Terrible/great idea from a thread in off topic. In honor of "The Dude" and considering the wagon already carries my Dudeism stickers. Do the woodgrain to look like a bowling lane!
Terrible/great idea from a thread in off topic. In honor of "The Dude" and considering the wagon already carries my Dudeism stickers. Do the woodgrain to look like a bowling lane!
Big box sitting on the porch when I got home today :)
Going to do some minor bodyworking to them then let the pinstriping begin!
JThw8 wrote: Terrible/great idea from a thread in off topic. In honor of "The Dude" and considering the wagon already carries my Dudeism stickers. Do the woodgrain to look like a bowling lane!
yeah this sounds awesome. I thought all the stickers would look too busy.
Cotton wrote:JThw8 wrote: Terrible/great idea from a thread in off topic. In honor of "The Dude" and considering the wagon already carries my Dudeism stickers. Do the woodgrain to look like a bowling lane!yeah this sounds awesome. I thought all the stickers would look too busy.
I haven't abandoned that idea yet either. Y'all have a whole winter of me changing my mind constantly until spring gets here and I commit to an idea.
I've been amassing a nice collection of vintage stickers, they'll look good on the back windows if nothing else.
In reply to JThw8:
The country squire we had when I was a kid had those state decals on the rear side windows for every state we visited. Seemed to be a trend back then. We had a lot since we visited all states except Hawaii and Alaska.
i do a similar sticker thing on the rear drivers quarter window of my duster. how big are the state stickers, and where do you find them? id love to blatantly steal that idea for the staes we take that car through as a family.
In reply to Dusterbd13:
This was back in the 60's-70's. They looked like the ones in the pic above, but I don't even know if they still sell them like that. I'd say ours were something like 2x3 or 3x4. I believe we fit 48 of them on the rear windows of our '71 Squire.
my car is a 70, which is why i thought it would be cool. already would need to get sc, nc, va, tn, wv, and ky.
Its the trend of collecting those stickers on the back window that made me think about doing it for the whole side of the car to replace the wood paneling. I've been collecting interesting vintage stickers I wanted to use on the windows and quickly came to realize I have more sticker than window space.
You can still find them on Ebay. Search for Vintage Travel Sticker. I was able to find a variety for each of your states.
SC - http://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-SOUTH-CAROLINA-STATE-AUTO-TRAVEL-DECAL-SOUVENIR-LUGGAGE-WINDOW-STICKER-/230884241166?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item35c1c5ef0e
NC - http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odkw=South+Carolina+Vintage+travel+sticker&_osacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=p2045573.m570.l1313&_nkw=North+Carolina+Vintage+travel+sticker&_sacat=0
VA - http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odkw=North+Carolina+Vintage+travel+sticker&_osacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=p2045573.m570.l1313&_nkw=Virginia+Vintage+travel+sticker&_sacat=0
TN - http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odkw=Virginia+Vintage+travel+sticker&_osacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=p2045573.m570.l1313&_nkw=Tennessee+Vintage+travel+sticker&_sacat=0
WV - http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odkw=Tennessee+Vintage+travel+sticker&_osacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=p2045573.m570.l1313&_nkw=West+Virginia+Vintage+travel+sticker&_sacat=0
KY - http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odkw=West+Virginia+Vintage+travel+sticker&_osacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=p2045573.m570.l1313&_nkw=Kentucky+Vintage+travel+sticker&_sacat=0
Also mentioned in the other thread that I get a very Lebowski vibe in this car and it just dawned on me, the only stickers which were already on the back windows when I got it were for In and Out Burger....I'd like to think that after they torched the Torino maybe he went and got himself a nice wagon.
Damn I like vintage travel stickers.
Took my daughter (17) for a ride today in the wagon. This is really her first experience in a vehicle of this size and vintage.
First off. The tune up was definitely a good idea, while it's still no rocketship it's definitely more responsive and a bit quicker now. Pretty sure I have a cracked exhaust manifold, getting some noises that lead me to that theory. When I get around to hunting for some more power I'll probably put some headers on it anyway.
So, the daughters impressions. She remarked that she was pretty sure she could park her smart car on the hood. But she did have high praise for the sofa like seating of the monster and wondered why more modern cars dont have big comfy seats. Overall she's not nearly as repulsed by it as she probably should be but I warped her mind a long time ago.
So my wife belongs to this professional organization and they do a themed christmas party every year. This year the theme is Grizwold Family Christmas. So the event chairperson happens to see a photo of the wagon and asked if we would bring it to the party and park it right in front of the venue with Christmas lights on it.
My wife, who hates this car, is now coming (being forced to admit) that this thing is kind of cool. She's still not thrilled about taking it to the party though.
In reply to JThw8:
Nice!
That is funny that you got your daughter a smart car, so many think they aren't safe but I guarantee they are safer than an old escort and for 99 dollars lease it is hard to argue with.
singleslammer wrote: In reply to JThw8: Nice! That is funny that you got your daughter a smart car, so many think they aren't safe but I guarantee they are safer than an old escort and for 99 dollars lease it is hard to argue with.
Yeah, I drove that thing for 3 years and 100,000 miles. It was paid for but not worth anything on the used market. I was looking at other cars for her and was going to sell the Smart to buy her something when it dawned on me that for the money I got for the Smart I couldn't buy her another 3 year old car that I knew the full service history on, had front and side airbags, good fuel economy and more amenities than the BMW I replaced it with. Seemed silly to sell it just to "downgrade" So I painted it green for her (she wanted a green car) and let her have at it. She loves it and can't imagine owning a "big" car now.
Junkyarding day! I needed new arm rest bases and had a lead on a yard with a 77 LTD or Mercury that would be a good donor. Off I go....
Ze hunter spots his prey....
And liberates it of it's front door arm rests...
Of course as you can see in the first photo the back doors are bashed in and buried in the mud...no way to get them open to get to the hardware for the rears. After fighting it for a half hour with the help of my Sherpa of the E36 M3heap, Matt we decided to see if we could find another. And we did! As you can see they like to stack cars here so our next victim was up top and 3 of the 4 door panels were already removed making snagging the arm rest bases pretty easy, we quickly found out why the 4th one was still in place though, the door wouldn't open from the inside or out...ugh...and yes it was another rear. But we could get to the hinge bolts so we unbolted the hinge side and achieved success!
At the end of the day I ended up with 4 fronts, 2 rears and some trim for the rear doors as well. These arm rest bases were used on all fullsized ford/lincoln/mercury's from about 74-78 and they are usually falling apart like mine so I think the 2 spare fronts should bring a dollar or two cleaned up and put on ebay.
In reply to JThw8:
Good man. There is a time and a place for large cars (this thread is proof) but as a dd is not the place.
Too lazy to post all these to my website but its a public FB album so hopefully you can all access it. Just some of the interesting stuff at the yard. I took alot of wagon photos for the guys over at Stationwagonforums.com but there's a few other gems in here.
Not even 10% of the interesting stuff at this yard. I could spend all day just walking around this place.
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152322231115121.953148.707995120&type=3
singleslammer wrote: In reply to JThw8: Good man. There is a time and a place for large cars (this thread is proof) but as a dd is not the place.
What. I daily drive my Caprice Estate.
Slightly divergent from the build but related. While I was moving a bunch of crap out of my way in the donor car in the junkyard I found the clock laying on the floor. Mental (previous owner) was quite enamored of the fact that the clock still worked in the car so I grabbed it.
Today I spent some time converting it to a desk clock. I'm a terrible wood worker so just go with it. If Mental happens to read this before it arrives then, merry christmas buddy :)
Started some more work today. I started cleaning and prepping the new arm rest bases. Even the good ones are showing cracking around the center screw hole by this point in their lives. The one in the car is completely destroyed so I wanted to take some preventative measures on the new ones.
You can see the cracking here
And on the back
Everything is still solid so I just wanted a little reinforcement. I cleaned it well and then sanded the back for a little tooth. Then I added 2 layers of fiberglass, should be more than enough for years of continued service.
Sadly the SEM paint I got is a terrible match which kind of ticks me off since I took the time to order a color chip chart first and the chip is a good match, but the actual product is at least 2 shades too light. I ordered a can of the color I thought it should have been in the first place, before I got the chip chart and I'm crossing my fingers. If its a better match then I need a lot more of it as most of the plastics inside need dyed anyway so even if its off a bit I can keep it consistent. The SEM stuff does lay out beautifully and provide a great finish though so a big plus on that. In the past I've always cheaped out and just picked up duplicolor vinyl dye at the FLAPS, definitely nowhere near the quality of the SEM product.
I also took a few moments to try and figure out why the rear window goes down but not up. You can hear the motor running in both directions but it wont go up on its own, it does if you give it a little help. I pulled the motor out and cleaned everything up. The gears look good but there's a metal gear pressed in a plastic gear and the best I can figure it has a "slipper" mechanism of sorts built in to keep it from breaking the window if there's resistance or something. A view of a replacement gear.
So I assume something is worn out inside the gear, the one on my car doesnt look the same as this so I think the design was probably changed at some point. Either way the gear was $28 or a complete replacement motor with gear was $30 so I went with the new motor to make sure everything was good.
Remember this?
After a few false starts with color matching I think it's ready for the car
Looks good!
Warm(ish) day out, wife is out shopping, time to get some things done.
So this is why I've been restoring that arm rest,
Pretty bad, so off it comes. With the 2 next to each other you can see the color match is fairly close.
Installation is the reverse of removal as they say. Much better.
On to the tailgate window. Pulled the old motor popped in the new one...hmm fought me a bit. But it went in and then I hit the switch and the window didnt move :( I could hear the motor turning but not motion. The gear was not engaging the window regulator. I pulled it back out and put it next to the old motor and the problem was obvious.
Old on the left, new on the right, they are not the same size :(
To make a long story short I had to disassemble both gears and modify the old one a bit to work in the new motor but in the end it all worked. These little plastic bits are what were completely non existent in the old motor.
Of course they were not quite the same size like everything else so I had to grind out the gear carrier to fit them. I tried to just swap gears between the carriers but the new one hex shaped to hold it in while the old one is toothed. Nothing easy about it...ugh.
Those three clear plastic 'nubs' can be found in the HELP parts. I found that out after I replaced a few with nuts in one Ford I had. Worked great, but not a proper repair.
The wagon should be good fun once the summer weather is back.
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