11-1-2007 Long overdue update

This post has a lot of updating.

I did go back to Run N Gun the next day and did take a few pictures that worked.





After that, another thing I did was look at a guy in Ballwin who had an unfinished kit for sale locally. It turned out that it was a little too homegrown for my tastes, a B&B frame with a hodgepodge of other stuff. The deal was quite good, but the lack of support and engineering was too much for me.

After that, I kind of focused on buying a finished car again, but the best one I found ended up selling for $24,000. It was out in California, so lots of issues in pulling that trigger. Not seeing it, transporting, etc. Very capable builder though; the car would have been fine.

Now, I am back to thinking that I may buy a kit and build one from scratch. Timing seems okay now with the rest of my life and my elbow feels great after a recent cortisone injection. I have even gone ahead and bought two seat heaters that were on sale for $100, regularly $175. Here is a pic.



Now I just need a kit. I also have a new lead on an engine/transmission. 302/AOD.

10-11-2007 Wow, where did the month go

A month since I posted. Sorry.

I went to the Run N Gun today over at Gateway Speedway. I'd never been there and it was really very fun. It is the big annual gathering of many of these hobbyist racers, mostly Cobras, but many others. I'd say there were maybe 50 to 100 cars there. I watched about an hour of the autocross and another hour of road racing. I also took lots of pictures, but none of them turned out. I must have screwed something up. Sorry. Maybe I will go back tomorrow morning for more of the road racing and some of the drag racing. I was supposed to pay $10 to be a spectator, but damned if I could figure out where or to whom. Maybe if I had tried to go down into the infield through the tunnel. It was cool enough as it was, though.

On my own car front, I have sent an email to a guy selling a kit he has had for 2 years but never finished. He lives out in Ballwin and is only asking 14,500 for it. Lots of good stuff...tires and wheels, engine and auto tranny, hard top, etc. Not sure what is missing yet, still waiting to hear back from him. I hope I will be able to set up something with him to look at it next week. The biggest problem with it that I know of is that it is a B&B kit. They've been around since 1977, and they look fine, but the online support and community is not what it is for Hurricane or FFR.

Not giving up

I have not totally given up on the Cobra project. Last Friday, I tried to take the family to a cruise-in but we got swamped with rain shortly after getting there. Any Cobras that might have been there were long gone.

I got a call last Friday from Ron at Hurricane. Nice chat. I told him about my attention being more aimed at Sue than the car and he was very understanding. He said he'd contact me again in a couple of months.

Today, I saw a craigslist ad for a 92 T Bird 302 engine and AOD tranny. Asking price is $900. Comes with harness and computer, so it would give me everything I need to drop in the Hurricane. I sent an email to try to find out more of its circumstances, mileage, etc.

No news

Nothing happened this week on the car front. For now, I am focusing more of my attention on my new friendship with Sue. I am still going to be looking around at stuff on the car, but I don't expect much action. Sue has a nice Solara convertible that has reinforced my appreciation for open skies, so that is a nice short run solution to that desire--just let her drive us around.

8-19-2007 -- Why an automatic transmission?

Putting an automatic transmission into a Cobra is considered by some to be blasphemous. I might be willing to listen to the reasons for sticking with a manual transmission, but I think the auto option would be so much easier to drive for me and almost everyone I know. Perhaps nothing makes the case as well as the following video on You Tube....

Video



Ouch!!

Clarence, Iowa

I saw another nice possibility this week on Ebay. A guy in Clarence, Iowa had a Lincoln Towncar engine and auto tranny for sale asking just $800. The car had over 230,000 miles, but the engine was brand new less than 50,000 miles ago and the tranny was rebuilt at the same time. The engine wiring harness and computer were to be included as well. He even offered to deliver it for $1 a mile. If I were really committed to doing this, I could probably have gone for it. I emailed him and did not really forsee any titling troubles. It ended up that nobody bought it and he has re-listed it. Maybe in another week or so I will have more conviction that I really want to go ahead.

08-05-07 Another bad engine

Very little happening right now on the car front. Early in the week, I identified another engine/tranny possibility on craigslist. It was a 92 T-Bird, 302 and AOD automatic. This one was complete with computer and engine wiring harness. I talked to the seller, Mike, and he was very nice. But there were 2 problems that I was not willing to accept. The engine had 180,000 or so miles on it, although Mike said it was good when he got it, no blowback. The other problem was with the title. There were about 5 owners of this original car, and there was some dispute somewhere along the way. So I was not willing to go this route--just too risky.

There were 2 cruise-ins this past Friday. Another out in Wentzville that was supposedly well attended by Cobras. And the usual one at the church on Gravois where this time, there were not any Cobras committed to going. I ended up going to neither one. It was tough timing, and there was a last minute rainstorm that came in, so I decided to bag it.