It’s my dad’s fault, he bought his first wagon in 1977 , a ‘73 Pontiac Safari when I was 3 years old and my brother was 1. It was the first of 5 GM
wagons, the rest were a ’77 OCC, ’83 Buick, ’86 Pontiac, and a ‘86 Buick he would own over the next 18 years or so until I got married in 1995. So I
grew up in the tail gunner’s seat of GM wagons.
Growing up, my mind was always on cars. I started with Hot wheels, then plastic models, and then r/c cars, and everything in between. When I was 13
I got my first “real” job at a gas station where the owner was an Oldsmobile guy. He bought ’em, sold ’em, worked on ’em, and raced ’em… I was
hooked, Dr. Olds is a “hero” to me. When I was 16, I got a job at a Buick dealership as a lot attendant, and then working in the quick lube full time and
part time right through ’95. During high school I took all the auto programs I could, then went to college in ‘93 at a vocational school in NY for auto
service. I got married in Dec. ‘95 and graduated June ’96 and 2 weeks later, my wife Michelle and I had our first child June 17th, 1996.
Fast forward 6 years, 3 more kids, and 4- B and G body cars, 1- G van. My ’87 G30 van rotted away, so I went back to my roots and found a 89,000 mile
white, no wood OCC from Fla. I put a lot of time and money into it. I loved it, my wife hated it. Sold it a year later because I found a mint ’95 Chevy
Beauville G30 van in Arlington, TX on eBay in ’03. We drove that until ’08 and I got my brother’s ’04 Chevy venture when he was reassigned from Jax.
Fla. to Naples, Italy with the U.S. Navy. So that meant I could sell the van and my Buick Park Ave. and buy a different wagon just for me!
I heard about this eccentric guy out in Waterloo NY.(Ruphraxe) that specialized in the ‘91-’96 GM wagons in ’06, but this time I had cash when
looking. The problem was that every car I was interested in at Fred’s was spoken for. So I ended up finding a light blue woodless ’94 Caprice wagon from
a private seller. It had manual windows, locks, and 97,000 miles that was, I thought, in good shape (for NY). NOPE. I ended up buying a parts car from
Fred for some extra parts, but it was no use, that Caprice was too far gone to be any fun to modify and throw more money at.
Fast forward 1 year, and 1 more kid (5 total). May of ‘09 I had a few cars I flipped and made some of the money back I lost selling the Caprice wagon. I
went back to Fred and told him what I wanted, he told me he had a black WB4 ‘94 Buick RMW funeral car for sale. I went to look at the wagon the next
day, bought it, and took it home that night. It was sometime that day I got infected with the kook virus. The wagon had 194,000 miles, but was in nice
shape, clean, and ran ok. Oh yeah, it was very nice underneath, and had front body mounts, unlike the previous Chevy wagon I had.
The first thing I did was wash and wax it a few times, and clean out the inside good. Then I started changing things. First I cleaned up the engine
bay, made a pvc air intake and removed home plate. The wagon has the tow pack so I wanted to get rid of the mech. fan. It was also not running very
well and had a bad exhaust manifold leak. So $900.00 later, I put on a new opti, plugs, wires, water pump, exhaust manifold gaskets, 160 thermostat,
alt., idler pulley, a/c delete pulley, all new hoses, vac. lines, and hardware. Next, I got a duel fan set up from Fred and the wiring harness from Gary at
Innovative Wiring, to hook it all up so it looks and works right. I took it for a test drive the night right after I finished everything, and the car wouldn't
accelerate, it just fell on its face. I opened the hood to find the right side exhaust manifold glowing red hot, then looked at the right side converter and
that was glowing too. As luck would have it 2 weeks earlier I found a brand new set of GM export pipes on craigslist in Buffalo NY. for $50.00. They even
had the GM part # stickers on them, so I got some 02 sensor bungs, welded them on at work the next day and put them on that night. Boy did all that
make a difference! Now I had to start looking for tires, the rears were bald for some reason.
June of ’09 my neighborhood had a garage sale, and about 10 houses down from mine a couple that just moved in had a set of rims and tires for
sale. I didn’t think they would fit, after all, what’s the likely hood of finding the odd 5 on 5 bolt circle wheels at a garage sale a few doors down from your
house, right? Well, holy cow I measured them and they are 5 on 5, 18”x 8.5” O.Z. Novas with like new 255/55/18 Toyo Proxes Sts. $ 200.00 for all 4,
hence my screen name.
The next mod was to install the body bushings from the 9C1 cars I read about on the ISSF. That was relatively easy, and made a nice difference in
how the car rode. About 3 weeks before Wagon Fest ‘09 I rearended a '09 Toyota RAV4 on my way home from work. That didn’t look very good. So I
came to Wagon Fest Fri. night with everything fixed, except no hood. I came home with a dark blue hood thanks to Fred (Ruphraxe), Mike (Scoob), and
Mike (DBeaSSt). Wagon Fest ‘09 was a blast, and I met some very nice people. I’ve already got July 29th, and 30th off from work, can’t wait for WF ‘10!
I finally got a black hood in late Aug. so I t looks good again. Thanks again to Fred for helping me out with that.
Late Oct. I just missed a grey 30,000 mile ‘92 OCC on eBay to Fred by about an hour, I hesitated. Fred just resold it on eBay last week to
Scbarber. So I had a bit of money to put into my RMW. I bought a radiator from thepartsladi, Power slot rotors, Hawk pads, reman calipers, bearings,
Moog center link, inner, and outer tie rods, and A Pypes street pro X pipe “export back” exhaust system from Summit. I also got a complete ‘94 beige
RMS leather int to put in my wagon. I hope to have all the above on the car plus larger front and rear sway bars, and boxed LCAs by WF’10. The best
thing I got though is a ‘92 Caprice sedan for a winter beater. It just needed 4 snow tires and about 18 cans of expanding foam in the trunk and
underneath to hold it all together, this car is rotted very badly.
I hope to see all you kooks a WF’10. Thanks for reading. Good Day. And may God bless you and your families in 2010
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Fri Jan 01, 2010 5:22 am
Love the expanding foam job, nicely done.
