Mid-March 2009 LROM

I've been tagged for the mid-March LROM posting. I've had a number of wagons over the years so I'll try to chronologically go through them here as much as possible. So I guess my thread is more like Sprocket's than a single wagon of the month.

My first experience with the longroof's was in my Mom's '76 Pontiac GrandSafari. Bought as a dealer demo after her Catalina was wrecked, this car was loaded. Pontiac 455 V8 with the tow goodies as well as power windows/locks, automatic climate control and of course the oh so cool, clamshell rear gate. I wish I had been able to buy it from her when they sold it and bought a (gasp) '85 Plymouth Voyager. Thus also began my hatred of the mini-van.

The only picture I have of Mom's wagon is in an arial photo of their house. So here is a picture, taken of the picture:


My first long roof was a '94 Ford Taurus XL. I bought it as the third owner from a local neighborhood guy. It was nicely equipped, with leather, sunroof, power everything and the 3.8 V6. I borrowed some money from my Mother to purchase it and it became my daily driver so the Impala (96 SS) could stay comfy in the garage. Unfortunately for me, the notorious Ford 3.8 got me. Right at 100K, the radiator clogged up, causing the rear cylinder head to overheat and blew a headgasket. Since the deal with Mom was to pay the car off and give it to her (this was in 2000 and she was still driving the Voyager), I figured it would be a good idea to get it fixed rather than junk it. So I forked over some cash and had a new radiator and Jasper engine installed. Despite the engine expenses, I enjoyed this car and the versatility of a wagon.

Here is a photo of the Taurus shortly after giving it to Mother:


In the fall of '02, I gave Mom the wagon and bought a sedan to serve daily driver duties as I moved from the DC suburbs to the 'new' home in the country. It didn't take long though before I began to miss the capabilities of a wagon. It wasn't until Summer of '04 that I had the resources to begin looking for a replacement for my Taurus. At this point, I had owned my SS for 6 years so decided that it would be easiest to find a B-body wagon since I had some knowledge of their workings. I decided to look for a '96 so it would be the same as my SS and I already had the shop manuals.

I didn't have to search too long. An ISSF member about an hour and a half from me was selling his '96 Roadmaster wagon. It had a bit over 180K on the odometer and had just had a replacement transmission installed earlier that year. Though it was a little beat up, it had all of the Limited goodies and most of them worked. So we made a deal on the car. I had recently purchased a set of Caprice alloy wheels with decent tires from an local Impala club guy. He had used them on his SS in the winter but no longer needed them. Well, the Roadmaster had practically bald tires so I loaded the Caprice wheels in my little Alero and we headed to pickup the wagon. Arriving at our location, we swapped the wheels out right there and threw the Roadmaster wheels in the back of the wagon and started home. Thus I had my very first B-Body wagon! I had to do a few things to get it inspection ready but the car drove quite nicely. I put the sedan up for sale ('02 Alero) and began to drive the wagon daily.



In the spring of '05, while doing my usual perusing of epay, I found a '91 Olds Cruiser in Maryland. It was quite beat up from running over a truck tire on the highway and being rear ended during an ice storm. I got the car for $255 and was able to drive it all the way home with only a slightly high engine temperature as the fan shroud was shredded. I bought the car purely for the challenge of fixing it up and making it road worthy. I spent the spring and summer searching for the needed parts and fixed the car up. It became road legal the following spring. Right around that time, I found what I really wanted, a 92 Olds Cruiser. A friend was in need of transportation so I gave her the 91 and began the long (and still in progress) project of restoring the 92, now dubbed 'Blue'.

Here is “Project CC” just after I got her put back on the ground and mostly reassembled:


A picture of 'Blue' taken just after I purchased it. Looks a bit different now!


Meanwhile, though the 'Roadmonster' served me well for several years, it's early life in PA began to take it's toll and the rust began to rear it's head. During my second WagonFest, in 2007, and with the help of krzdimond's son, we took the faithful Roadmonster to Freds and traded it in on a solid but also rusty 96 Roadmaster. This was my first WB4 and in my favorite color, Light Adriatic Blue. My intent was to keep this car until I found my dream wagon, a 96 Limited with heated cloth. This wagon was my backup car to the Fleetwood I was driving daily at the time.

A photo of my briefly owned Light Blue WB4. Now in the hands of another ISSF member.


Back to epay, August '07, I'm browsing again. I find a '92 Cruiser at a 'buy here pay here' lot an hour from me. It's a repo and thus a little banged up. I put a $400 bid on it and lost but that was about my limit on what I wanted to spend as it was advertised as an L03 car and I was intending to use it for parts. Well a day after the auction ends, I get a second chance offer as the winning bidder has decided that the car is “too far away” for him. So I get the car for my last high bid. Over about two months, I relayed the car between the dealer, my Sisters house, my Mother's house and finally home. Well, I start cleaning out the car which was it's own adventure and notice that the car is almost competely rust free and that L03 is actually an L05. So rather than strip a nice rust free car for parts, I decide that this will become my backup car. I dubbed this wagon 'BlueTwo' as it's the cloth interior clone of 'Blue'

'BlueTwo's epay photo. Not the most glamorous, he looks much better now.


Much to my surprise, on SuperBow Sunday 2008, I received a voice mail from Fred. Very cryptic and told me to call him back. Well, turns out he had found a 96 Roadmaster Limited with cloth interior. Medium Adriatic blue and WB4. I wanted light blue but being that Limited cloth cars are so rare, I decided not to let this one pass me by. So, in March 08 we drove the “old” wagon up to Freds to trade on the “new”. This worked well as I was just about ready to put 'BlueTwo' on the road and there was no way the latest Roadmonster would be seeing daily driver duty.

Here is one of my favorite pictures of the current Roadmonster.


Part II continutes.....

Part II

After the purchase of the 'new' Roadmonster, I decided that I had 'enough' wagons. Not to mention the fact that space to park them is becoming difficult. Naturally since I wasn't looking for another wagon, the opportunity to purchase a rather rare one came up. One of our well known forum members, Bewbz, managed to get hit in his '96 Caprice. I bought the Caprice from him and several of the parts to repair it were donated by ISSF members. Pat (buickestate) was kind enough to deliver the car to me enroute to 'Uberfest' and Sprocket's home in December (2008). I now have (or have enroute) all of the parts needed to repair the Caprice. Due to other projects and funds of course, repairing this one will take a little while. I've also found that the car needs a new power steering pump and water pump and probably a starter before getting any regular driving. Unfortunately, he'll sit for a little while until time and funds permit repairs.

A pre-accident photo of the Caprice taken by Bewbz himself.


During all of this, I've had multiple parts cars. It has occurred to me that I should chronicle them so I'll try to do so here.

92 Olds Cruiser -
In the fall of 2006, I saw a local ad for a '92 Olds Cruiser for sale. It came with a free parts car too. I wasn't really interested in the Cruiser, though I don't recall exactly why. So I called the seller and asked if he would be willing to sell me the parts car. He wanted to sell them together but took my number in case he changed his mind. Well several weeks later he called. He decided to keep the wagon but that the parts car had to go. So if I wanted it, I could have it but needed to get it towed out right away. So, that weekend, I found a tow company and had the car brought to my house. This was my first parts car and quite banged up but still had lots of good parts. It's seats now reside in 'Blue' which was purchased just a few months later.


91 Olds Cruiser -
Prior to WagonFest06, Fred found a 91 Cruiser and we agreed to co-purchase it for parts. I don't have any pictures but some of the WF regulars probably remember me working away at it during WagonFest. The Roadmonster returned home from WF06 loaded down with Cruiser parts.

96 Fleetwood Brougham -
Not a long roof I know but certainly a long car! A local friend of mine was the original owner of this Fleetwood and loved the car. He was rear ended by one of those horrid camry's. Due to the car's age, they totalled it. Quite sad as once I cut the left muffler off (it was mashed against the wheel) the car was still drivable. Though the quarter panel was slightly damaged, fixing it would not have been outrageous. None the less, this poor car was stripped down to just about nothing before being crushed. In fact, it's rear seat and front headrests are currently being made into a couch for my garage.


91 Olds Cruiser -
This Cruiser was listed on one of the auto auction sites that Fred frequents. He told me about it and it was on his watch list for over a year before finally going up for sale late in 2008. I won the bid and paid to have it delivered to Fred's shop. The week before Thanksgiving, I loaded up 'BlueTwo' with tools and headed to NY. I spent most of one day pulling as many parts as I could from the car and loaded them up in the wagon. Sad as this was another car that really was not in horrible shape and could have been fixed and driven. No pictures of this one either unfortunately.

92 Olds Cruiser -
Fred was given this Cruiser by a local person. As it was really not in good enough condition for resale, Fred let me have it for parts. The odometer had stopped working at somewhere around 280,000 miles but ran quite nicely only needing some minor work and an exhaust pipe. I'm currently in the process of completing the parts stripping of this one. I hope to use it's right quarter panel when I get the Caprice repaired.


93 Buick Roadmaster -
I've been at my current job for just over six years now. Ever since starting the job, I had seen a gold woody Roadmaster parked at a home nearby work. I looked at it every time I drove by. Well one day last spring (2008) I saw, what appeared to be a small piece of paper in the back window on the way back to work from lunch. Much to the shock of my coworkers in the car, I swung around to get a closer look. Turned out it was for sale! I called and chatted with the owner, looked at the car and we worked out a deal. I drove the car, the 30+ miles home with zero problems other than an intermittent A/C. The right front door was smashed in and the glass was gone. So I found a free door and slapped it on to keep the interior dry. As of right now, I've got farm use tags on this one and just use it to ride around the farm. It will eventually become a parts car. Too bad as it's in quite good shape other than rusty quarters (appears to be from trapped water rather than road salt) and a malfunctioning ABS unit.


Well that was far longer than I expected it to be! But now you know my longroof history, like it or not! If you want the full details on the cars, click my web page link in my signature.

And here I thought I had a problem

probably a good thing we live a thousand miles apart ha ha ha

Great write up.

Good write-up Mike. Had no idea you were trying to start up "Northstar south" Hope you have lots of room.

Bill

Oh, I have a problem, that's for sure. But I don't want to get better!

Not exactly trying to start my own car lot, just kinda happened that way.

Thanks for the complements guys. Now I just need to actually finish one of these projects.....

DBeaSSt wrote:

Oh, I have a problem,I just need to actually finish one of these projects.....

I'm not going to hold my breath....

buickestate wrote:

DBeaSSt wrote:

Oh, I have a problem,I just need to actually finish one of these projects.....

I'm not going to hold my breath....

Oh? When's that 93 gonna be finished?

DBeaSSt wrote:

buickestate wrote:

DBeaSSt wrote:

Oh, I have a problem,I just need to actually finish one of these projects.....

I'm not going to hold my breath....

Oh? When's that 93 gonna be finished?

long before you get your garage finished

buickestate wrote:

long before you get your garage finished

Dammit.... got me there...

Mike that was a great read. I am amazed at the work you and others here are willing to do yourself to save these wagons.My wifes Father had a 76 buick estate clamshell when I met her. I too wish I had bought it. On that note he told me he still has the chrome wheels if anyone is interested.

Marge and I rode in the back seat of Bewbs car you now have,figuratively speaking of course

Is the SS still in the fleet?

Wow Mike that is quite a story. I didn't count but I'm guessing your in the same league as Sprocket. Also, I'm going out on the limb here, Mike with all those cars that you have had, you have to be single.

Nice Story

Tom

Man it is cool that you go to such great lengths the ensure that these cars stay on the road.

We all need to collectively buy a junkyard and stock it with nothing but wagons.

Thanks guys.

I'd thought about clearing an area for parking various wagons but I'm sure my house mate would not really like that. Though I can't imagine why.

Lorne, I no longer have any B/D sedans. Sold the SS and the Fleetwood last year and bought something a little better on gas. Well, better if I can keep my foot out of the accelerator! As much as I loved my SS, I don't really miss it. I do, however, miss the Fleetwood, what an awesome car.