Been a while. Figured I would post a pic of the famous fiberglass box. So anyway, not much happened the year at junior college. I went through a series of jobs at ISP's and computer repair places. I was making pretty good money at the time (for me) and starting getting the white 92 like I wanted. I'm not sure if the junk yards liked me or hated me. 1: I purchased a lot of stuff they normally wouldn't sell, and 2: I asked about a lot of stuff they normally wouldn't sell. I think the realization that older cars would come with cool options mine didn't just blew my mind. Every time I went I would find something new I didn't even know existed. I think the conversation usually went like:
Me: "I need some firebird parts"
Counter guy: "What were you looking for?"
Me: "I don't know, where do you keep your F-bodies?"
I think I wound up coning my way past insurance regulations at every junk yard on the coast. As far as I can remember, within a year I got the following just from junk yards:
Glass T-tops
Black interior
4th gen seats
WS6 Sway bars
Wonder-Bar
Carpet
Aluminum drums
And countless of other things. They were plentiful and cheap back then, wish I would have stock piled someparts!
I met my wife that year and followed her up to USM to finish out my college career. Most history then.
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So not much happened my first year of college. I still was wanting to redo the stereo, but couldn't afford to do anything. Since I didn't have any wood tools I was forced to make my new box out of fiberglass. That's when I first learned I really don't like working with fiberglass. Also the first of the second run of mistakes, I didn't design a way to remove the box from the car. If that car is still running today, I guarantee you there's a fiberglass sub box in the back well.
The main event that happened that first year was taking my car to a standard repair shop for the last time. After an over-zealous jump across a short bridge I ripped a hole in my oil pan. I didn't know it until after I drove 5 hours back to school. I think I had 40 messages and the phone ringing when I made it there; my Dad curious about the 2 quarts of oil in his driveway. Good thing no one had cell phones back then, I would have never known I could have made it.
Back on topic, I secured a used oil pan and found one of the more reputable shops in Starkville. As some of you might know, replacing the oil pan requires raising the engine up about 2". Day one at the shop must have involved jacking the engine up and removing the old pan. 5:00PM came and everyone packed up. They thoughtfully shut my hood for the night...some how forgetting the engine was in the way. This produced two creases in the hood from the AC compressor and alternator. Of course the shop denied responsibility and I was stuck with a damaged hood on an otherwise perfect car.
That was about the time that I declared only myself or people I knew would do anything my car. Aside from things I just can't do in a garage (body repair, paint) I would learn how to do it. That involved a lot of mess-up, mess-up, get it right. I just couldn't believe something as simple as changing an oil pan could result in body damage.
Sure is a long entry for 'not much happened'.
So about the body repair statement above, that's mainly repair. I started doing all final alignment of body pieces after that year too. Seems I some how wound up on top of a culvert and had some pretty good front frame damage. When I got the car back from the wonderful people at Dossett Pontiac in Hattiesburg the whole front end just didn't seem lined up right. I inquired about it and was told that's the best it could get after a wreck. A year later, after getting into modifying the car, I noticed the lower fender mount was bent over. Turns out this is a common problem from when people try to jack the car up (I'm sure mine was bent from the culvert). When I bent that mount back, the fender magically lined back up with the door. A chain reaction of panel moving later, the whole front end was back where it should have been. I was able to accomplish something in 30 minutes a DEALER'S BODY SHOP said was impossible. No one cares anymore.. Hopefully I can be different, working to make someones car better rather then working to get paid.
The fun (and quicker to type) parts came after I returned home to serve some time at a junior college.
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So I tried to go through Summit catalogs like other people, but the V6 didn't have any parts available. This worked out because I later learned that any modifications to the engine would prove futile. Instead I turned to the universal mods that every teenager knows: rims and radios.
I first moved from the stock 15x7's to some 15x8 polished tri-blades. Some time later on I moved up to some 16x8 pointed tri-blades. This is when I first learned that not everyone knows what they are talking about. The rims were the wrong offset and my fender lips promptly tore up some pretty nice Dunlops. The ever changing rims did help the growing ticket problem. Not sure why burying the needle on the 280 went fine, but slower speeds on the bird caused problems.. Maybe they knew the 280 would stop running on it's own every month...I'm not sure. Back on topic, the "Tire shop sold me the wrong tires, my speedo was off" works wonders in getting a speeding ticket dropped to a non-moving violation. Save your receipts! On a side note, since Mississippi was not on a point system (and hardly sent anything to the state), the whole 'tickets make your insurance go up' was an urban legend. I'm not sure what you would have to do to make it go up, but it must be a lot.
Back on the stereo. It started with a Sony CD deck from the Penny Pincher. Once I had a deck, it was on. Some Pioneer 6x9's in the back and a Kraco amp from the pawn shop. Never mind that I found the same amp at Walmart a week later for $10 cheaper (the pawn shop one was used too!). As the topic states, I tend to obsess over things. After buying every car stereo magazine for 6 months and really annoying the guys at Advanced Audio, I started on my first system. To say I butchered the car during this was an understatement. I'm trying to do a magazine system working for minimum wage. Sure it looked decent from the outside, but the install was full of hacks and fixed mistakes. One of the major mistakes I remember is spending months building a ported box and not realizing the ports got sealed by the deck lid when closed. I sold the whole first system to go on a senior trip to Ocean City, MD. Mainly because I got tired of the 'vision' that never seemed to come out right.
It doesn't sound like much, but you have to understand that I was out in the garage doing 'something' almost every night. In hindsight, I really did a bunch of nothing but I was learning! Mechanically at this point I might have been able to change my brake pads, but for the most part other people fixed my problems. So off to college I went: tore up rear tires, stock tape deck on some Blaupunkt separates, and no money or tools to do anything.
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So my first car was a 1982 Datsun 280zx turbo. I loved the car, but being 10 years old and having way too many complicated parts is not the best match. I think my parents spent as much keeping the car running as they did buying it in the first place.
Secured a scholarship my junior year in high school, which equated to a new(er) car. I promptly lost that scholarship after a year, so at least it was good for something! I did have a set of restrictions:
- No v8's
- No convertibles
- Lower then $10,000
- Had to be lower miles/newer car
I quickly found out that being 17 and trying convince people your Dad really is going to buy you a car is pretty tough. I did my best to find a 300zx, but the 90's were way out of the price range while the 87-89's were next to impossible to find. I had checked all around the coast and didn't find anything I liked. I finally convinced my Dad he *really* needed to be with me and we took off for Slidell (They had a better selection of dealers, plus we usually looked through Bay St. Louis on the way back). I'm pretty sure the first stop was Levis Chevrolet. We laid out our restrictions and jumped from one boring car to another. Finally the salesmen said he was going to pull a car around they just got in.
Around the corner came a bright white 92 Firebird and it really had just come in on trade. Big scratch on the ground effects, nothing power worked, animal crackers everywhere, etc. I honestly didn't like the V6 (even though I knew nothing about them), but I did like the fact it looked like KITT. I hadn't noticed too many of the 91-92's around the coast and really thought the new style nose stood out. My Dad was not going to buy a car that looked like it did, so we placed a deposite and would get a call when they got through with it.
About 4 days later we were heading back to Slidell. The air-brush guy was running late, so we sat sround the lot for a few hours before we finally got to see the car. They had taken care of everything and my Dad was now the proud owner of a 92 Firebird. A completely stock yet fully optioned V6. I'm not sure what month it was, but I remember it was cold. That didn't stop me from running with the t-tops off most of the way home!
Long story about getting my first f-body. Next update, the obsession begins.
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So here we are. Our first entry on our first website.
I'll go ahead and get this out of the way before it gets confusing. Anytime I talk in plural (we, our, etc) I talking as the company. Please disregard the fact that I'm the company's only employee. I'm trying to train myself for when I have multiple employees and need to talk as a collective. So anything from today forward will probably be a 'we', anything in my history will be an 'I'. Got it? Good.. Of course my wife Karyn could be considered part of the company, although she mainly volunteers and then complains about going to pick up cars.
I'll be adding entries in the next few days chronicling my history with F-bodies and how I came to decide to sell parts for a living. Stay tuned!
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