'85 Buick Riviera - I Hate Myself For Loving You

I can't help myself. Every time I see one of these I, at first, get a little weak in the knees. Then I get sick to my stomach.

Mine was an Olds 307 powered '82. White. Red leather. No vinyl top. Simply gor-juss and she had me at "why...hello, thar!". Much like this 1985. Hmmm, she sure is lovely.

 

Then I quickly recall all the times she left me stranded. Or couldn't get me to where I needed to go. And how she burned my modest bank account for thousands and thousands in lame attempts to keep her running. I finally ditched her when the right front wheel came flying off. At first the car started "wagon wheeling" while I was doing 40 mph. By the time I could slow down to about 20, the tire came loose and rolled into a row of bushes in front of a bank.



1979-1985 Buick Rivieras, Oldsmobile Toronados and Cadillac Eldorados; I hate myself for you.

Frieze Update - Another Lost Weekend

 

Mistakes and home improvement, in my world, go hand in hand. I'm now going on two months of mistake after relentless (stupid) mistake and the subsequent rebuilding of my workbench. And I thought I could finish this project in a single Sunday afternoon. Ha. Seriously. Will I ever finish this thing?

 

 

After making a series of disastrously inaccurate measurements this weekend my cordless drill crapped out on me leaving me with no way to finish what I had been working on. I somehow stripped the gears on this thing and now have to replace it. Lovely.

 



 

No sooner did the drill stop working when I realized that I had made yet another mistake which will result in my (subsequent) dismantling and rebuilding of what I've already spent way too much time on in the first place. Somehow there's a one inch space between the platform (shelving) and the wall right there.

 

Another lost weekend.

 

AC Cobra - Don't Call It A Replica

I was going through my wife's phone the other day (oh c'mon...you don't do that??) and I came across this photo she took of me mugging in front of this delightful little beast in the parking lot of the Home Depot in Avon last summer.

For those who think that a Corvette is too commonplace and a Viper too over the top, may we present for your viewing pleasure, a four hundred and twenty seven cubic inch, AC Cobra. Oh. My. Don't get too close. Those side pipes get really hot!

It's not a replica. Well, not a replica per se. It's a "continuation car". "Continuation" as in continuation of a series of spectacularly awesome two seaters started by the late, great Carrol Shelby back in the '60s.

Note that there's only a rollover bar for the driver. 

Frieze - Will this Ever Get Finished?

Months ago I started planning what has turned into a massive remodeling project. Months later, I wonder if I will ever get to what originally inspired it.

Let's review. I want to place a Yankee Stadium inspired Frieze (pronounced Freeze) on the top shelf of my work bench. Before I could do that, though, I thought it best to rebuild/expand my workbench. What the heck, y'know? That would include expanding the original bench, the addition of new bench to the left of the original bench and adding a platform underneath for shelving and what not.

So, above becomes below. What you don't see is how primitive below was when I first "finished it". It wasn't square, hardly plum and certainly wasn't something that would increase the value of our home. No matter how pretty it may look when painted or in the case of this picture, 10 feet away. 

I have no one to blame for this mess other than myself. First, I'm a woefully inexperienced carpenter and engineer. Secondly, I don't have the tools necessary to quickly pull off what it is I want to do and finally, I just don't have a lot of time. There's also the weather. When it's 10 degrees outside that means it might be 25 in here.

Back to the inexperienced part. I've made so many mistakes building this thing that I'm at the stage where I'm doubting I will ever finish it. And then, on top of the mistakes I keep working around the challenges I've encountered by doing even more work! Example. Because the panels for the shelving platform that I had custom cut at Lowes are 8 feet long and the work bench is 10, I'm going to now move that post you see above over below in by two feet. That means those frame rails will also have to be moved 2 feet necessitating yet another dismantling and rebuild. Great.

My greatest folly. Not only is was the kick plate here too long but the whole thing was slanted like a ski slope. I can't believe I didn't keep an eye on making sure this was level. It was so bad you could see something was off just by looking at it. Not good. Rip it out. Rebuild. Again. And again till I got it right.

Honestly, if I was as bad at my job as I am at carpentry I'd be unemployed. Who would hire me? Who would pay me to work on their home or business? Certainly, if I was paying someone to build this for me and they were taking as long as I am I would bolt the garage shut and tell them to get lost.

I know that I grossly underestimated the complexity of this thing. These aren't shelves as much as they are elevated flooring. They're going to be that sturdy when completed.

Onward. And upward.

2000 Mercury Grand Marquis - Middle Child Syndrome

Ford's now defunct Mercury division and I have a lot in common. My first car was a Mercury Comet. My wife was driving a bubble back Mercury Capri RS when we first met. My brother drove a 1989 Mercury Grand Marquis back in the early '90's. Most importantly Mercury and I are both "middle children". My wife is a middle child too.

Being a middle child can be tough. At worst you're either neglected and ignored or unfairly put in the cross hairs of demanding parents who are not happy that you're not exactly like the fair haired, much prized older sibling. At best, you're the star of the family rising above the train wreck that is your older brother or sister and becoming the solid example for how to get life done for your younger sib that your parents wished their first born was. Good or bad it's a different ride for us middlers. My wife and I came through fairly unscathed from the rigors of middle child-dom. Sorry to say, Ford's middle kid did not. 

Mercury's, for most of their time here on this earth, were either a Fancy Ford or a "entry level" Lincoln. A Mercury, with the exception of the spectacularly unique and wonderful 1949-1951s, was never a "Mercury". My Comet was a slightly more upmarket Ford Maverick. I guess. I didn't think there was anything upmarket about it. My wife's Capri allegedly a tarted up Mustang.

Case in point. This brutal 2000 circa Grand Marquis. So what is it? A fancy Crown Vic or less expensive Town Car? I'm confused myself. It's a shame because underneath the hilarious schmaltz is a solid, dare I see good automobile. Net, net? A truly tortured retiree mobile. 

  

Pick a lane, Grand Pa. Ford never did. That confused buyers and ultimately killed you.

 

Frieze Update - Game of Inches

I ain't no carpenter but if I was I think I would flat out suck at it.

The biggest problem with finishing this endless workbench expansion has been the weather. It's been brutally cold here the last couple of weekends and with a business trip thrown into the mix on top of the weather it's now over a month that I've been tooling with what I thought would be a 3 - 4 hour project.

Last weekend my younger son was my helper again and it was no more than 20 degrees out in the garage. The doors were closed to keep the relentless wind at bay but it was still stinging and numbing cold after about 15 minutes. Some classic rock tunes on the radio helped to keep our conversation going between passes on the table saw but the cold eventually crushed my ambition to finish the job.

My goal though, despite mother nature, was to finish at least the shelving under the "new" workbench. Everything was going along beautifully except that I noticed that the kick plate needed to be trimmed by about half an inch. Hrmph. That would've required significant disassembly and that meant more wasted time. So, instead, I worked around that problem and soldiered onward toward final assembly.

After it all fell together with some hammering, cussing and screwing I stepped back and took a look at my work. Oh. No. The whole thing is not square (I could live with that) but more importantly it's not plum. Great. So much is this thing off that you can notice it with a naked eye. This ain't gonna work. I huffed and I puffed and resolved that this beast is going to require more time to complete. That's right, Bob Villa. It needs to come apart. That means more time.  

Sweet, cold, frigid time that I myself was dissappointed in needing to invest. When you have a 14 year old jogging place to stay warm my decision was easy to make. Ditch the project until next weekend.

Hello, level. We'll meet again for another weekend afternoon of battle this Sunday. 

Adventures In Snowblowing

Woke up this morning to an unexpectedly heavy snow fall. It was supposed to Cleveland more in the snow belt and leave the west side of town with next to nothing.

When you've got 5 inches of snow with 15 degree temperatures there's only one thing to do!

That's right! Fire up Ole Red!

Things were going along swimmingly well until all of a sudden I heard a sickening screech coming from the Ole Fire breathing Powerhouse. The last time I heard a sound like that was back in Dallas when I ran a brand new lawn mower without oil. Brilliant.

I pushed the hulk into the garage going over in my head how I was going to tell the wife that I blew the engine on another expensive piece of apparatus. "It was...soap. Poisoning..."

First thing I did was check the oil. If the dip stick was bone dry and smoke poured out of engine then I knew the engine was toast. But the dip stick indicated there was plenty of fresh oil in the crankcase. What the?

So I plugged the starter back in and cranked the engine. Started right up!

Ohthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!

Thing was, when I engaged the blades it stalled out again with he same sickening screech. Something was wrong. Quick check up and inside the blower and I found what was the matter.

Is it spring yet?