March 2013 Wagon of the Month

Hey guys! Guess it’s my turn to be long roof of the month. This probably won’t be a “Texas mike” post, but I’ll do my best to tell you my short-long roof story.

So I’ve always been a car guy. I came home from the hospital in an ‘89(?) ford Taurus wagon; which was still a pretty new car when I was born (1993). I remember only liking the realistic hot wheel cars, none of those weird one offs. First car I “wrenched” on (passing my dad his tools, crushing old dinky cars in the vice) was probably my dad’s early 80’s chevette. That thing was so cool. It just kept going and going, what a tough little car! It was the beater car in our family, I remember using the windshield as a slide and my dad would get PISSED! The next big exposure I had to the car world was when my dad bought a ’65 beetle from down the street for something like $100 bucks. Towed it home with the chevette! Hahaha! We didn’t have a garage at the time so it was a like a driveway restoration. He had also bought a ’62 parts car. About two years later he sold them both due to our lack of space at the time. Ever since then I’ve had air-cooled VW blood running through my veins. My family has had a few cars since then that I’ve had my hands into. One of them was a 1990 Toyota trecel which a friend/co-worker of my dad, named Jim, gave to him for free. I‘ve known jim for a long time as my dad has had the same job since before I was born. Ever since I could remember he had a “moonrocket” 1992 Buick roadmaster estate wagon. The earliest memory I have of the wagon is when I was riding my bike out at the end of our driveway and this MASSIVE car slowly glided into the driveway. I was amazed! Then I remember seeing the antenna disappear when he shut the car off! How cool was that!? This was back in the late ‘90s. Jim continued to drive the Moonrocket daily for years. Always giving it the parts and care it needed. As time went on the ol’ roadmaster was starting to show its age. It was stolen from the mechanics shop in 2007. When that happened the thief broke in through the passenger door, destroyed the steering column and locking mechanism. A couple days later the car was found on the side of the 401 near Toronto (Oshawa) with an empty tank of gas. Insurance took care of the damages and the shop it was stolen from did all the work. At this point in the car’s life Jim had bought another car to use daily and the ol moonrocket started to see neglect. Last year in the fall jim called us over to his place to change the battery in the moonrocket. When we got there I swapped the battery and he started discussing about getting rid of the wagon as he had just bought a newer audi wagon. He had no use for 3 cars with just him and his wife. So my brother and I became interested in it. We got a pre inspection on the old wagon; it needed new brake lines, front shocks, an idler arm and the rear bumper support which had rotted out. After giving much persuasion to my mom, we bought the car for $600. First things first, get all the work done needed for the safety inspection. Finding a good bumper support proved to be quite difficult and expensive! About a month went by and the car finally passed safety inspection. (woohoo!) now it was time to get it looking better. Car hadn’t been washed wax in who knows how long. Jims wife had tapped the back of a truck at a stop light when her foot slipped off the brake. So a new grill was first thing I wanted to do. There are ZERO roadmasters in the local wreckers here, so a grill was ordered through a used parts supplier. Later on in the spring I decided I wanted to lose the grimy stock alloys for some used cragars I found on kijiji. After that, paint and body work was needed; Primarily around the rusty ‘D’ pillars. Also the quarter panels needed paint badly! Fortunately even though they were bare metal for years the panels were still solid and a light sanding got rid of all the surface rust.

The bug after resto



The Moonrocket first day of ownership



this was DISGUSTING! first few hours of owning the car i started cleaning the engine bay, still not where i want it to be but it's alot better then this! this picture was taken during some of the cleaning process


Getting its rims put on at work!



After a bit of body work, car is beginning to look good!




This past summer the moonrocket got a lot of use! It saw 6-8 hour round trips almost every weekend for the month of july and half of august. Unfortunelty on one 4 hour drive home, the transmission decided to lose 3rd gear. I was stranded for a good 2-3 hours before the tow truck finally came (middle of nowhere) at this point i was almost ready to sell the old girl but quickly decided against it. I found a good transmission guy who replaced the 3-4 clutch bands and the governor. He also did a couple other things for me for free, new muffler, trans mount, diff fluid top up. He was a great guy to deal with!

Pics from this past summer; camped in the moonrocket for a week. these were taken a couple days before my journey back home when the trans blew




This past fall my brother decided to sell his half of the car to me after buying a rust free s10 from out west. I was ready to sell aswell while the car was still running and driving; its high km (+400k km) and its recent transmission problems had me wondering what would happen next. I posted it on kijiji with no replies but scarpers. I couldn’t let this wagon go to scrap, theres too many good parts on it! After a lot of thinking and decision making, I decided to keep using the wagon until it finally dies (if that ever happens) In October I ran across a local auction listing; there were two older b-body sedans listed, one was a rusty brown caprice and the other was a decent looking ’86 parisienne. The current bid was so incredibly low on the Pontiac I decided to place a bid just to see what happened. I placed a bid of $310 and to my surprise, WON!
The ’86 Pontiac was CLEAN, floors were all solid, original undercoating was still everywhere. It was also loaded! Posi rear, sport suspension, rare factor alloys! It was a cool car. The 305 was holding me back from it but it still did alright for what it was. Because of the price I bought it at I decided to sell and make a very quick $800 bucks. From the money I made I decided to start looking for another wagon, this time it had to have an LT1. Shortly after selling my parisienne I found a ’95 WB4 wagon. It needed work, but I was open to a winter project. After looking at it two separate times I decided to pull the trigger on it.

The Parissienne



Doing the rear brakes before selling


The drive home in my new ’95 was hilarious! its open exhaust and LT1 power put a smile on my face the instant I tapped the gas! Once home I started making a list of the things it needed. Brake lines all around, rear shocks, tire rod ends, water pump and the stupid rear-view mirror came unglued from the glass. I’m about 90% of the way done the brakelines. Im gonna order some KYB gas-adjust shocks for the rear and do those next. Unfortunealty I’ve got no room for two so one of them is gonna have to go soon


Brakelines-pain in the BUTT! pretty much an expert on b-body brakelines now ahaha

out with the old

in with the New!


It's amazing how much happens in one year!

Thanks For the Opportunity to be Longroof of the month for march!

(Okay so maybe it was a texas mike post )

nice write-up, although I have to wait till later to enjoy the pics (wouldn't load at work).

Love the write up, and nice to see I'm not the only one that love air-cooled VW's around here too.

Congrats on LROM and thanks for sharing.

Nice write-up!

Thanks Benn, nice right up.

You did a nice job with the 92 cleaning it up and bringing it back. I can see the same happening to the 95. As I have found out, it's hard getting rid of these things. I really need to thin the heard by one, but I can't pull the trigger.

Maybe you can make it down to WF in New York, you would enjoy it. Ontario is always well represented.


Tom

Thanks for the compliments guys!

little bit of an update i finally finished the brake lines on the '95! i love progress.

silverfox103 wrote:

Thanks Benn, nice right up.

You did a nice job with the 92 cleaning it up and bringing it back. I can see the same happening to the 95. As I have found out, it's hard getting rid of these things. I really need to thin the heard by one, but I can't pull the trigger.

Maybe you can make it down to WF in New York, you would enjoy it. Ontario is always well represented.


Tom

thanks tom! i've been getting some ideas and inspiration from crovo's marshmellow for my '95.

I havnt looked into wagon fest 2013 until you mentioned it. It's definitely doable for me - only about 180 miles away. maybe see you guys there!

Iceman wrote:

Love the write up, and nice to see I'm not the only one that love air-cooled VW's around here too.

Benn. Thanks for the LROM story. Our two daily drivers are 1965 VW and 1992 OCC.


You obviously have good taste!
Dick

Looking good! Brakelines are a pain! Looking forward to more updates!

Congrats,
Chris

Heh. I have my fair share of angry middle finger car part photos too. Especially memories of the oil sending unit mod, in my case... I sympathize.

Now that you have two? The sickness... it's on.

I don't know how I missed this post! Glad it was brought back to the top. Great story, and pics, too! I still miss my old TBI RMW. It was a great car. Like yours, it was filthy when I bought it. I was going to flip it, until I spent a week cleaning it and realized that it was much nicer than my 9C1 (so I sold that). Your new LT1 wagon will turn out nice.

Go to WF! You'll have a great time. The year I went I went solo, but didn't regret it at all. Had a great time hanging out with everyone. I'm sad that I can't go due to a family vacation conflict.

How the heck did I miss it, too? Geesh.

Great story, dude. You've been wrenching for a long time already! The 92 looks great and the 95 is certainly coming along!

I can't believe you sold that Parisienne though! I so would have bought a clean old boxy like that! Brings back memories of my dad's old Delta 98.

Whatchoo gonna want for the 92?

hey thanks guys! i was wondering where everyone was!

update:

brakes lines are done, see my current "spongy pedal and brake light" thread for my current brake issues

parts came in from rock auto: new water pump, rear shocks, and a parking brake cable.
i quickly found out that rear shocks are a pain in the butt on these wagons, especially rust belt cars, the top bolts are extremely hard to get a good grip on. sliced off a good chunk off the side of my pinky finger trying to wrench the bolts off, so thats on hold for now. i think i'll go back at it by removing the rear springs, that should give me some more room to work with. plus i want to lower it any way, might aswell do some coil cutting!

rearview mirror is glued back on

took it for a spin the other day with my spongy brakes, laid rubber through a 4 way intersection and scared the crap out of some people in a prius. i really like this car. ahahaha

IIRC, you can't cut the rears. Only the fronts.

Great story...love the younger guys digging these wagons.

I've cut rear springs without issue before.

toomanytoyz wrote:

I've cut rear springs without issue before.

so is it doable on a wagon? i havnt really researched it yet... i know the coils taper on each end.

Ah. I stand corrected, then.

Carry on.

Good story, and you did me proud with the length and pics!

-Texas Mike