On The Road Again... or... One Last Ride

I'm on the left, my friend Mark is on the right. I'm the good looking one tee hee :)

Mark and I met in elementary school and have been friends for a long time. Around our sophomore or junior year of high school Mark's parents thought that their 1963 Dodge Dart would be a cool car for Mark to drive around so they handed him the keys and gave him and I permission to work on the car. (Really he just needed something to compete with my devilishly handsome 1986 Ford Escort EXP, a much more superior vehicular contraption, duh...)

The only hole in that plan was where you give the keys to two 17 year old boys with a garage full of tools and a service manual from 1963... Bear in mind neither of us could weld, bondo, paint, fabricate, or read wiring diagrams.

I lied, that was the second hole, the first hole was that the Dart had less than 40,000 original miles on the car, was in perfect running condition, had great paint, excellent interior, and a "refuse-to-die" 4.0 liter slant 6 cyl with an uber-badass push button transmission. The car really just needed tags, but we were ambitious! We were young and good-looking! We are so dumb...

After a few weekends of doing work, learning about cars, machines, and tools, we hit a couple little snags. No matter what we did or tried we just seemed to get more and more confused, so the car sat for the past 6 years in the garage untouched until this past weekend. While it did make a pretty awesome shelf for things like blankets, tools, and lawn equipment, it had to go bye-bye the way that most cars do.

One thing that we did do right however was label every nut and bolt that came off the car. That came in handy when we remembered that we tried to take the engine and trans out in one piece and left it sitting on the steering box (a few hundred pounds on the steering box and column makes it very hard to tell the car to go straight onto the trailer). So we found the parts we needed and put it all back, freed up the steering and started getting it ready for it's last day on the road.

Label everything... even the most insignificant crush washer or 13mm bolt, you'll thank your dumb high school self years later.

Onward! We did take out the front bench because its in perfect condition, still original, and would make a really cool man-couch, so thanks to the fisher-price-playskool company for making our new racing seat. Ben-jammin' got to be the lucky driver for the Saturday festivities.

Thar she blows... man that was sad, honestly if we hadn't let this thing sit for so long, it would maybe take two weekends to put it back together and it would probably fire right up, but still, having an old car and no desire to be married to the garage every weekend don't mix well, so bye-bye.

Rest In Pieces buddy, as many as the weird, new wave-druggie at the junkyard cuts you into. We still kept a few mementos of course :) Mark and younger brother Ben took the headlights, front bench, tail lights, and gas cap, I took another headlight that was a replacement for the car. I don't know what they'll do with the souvenirs, but the headlight that Mark and Ben gave me will be going on my Yamaha, along with my Dad's old front fender from his '58 Triumph Pre-unit. I can't wait, that bike will be very sentimental with all the parts and help going into it.

Although that was kind of a bittersweet adventure, several actions and comments were made just before leaving the junkyard and returning our rental trailer.

Let's review...

Mark: "Where's the cinder block?"

Me: "I used it as a wheel stop, it's behind the back tire"

Mark: "What?! I want that block! It's our only cinder block!"

Me and Ben: "HAHAHAHAHAHAHA"

Then we gave the car a big group hug (seriously, not a joke, it was the manly thing to do)

Me: "Well now that everyone in the junkyard thinks we're gay, let's all get into the truck together, heeeeeeey."

Ben: "HAHAHA"

Mark: "Ben get in the middle so we can make a Bensandwich"

Mark, Ben, Myself: "HAHAHA"

It was a good weekend, we celebrated with ice cream and rainbow sprinkles.