It's been another month! I have finished all of the welding that needs to be done on the driverside of the vehicle. I'm so burnt out on it I'm not even going to grind anything down or make it look somewhat decent at the moment. I just want to get everything welded in fully, then I'll start grinding down all of the welds, I just feel like I'm making NO progress, which kinda is true haha.
I've been very busy as well!
Got that crusty 60 running decent enough to limp it up to Boone, horrible intake gasket leak was not fun to deal with but it drove the 300 or so miles, abliet very slowly.
View attachment 3955698
Then I got home and immediately got a message from a guy who I met in a parking lot 2 years ago, I gave him my number jokingly if he ever wanted to sell (i don't remember any of this). He said he urgently needed to sell his 1977 Plymouth Volare wagon as he was moving to St. Louis the next day. I showed up fully intending not to purchase the car, really I didn't even remember meeting him or what car he was talking about, I was just curious.
Well I take it on a test drive, check it all out, and he keeps asking "well?!? Do you think you're gonna buy it?" and I keep brushing him off because I didn't have a casual $5,000 to drop on this car, AND I had nowhere to put it. At the time my driveway already had 5 cars in it. He keeps asking, and I tell him I have no interest in buying another car at the moment and already have way too many projects going on... So I offer $1000 to shut him up. Well he bit on my lowball and now I own a Plymouth Volare!
View attachment 3955699
3.7 liter Slant 6 and some sort of Chrysler Autotragic Transmission, 58,000 original miles, not too much rust at all. I've been driving it daily for the past month and it's been relatively drama-free
Met up with @svsisu as he was in the area, it's always great to be able to chat! Time goes by so fast every time and before you know it, we gotta part ways.
View attachment 3955701
Then the weekend after that I went BACK down to Wilmington. My dad (@Shyrock) is trading one of his FJ55's to @Roastchestnuts for our first Land Cruiser we ever picked up which has sent me down this crazy automotive path. Sold it to Robert a few years back, he's done so much great work to it since then, but now he really wants a FJ55. Well the somewhat rust free one we have has some rod knock, I also found a parts 55 four years ago with a running 2f and 4spd, so to make the trade fair we just swapped that drivetrain into the 55 he is getting.
View attachment 3955702
Excuse the horribly hilarious photo
if you're interested, you can read more about all of that fun stuff in @Roastchestnuts thread HERE --> Salted Pork fj55 family wagon build
AND FINALLY, I got the troopy up and running again to turn it around underneath my temu carport to tackle the passenger side rot repair.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks to all of y'all for the reassuring words and understanding nature. Means a lot to hear that I'm not alone in feeling this way at times. This is the most enjoyable summer I've had in the past couple years now, simply due to the fact that it's not solely dictated by my nightmare never-ending project troopy. And the weather up here is so much more hospitable to exist in than anywhere else in NC, and of course the pretty lady.
Check out the mint interior in this wagon
View attachment 3955719
That slant 6 will do you right. Just like the pretty Lady
