Bought my Feather Duster... from a biker gang
Howdy, guys! I'm the proud owner of a 1976 Plymouth Feather Duster, which I purchased on Saturday from a biker gang in a small local community. Not quite sure that they knew what the heck it was... lol! The wiring is all messed up, because apparently the electronics within the ignition switch went bad at some point in this car's past, and they tried to redneck something.
The biker I bought it from told me that it had been sitting for two years, but that it ran when he bought it and that he "could get it running again in ten minutes."
I knew it was a bad sign when he showed up with it on a rollback, dumped it in the parking lot that he rents, took my cash, and asked me where my trailer was. I told him that I was planning on working on it for about a half hour, and if I couldn't get it running, I would go grab my trailer.
He shook my hand, tried to sell me a set of tires, and then announced that he had somewhere to be. He took off in a hurry...
Me and my buddies got it running that night. Rather than messing around with all the wiring under the dash, I just hotwired it. Fused jumper from battery positive to the coil. Heck yeah. If it hadn't been for the fuel hose leaking, we literally could've gotten it running in ten minutes. We had to run to my race team's shop for fuel hose, because the local hardware store was closed, so that took some time.
Threw the new fuel hose on, and it fired right up. I let it warm up for a few minutes, then put it in drive. It chug-chug-chugged away. I hit the gas a tiny bit, and it died. Crap.
I moved it back to where it was, then left for the night. I showed up the next day with a buddy, as well as different rims and tires that actually hold air. Then we discovered we needed different lug nuts... you ever tried buying twenty 1/2-20 acorn lug nuts on a Sunday afternoon? We hit three different hardware stores in two different towns, and there's still only seven legit lug nuts on the car. We've got a few regular nuts and a couple all-metal self-locking nuts put on backwards so the taper points inwards. Redneck, but temporary.
Fired it up, let it warm up while we put the last tire on, and then dropped it. Discovered that it's straight-piped and sounds just like a tractor when the engine is running slowly and under load. It's nifty!
I hopped in and did a lap around the parking lot while my buddy looked on. One of the bikers sauntered over, surprised, and asked my buddy "how'd you get that thing running?"
My buddy, who is a man of few words, said simply "it was easy."
The biker said "Tom worked on that for hours and couldn't get it to run!"
Poor Tom. He just got pwnd by a teenager. Probably lost some major street cred. And he thought he was ripping me off... ha!
So anyway, after the lot drive, we hit the gas station down the block and filled up the tires to 36 psi. Used their washin' station to clean the bird **** off the window. We were planning on taking it to the team's shop and powerwashing it, but we decided that the "but officer! We just bought it!" excuse would work better if the car was dirty.
We were hungry. We took it through the McDonald's drive through. Then we drove it to the town's historical downtown district, parked it on the cobblestones, and sat on the hood and ate. We discovered the car was quite a head turner... not sure if it's the badassness of the car, the push bar, or the bird ****.
Drove it back to my place, picked up another buddy, and then cruised around my town for three hours. Continued to run and drive like a champ. There's a little bit of steering wheel shimmy, but that could be because my tires aren't balanced.
So, basically, I love this car. It was worth every bit of the $1200 I paid for it.
Howdy, guys! I'm the proud owner of a 1976 Plymouth Feather Duster, which I purchased on Saturday from a biker gang in a small local community. Not quite sure that they knew what the heck it was... lol! The wiring is all messed up, because apparently the electronics within the ignition switch went bad at some point in this car's past, and they tried to redneck something.
The biker I bought it from told me that it had been sitting for two years, but that it ran when he bought it and that he "could get it running again in ten minutes."
I knew it was a bad sign when he showed up with it on a rollback, dumped it in the parking lot that he rents, took my cash, and asked me where my trailer was. I told him that I was planning on working on it for about a half hour, and if I couldn't get it running, I would go grab my trailer.
He shook my hand, tried to sell me a set of tires, and then announced that he had somewhere to be. He took off in a hurry...
Me and my buddies got it running that night. Rather than messing around with all the wiring under the dash, I just hotwired it. Fused jumper from battery positive to the coil. Heck yeah. If it hadn't been for the fuel hose leaking, we literally could've gotten it running in ten minutes. We had to run to my race team's shop for fuel hose, because the local hardware store was closed, so that took some time.
Threw the new fuel hose on, and it fired right up. I let it warm up for a few minutes, then put it in drive. It chug-chug-chugged away. I hit the gas a tiny bit, and it died. Crap.
I moved it back to where it was, then left for the night. I showed up the next day with a buddy, as well as different rims and tires that actually hold air. Then we discovered we needed different lug nuts... you ever tried buying twenty 1/2-20 acorn lug nuts on a Sunday afternoon? We hit three different hardware stores in two different towns, and there's still only seven legit lug nuts on the car. We've got a few regular nuts and a couple all-metal self-locking nuts put on backwards so the taper points inwards. Redneck, but temporary.
Fired it up, let it warm up while we put the last tire on, and then dropped it. Discovered that it's straight-piped and sounds just like a tractor when the engine is running slowly and under load. It's nifty!
I hopped in and did a lap around the parking lot while my buddy looked on. One of the bikers sauntered over, surprised, and asked my buddy "how'd you get that thing running?"
My buddy, who is a man of few words, said simply "it was easy."
The biker said "Tom worked on that for hours and couldn't get it to run!"
Poor Tom. He just got pwnd by a teenager. Probably lost some major street cred. And he thought he was ripping me off... ha!
So anyway, after the lot drive, we hit the gas station down the block and filled up the tires to 36 psi. Used their washin' station to clean the bird **** off the window. We were planning on taking it to the team's shop and powerwashing it, but we decided that the "but officer! We just bought it!" excuse would work better if the car was dirty.
We were hungry. We took it through the McDonald's drive through. Then we drove it to the town's historical downtown district, parked it on the cobblestones, and sat on the hood and ate. We discovered the car was quite a head turner... not sure if it's the badassness of the car, the push bar, or the bird ****.
Drove it back to my place, picked up another buddy, and then cruised around my town for three hours. Continued to run and drive like a champ. There's a little bit of steering wheel shimmy, but that could be because my tires aren't balanced.
So, basically, I love this car. It was worth every bit of the $1200 I paid for it.