September LROM - 94 DGGM

Pics will follow later as I don’t have them on this computer.


Way back in the beginning of this forum, I was one of the first LROM contributors. It was the Golden Age for these beauties as they were 12-18 year old cars, fairly easy to find and many of them were being cast off just as old cars to get rid of so they could be had CHEAP.
I had loved the cars since they were new and in 2001 I actively looked into buying one at that time. They ranged from about $5K - $14K depending on condition. I tried buying an ex NYSP 1A2 wagon from Albany for $6K with 100K on it, but the guy wouldn’t budge off of $7.5K (it had rust and holes from light bars). Anyway, I went to a local auction and wound up with a 38K Jeep Cherokee at a steal of a price. 3 days later I got laid off from my job, so the wagon search was off….
Fast forward to 2007 and after 6 years and 140K on the Jeep it was time to move on. I bought a friends Explorer and while it had a 5-spd (got a ticket inside a week), I didn’t really like the vehicle so I looked for a wagon on Ebay. Holy smokes, there is an exact copy 1A2 ex NYSP car like the one from 6 years ago. It’s only 2 miles from my Aunt and Uncles in Erie, PA. I call my uncle and he goes and looks at it for me.
I promptly stick my fingers in my ears about the rust going la la la la la as I want the car. I win it on ebay for about $1700. I book plane tickets with my son and Mom (her sister) and off we go. Trip home is fine and with ethanol free gas (it’s 2007) we get over 420 miles on a single tank! I get it home and it’s really Rusty.
I start looking for a parts car and find a 94 RMW in Orlando (200 miles) for a cool thousand and snap it up. Cracked windshield, tailgate doesn’t open, vent window broken, etc. It’s WAAAAY cleaner than the 1A2. I drop another $900 in repairs and start driving it. I keep looking for a parts car to restore the 1A2 with and for $700 I pick up a 103K ’92 – ‘Ruby’. I decide 3 is too many and sell the 1A2 as it’s more of a project than I want. I lose about $500 on it all said and done, but it’s gone.
It starts getting blurry from there with a parts car strip down, running and non running ’92 LAB RMWs, a DGGM 90K Caprice (subject of this LROM). Then the Oldsmobiles came. Had 4, 3-91s and a 350-92 I had for a week. Anyway, I have owned 13 Bubble wagons and 1 D-Body Fleetwood since 2007. Having just sold Ruby last week, I’m down to officially ONE wagon (my son’s is parked at my house so it looks like 2 as he’s in the Navy) for the first time exactly 10 years. I guess the wagon decade is behind me now….

On to the 1994 DGGM Caprice! I got it sometime in 2008 and it pushed my inventory to 5 wagons at the time (92 – Ruby, 94 RMW – Dusty, 2 – LAB RMWs, and the DGGM). Originally purchased in Miami by an aviation company, it spent the first 14 years parked in an aircraft hanger. One of the employees bought it and rolled up 50K, making it a 90K car when I got it. The trans was slipping a little, but it was just low on fluid. Scored her for $1000 and drove her home from Miami. The steering was shot as I had to hold the wheel sideways to go straight. Got her home and up the side yard where she sat. I would run her and then the water pump went. I would run her until she started getting hot. Then the fuel pump died. With bunches of other wagons, I’d get back to her I said….
In 2010 I went to WF NY and met Wagon Collector. He let me drive his T56 wagon. I NEED one of these I declared and parts collection started. After a few years of looking I finally scored a T56 for fairly cheaply. I kept adding swap parts one by one. Then around 2013 or so, a whole soup to nuts conversion came available for under 2K and I could get it delivered to WF FL! Sign me up!
Meanwhile, the car is still sitting….Years go by, the neighborhood cat has kittens under the car. I break the windshield, the cat has more kittens…. I finally get sick of the kitten thing and pull the car out into the driveway. Tim GaSSt is interested in the my automatic for his car, so we work a deal and I have my car towed to his new shop. I start going over after work and we manage to break off the water pump drive getting the bad pump off. Crap. Then the car sits as we both get busy. 6months later I get motivated, and we really get started as there is a hurricane coming and I get it pushed into Tim’s shop. Yaay, I’m inside and work starts to commence. Roo’s wagon is there too and it’s a mod day almost every weekend now.
We fix the water pump gear first which requires tearing the whole front of the motor apart. Everything looks good and we get through that. Then the Rear end. Off comes the 2.56 rear, and up goes the 9c1 rear that’s been in my yard for 6 years too. Total rebuild on the rear. Out comes the auto and in goes the T56. Mind you this over weeks and months of after work and weekends. Front end gets rebuilt too, headers on.
Mad thrash to make WF FL 2017 we fell short by hours as we can’t get the motor to fire and throw in the towel 6 hours before I leave for WF….Well car gets running while I’m at WF. When I get back we still have a lot of cleanup work to do, and finally the car leaves the shop in April.
It still needs a lot of finish work done and the shift linkage is whacked as I can’t use 1st gear right now, but it’s coming along…..

That was nearly a Texas-Mike level story! Enjoyed the read, and keep updating us on the project!

Great read. Love getting everyones back story. It paints a clearer picture of how we are all connected,through this crazy hobby/obsession.

Pictures pleeeeease!

As the build took over a year and photobucket turned into poop heads,   here are some select photos for the build.

Hope they upload ok. Pics are in ALpha order so not chronological. I will add some commentary to them...

4.10s, Hooker headers, soon to be SSR driveshaft, blah blah blah

Surprisingly not one cameo of my red heap.


Glad one of us gets to drive.

Soon... maybe. lol

A lot of mods at once,of course it took a year. Lol...

RedandBlack wrote:

Surprisingly not one cameo of my red heap.


Glad one of us gets to drive.

Soon... maybe. lol

I only grabbed the above ones off the FB group. There are more with your heap in them too.

Andebe wrote:

A lot of mods at once,of course it took a year. Lol...

Oh we are far from done. This was/is Mods 1.0

2.0 is the interior and 3.0 is exterior.and I have more mechanical mods as well, this is what made sense now/needed....baby steps lol.

Love seeing the progress. Its Motivation 101.

That car is SOOOOO clean underneath!!!

Nice story!! Loved following this on FB too. Eager to see it next March (hopefully)

Chris

Nice story John!

Nice to see the progress on the Caprice. Looking forward to seeing it this spring. Down to one wagon, wow that's a long way from the old days when you were the poster child for wagon collecting. I used to love the deals John found. I'm pretty sure I remember John buying 3 in a week and the driveway being loaded.

John runs the WF in Daytona every year, if you want to get away from the snow in March, it's a lot of fun and sun.

Tom