We are about to disembark on a Gambler 500 journey in some junk I bought just for the purpose:
We are about to disembark on a Gambler 500 journey in some junk I bought just for the purpose:
Just leaving now.
How much work did you do to the rough side?
John Welsh said:How much work did you do to the rough side?
Rub some dirt on it, you're fine.
gumby said:John Welsh said:How much work did you do to the rough side?
Rub some dirt on it, you're fine.
We pretty much did exactly what Gumby suggested. I'll get to that in a moment, but first some background info and then a Gambler 500 event report & musing about what's next.
As I alluded to in the first post, I bought this junk explicitly for the Southern Indiana Gambler 500. Purchased it sight unseen from an IAAI auction. Here's a picture my son took of it being delivered:
It was delivered while I was at work.
This is how much I'm into it for:
Nice. I'd love to do the Grambler 500 but I need to stop buying vehicles.
Stampie said:Nice. I'd love to do the Grambler 500 but I need to stop buying vehicles.
That's the beauty of the Gambler, you can use one you already own too. (and I know you own quite a few) K-15?
It was pretty gross inside when delivered. The previous owners used it as their trash can. So did their kids. It's the grossest vehicle (dirty) inside, that I have ever seen.
Remember that hint up in a previous post, "bought sight unseen" yeah. Wouldn't have bought it if I would have done a proper inspection. So several layers of gloves, lots of bottles of cleaner, and several hours of cleaning later it became a tolerable place to sit.
Amazingly, none of the wiring up front was damaged in the crash. I drilled some holes, installed a few zip ties, joining the broken pieces, and we had street legal lighting again:
Near Zero cost repair 
The top of the rear door was pushed out and not sealing:
Notice the tape the auction house put up there to keep the rain out.
I simply put some force pulling on the top (with it open) and was able to get it bent back well enough to seal again ( well, I also installed a couple of tech screws to hold the inner and outer door skins together again)
Amazingly, both driver side doors open and close.
I went after the rear wheel opening with a hammer to restore proper clearance for the wheel:
The driver's side wheel took some of the force impact and as a result the tow was way off and the upper ball joint was blown up.
Here's Indy-kid #2 helping repair it:
The upper ball joint was $60.
Total investment at this point is now $1193.05 + $60.00 = $1253.05
After the ball joint replacement, (finished at about 11:00pm Thursday night) we took it for a test drive of about 1/4 mile out and back. Good enough. That brings us up to date on the background info leading up to the opening picture of this thread.... Next post is Gambler drivers meeting.
So what do you do with it after the rally is over?
that's an awesome gambler car
dannyp84 said:So what do you do with it after the rally is over?
At the moment, I still have it (Gambler event was just 4 days ago this past Saturday). It's fate in my fleet isn't decided yet.
The Gambler starting point was about an hour and 45 minutes south of us, and had a starting time of 8:00am. That's whay we departed home at 6:00am Saturday morning. Note: Friday night was Indy-kid #2's 16th Birthday Party; and we were up late, so wheels up that early was Rough.
I was certainly nervous as we pulled out of the driveway, beacause we were about to spen and hour and a half at 75 mph on the interstate (in a previously crashed vehicle) that I'd never proper test driven yet. We arrived at our destination at 8:09am and asked where the drivers meeting was taking place at. This is where we learned our first lesson: Gambler time. Nothing starts on time. The drivers meeting started around 8:35. Here's Indy-Kid #2 and #3 at the start of the meeting:
The stickered up suburban in the background is the event organizers personal vehicle
what gambler did you do?
The fee list is wild. An internet fee????
jfryjfry said:The fee list is wild. An internet fee????
Yep. Fees are a Huge adder on these sites. I used the "BUY IT NOW" option on this junk (after watching it not hit the auction reserve for several weeks)
Nearly doubled the cost of a "$650" vehicle.
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