5-year anniversary, my wife and I rented a mid-90s convertible and drove it from Vegas to the Grand Canyon and back, the story of which is still a joke between us.
Fast forward to 2015: kids are grown and in college. I'm on the hook to buy the wife a car, since she had just gotten her license for the first time ever in her 40s. Her choice? A Mustang, didn't have to be fancy. Of course, I didn't listen to the latter part, and found an '05 GT Premium convertible. Black, with red leather seats. Gorgeous condition, for the most part. And "for the most part" was my cue to start toying with my long fascination with car fixing. Brakes, sway bar links, oil changes, fuel filter...
Only problem: having gotten her the car, she had the wild idea that it was hers, and she could drive it all the time if she wanted. Which meant I couldn't drive it (much). So she's tooling around in her awesome-mobile, and I'm poking around in the cheap Toyota I bought to learn stick on. So yeah, after nearly 30 years of driving boring cars, I now get to watch other people have fun while... still driving a boring car.
So I did the only logical and practical thing: bought an '89 GT off Craigslist that made it home, but only barely. Now I'm living the dream of tired out-of-shape muscles, rust, and expensive parts, saving a fun car from the crusher and taking it as far as I can.
I'll start a build thread for the '89. Where's the best place for those?
