How it all started...I've had Caprices and wagons since childhood (came home from the hospital in the back of a metallic orange '78 Impala),
and my dad let me drive our poop-brown '86 Caprice wagon to school during Senior year (driving yourself to school was the big thing at the time; nevermind the fact that busses were free and you could sleep on the way to school!).
That 305 was such a dog, but it ran fine enough. I still have one of those silver and black hubcaps that never stay on (so I just took them off - why bother losing them!). At some point I plan on making a clock out of it, and just putting the numerals 3,5, 6, and 8 on it in deference to the year and engine.
One funny story: at one point the choke got stuck partially closed, and eventually the plugs would start to foul, one at a time. I hadn't the first clue how carbureters worked, so I found it easier to carry a spark plug wrench and an old cloth. I memorized the firing order, and once a plug would foul, wherever I was at, I'd let the motor cool, then come back out and pull a plug wire then start the engine, noting the location of the new misfire, and repeat the process until I found the misfiring plug. I could usually do it in three tries or less. I'd pull the plug, clean it, put it back in and be good to go. Ironically our mechanic took about 15 minutes to fix it, but we didn't take it to him for almost two months. Hah!
I reach driving age the year the '94 Impala SS came out. It was love at first sight. The black, the stance, the rims, the 260hp and 330lb ft of torque. I loved it. When the Dark Cherry Metallic cars came out in '95, oh it was over! Those of you who know me know I have a soft spot for DCM.
I actually joined the NAISSO email digest and read it religiously through high school. This was the start of the whole current Impala SS movement. I remember as Scott Mueller, Mitch Posner, Kelly Rosato, Franklin Poole, Ed Runnion, Peter Fyler (had an LT4-powered woody wagon) and a bunch of other dearly departed souls were excited about their cars, starting to modify them, and developing aftermarket mods such as the Team SS intake pipe (most folks now just make a pipe out of Home Depot plumbing, but when these cars were new, that was frowned on). I also remember the beginnings of the 6-speed conversion movement. That was a BIG deal; back when most folks thought Doug Rippie charging $10,000 to do the conversion was high but not outrageous. Oh how times change.
Well, after freshman year of college I just couldn't keep up with the NAISSO digest (think of it as getting every single new post from the ISSF each day in an email to your inbox!), and dealt with other things in life. I did ride motorcycles since my dad bought a bunch of cheap UJMs so us boys had a collective hobby. I started with a '81 Kawasaki KZ550LTD,
moved up to a '92 Yamaha Seca II, then finished with a '92 Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6.
Since I rode sportbikes like they were meant to be ridden - "like a crazy person" according to my wife, we agreed for the survival of our young relationship that I would no longer own bikes and instead switch to a musclecar when the time was right. I was okay with that, as frankly, I was never a very good rider.
When it came to actually driving an Impala, I was fortunate enough to have a part time job as a valet parking attendant. One wedding with like 400 cars (which was way too big for the little country club we were at, but we found a spot for every car!), there was an Impala SS. I didn't get to park it, but once the reception was in full swing, I grabbed the keys and went down to take a look at it (it came late so it was parked in the boonies!). While it was neat because it was so new, with due respect for the SS owners out there, I wasn't terribly impressed. The exhaust was too quiet and had no sweet sound that the 4.9L and Northstar-powered Cadillacs had (these were standard country club fare and by far the sportiest V8s that would come in; I still love the '93-95 STSs!). The interior was new so it looked nice, but the stock seats were too much like my old Caprice's seats (too wide and flat!). I didn't drive it (no room at the place that night!), but I do remember being in love with the exterior. As time passed we did have a few LT1-powered caprice wagons come in. One I remember had an open differential; I drove it around the lot and soon found out that the thing would one-wheel-peel 'til the cows came home! I had to be careful with the gas pedal on that one (squealing was a big no-no!). Interestingly, I don't remember ever driving or even noticing a single Roadmaster wagon.
A brush with fate?Well, fast forward several years later. It was 2002 and my wife and I were on vacation in NJ. Driving down a back road, we passed a small house with a beautiful '95 DCM roadmaster wagon parked out next to the road with a sign in the window. I turned around, stopped and started looking at the car. It was in beautiful shape and rust-free. It had somewhere around 100-130k on the clock. A sign in the window I think read $5500. I rang the doorbell and a sweet old lady came out and started telling me about the car. We didn't chat long until she said "book value is $5500 but I'd take $3500 right now." She took me out for a short ride, and the car sure was nice. Frankly I think it was the first time I had seen a RMW interior. This one was burgundy, and in mint condition. I really liked the dash, and the Concert Sound II tweeters also were a selling point over a Caprice wagon. When we pulled back into the driveway, my wife and I decided to offer her $2900. We were pretty firm on that since we were not planning to buy a car but hey, why not make an offer. She sat firm on $3500; I offered to compromise at $3200 but she wouldn't move. We walked away from the deal for $300. It hurt to walk away but in the grand scheme of things, it was probably for the best, as I didn't have the facilities to do proper maintenance on these cars yet. I hope that car's still on the road somewhere. It was a beauty.
Time to get serious.A year later, after my wife and I bought our first house in Syracuse, we had three sedans and I decided that was pointless, so I sold one and bought an '84 Suburban 4x4 from a forum member and drove that through the first syracuse winter. It was a great hauler, but it was ugly (had some rust around the edges) and my wife hated it. It also was about to need tires and those tires weren't cheap.
My dearly departed first wagon...We were out garage-saling the following spring and I happened upon a '95 Dark Cherry Metallic (DCM) woody Roadmaster Wagon. It was high mileage (162k) but mechanic owned, and the interior was in beautiful shape. I told my wife we'd have to sell the suburban to get the wagon and before I could even finish the sentence she said "well let's go!"
I got a great deal on it between the miles and the fact that the sending unit had rusted out and was leaking fuel. I drove it home gently and eventually fixed it. Cleaned up the brakes, replaced the EGR valve, replaced a tie rod and idler arm and the car drove great. Only mods were a GM CD player, Monroe 550012 severe service shocks on the front, and Summit Turbo mufflers.
Unfortunately, 18 months and 25,000 miles later, the frame rusted out at the left rear LCA mount. I later found out the guy had tried to sell it by parking it next to a main road - in a farmer's field, for at least a year. This from a mechanic? Ugh. The car basically fell off the rust cliff right after I bought it. You name it, it was rusty. Ironically, the whole right side (frame, floorpans, etc.) was fine thanks to transmission fluid leaks for the lifetime of the vehicle. This car was at the very first Wagonfest along with another DCM woody RMW, a Dark Gray Green Metallic (DGGM) woody RMW, a white Olds Custom Cruiser, and a DCM WB4 RMW that was also at WF09. I sold it back to Fred Lesinski (North Star Auto / "ruphraxe" on the forum) as a parts car. The front bumper cover is in texas, the seats are in Long Island, and various other bits are here and there. Fred is the consummate recycler!
What sucked worst was that I ended up swapping transmissions twice on it (first one just was slowly dying, second one I messed up a TransGo install (left the EPC solenoid unplugged) and it suffered a cracked forward piston about 1500 miles later due to the resulting harsh shifting). That's how I got into fixing 4L60Es for those of you who know me. For the record, I have permanently gotten out of working on transmissions due to my stage of life, but am still happy to give advice if I can help.
Anyway, that was my first '91-96 wagon. I loved that car, and I love DCM woodies. It is my personal belief that the DCM woodies are now some of the rarest of the wagons because most were sold in the northern climates and so they tended to rust out faster.
More to come later tonight.
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Tue Sep 01, 2009 1:38 pm
