January LROM

Well, I don’t really have many excuses for being a car nut. I’ve been into them since I could walk. I’ve had millions of matchbox and hotwheels toy cars, built models, and still do to this day. I don’t have the same collections and not all of my models have survived the various stages of my life but I have always consistently had them. The real hard part was when I upgraded to the real thing, but I would never have changed a thing.

It all started with a 1990 Mercury Topaz that my mother had put over 300,000 kms on driving it 4 hours a day to and from work. I was so excited to work on it and get it on the road as my first car, I couldn’t wait. If my parents weren’t home I would start it up, and drive it up and down the long driveway we had out in the country, but never took it on the road because I was young and afraid to get in big trouble. Sadly, that car had the main crankshaft seal go between the torque converter and engine blow up and it would spill a litre of oil out every 10 min once it warmed up. So it went to the junkyard after years of reliable service. When I finally got my learner’s permit at 16 (Ontario G1 License) I learned to drive in a 1989 Chevy Caprice Classic, a 1995 Oldsmobile LSS(which was my first road worthy car), and a 1988 GMC S15 with an iron duke and 5spd.

Now thanks to paranoid parents I didn’t get to drive on my own until 19, but that didn’t stop me from owning some basket cases in between. The first cars I bought was 2 Taurus SHO’s, one a 1991 and the other a 1990 parts car. Both had the famous (depending on who you ask) Yamaha designed DOHC 3.0L V6 and a stout 5spd transmission. Those were the first cars I really learned to drive a manual transmission, and I figured it out without anyone teaching me. Got pretty good too, but sadly they never saw the road, but taught me a lot about starting off on project cars. After that It was all over the place. I’ve had a 1989 Dodge Caravan with a turbo 2.5L engine which never saw the road(another failed project), the 1995 Oldsmobile LSS, a 1993 GMC Sierra 2WD Extended Cab w/ a TBI 350 and a 4L60E.

By the time I had the Sierra, I had already been an automotive tech for 2 years and been to school for it for 2 more. About this time, disaster struck.

I couldn’t make any money as a technician apprentice making 11 bucks an hour and drove myself into debt, got laid off, tryed another shop for a while, quit there because the owner was a retard, and just ran out of options in the small town I lived in. Lost my insurance on the truck due to non-payment(and in Ontario no insurance=not road legal) and got in an accident before the insurance ran out. Forgot about a headlight ticket and had my license suspended for a couple months, and had a couple speeding tickets. I had no choice but to move back into my parents place, and let the truck sit. Tried being a mechanic for another 6 months at a new shop, but after 6 months of 6 day weeks, 10 hour days, no overtime, no benefits, and no sleep it took its toll again.

Fast forward to 3 years ago. My best friend’s dad stores classic cars in his well kept barn over the winter months for friends and aqaintances. One of these cars was a 1987 Pontiac Safari station wagon. I had already drooled over this car for 2 years and hoped it would come up for sale, and it did. The back story is that it spent its winters in florida, and was a one owner vehicle. It had already spent 13 years in an underground parking garage when the owner died, and the wife never drove it again. I immediately jumped on the opputunity, and got to work over the first year. Got the brakes all done, got it all ready to go for the safety, and the tired 2004R blew the pump to bits all over the road in a glorious cloud of transmission fluid smoke and streaks of fluid trailing behind it. As winter came I had collected a TH350, got it rebuilt with fresh high performance parts(shift kit, high HP compontents, and a 74 corvette torque converter) as I had already blown up 3 automatic transmissions in my life and this was going to be the last one. Did more work other than the transmission and got it all safetied to go on the road.

Here’s the kicker, insurance companies in Ontario are crooks. The government made it illegal to drive on the road without a policy, but does not regulate the prices. Even 3 years after the accident, 3 and a half after the suspended license they told me to pay 775 bucks a month to have a basic liability policy on the car. Thankfully everything gets wiped clean after 4 years. Ugh, another winter storage season with no car to drive. Finally the next year after spending 3 months working on it in the spring, and a much cleaner record I get it on the road. I’ve been driving it ever since, and it’s been amazing. Last year I found out that the real reason I wanted this car the moment I saw it was my mom while I was a baby had a 1988 Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser that I spent the early years riding in. Now I own a 1989 Chevrolet Blazer that I am restoring to former glory, and making it way better and nowhere near stock.

The good news is I got the wagon on the road. The bad news is that I still spend over 200 bucks a month on insurance.

Now I gotta rant a little.

I honestly love cars with every ounce of my body. I love the engineering, I love the mechanical idea of the steering wheel and pedals connecting you with the road, I love the character that older cars exhibit and how you grow into your car and slowly become one with the blacktop over ownership. What really grinds my gears is capitalism on this basic need of guys and gals that share the same passion of owning a vehicle. Outrageous insurance prices for minimal bad notes on the record, police that target modified vehicles all over the world when they are better maintained than many other vehicles on the road(Australians know exactly what I’m talking about), cash for clunkers that scammed many perfectly good vehicles off the road to produce more greenhouse gases to build new cars to replace them, and increasingly stringent smog laws that threaten beautiful classic cars into extinction when they are nowhere near the main source of greenhouse gas emissions. But companies are better protected against laws that keep planes and factories from being regulated against emissions that harm the atmosphere. Us petrol heads are a dying breed, and really, its just so sad to see. Plastic econoboxes that don’t last a few years without major service, capatalists that scam the public into buying them, and laws that make driving a peice of crap more legal than driving a well maintained performance vehicle are choking us all off causing us to switch to minivans and just drive to work everyday.

I don’t know about you, but my kids are going to grow up knowing the thrill of a steering wheel, two to three pedals, and a two lane blacktop even if I die trying. These are things I learned at an early age to be fond of, and I don’t plan to let anyone stop me. My parents didn’t understand, but they don’t need to, nor does anyone else, even an ignorant police officer (I know the good ones, the ones that have harassed me for no good reason can go back to college) need to give me approval to enjoy my hobby. I enjoy it for my own satisfaction, my own sanity and betterment of my mechanical skills.

Maybe I’m just weird.

As I step down off of my soapbox for this month’s edition of LROM, I thank this site for being here, and I enjoyed being a voulenteer for this. And most of all, I thank you guys and gals for reading my story.

If you are weird then all of us are weird which is fine with me.Keep developing those mechanical skills because these old wagons deserve only the best.

Preach on brother!

Edison invented the incandescent bulb here in the US and the dimbulbs that run our "free country" taketh away.   Are they being banned up there too?

That was a lot of reading,..

how about a pic of the car,.

Olds Weighty Eight wrote:

Preach on brother!

Edison invented the incandescent bulb here in the US and the dimbulbs that run our "free country" taketh away.   Are they being banned up there too?

We pay them too much to ban them. With all the money they'd have around it'd look like the government wasn't doing anything.

I think we all need a political Edison around.

phantom 309 wrote:

That was a lot of reading,..

how about a pic of the car,.

http://www.impalaforums.com/wagon-discussion/325425-1987-pontiac-safari-wagon-build.html

Been slowly updating this thread on another forum. Lots of pics and a bit more detail on it's life.

Too much insurance, not enough car.

jayoldschool wrote:

Too much insurance, not enough car.

Tell me about it   

Very cool....I like it lowered too! Thanks for sharing!

hope you kept the olds lss for parts

buickestate wrote:

hope you kept the olds lss for parts

I wish I did, but I was renting an apartment at the time and no place to put it. With a blown transmission, and a tired 3800 series 2 engine with 330 000 kms on it I sold it to a buddy at work and I'm pretty sure he scrapped it. We're all dumb with our first cars. It was a rare because apparently the LSS was made in small numbers in 1995 here, didn't make a real appearance until 1996.

So far, hotrodding a car is still not frowned upon in FL. We do not have the rust belt issue either unless you live near salt water. Salt water eats them from the outside and inside at the same time. I am glad you are determined to keep the faith. Governments have a way of ruining a lot of things. Here, once they get to a certain age, about 25, there are a lot fewer rules, and even the tags get cheaper.

I can relate to the storage issue. I have 2 wagons, and have to store one at my dad's house, because I only have one space at the condo. Getting a job that pays enough to live on is difficult here too. The businesses feel like part of your pay is in sunshine.

You have a good story, but capitalism is not the problem, it is government interference, and socialism that are the real culprits. It always costs more when the government get its fingers in the mix, and socialism limits the selection.