My first car.
Hello everyone!
My names Kyle, I'll be 27 in April. I would like to start off by saying I love this site. Every time I Google a question, it links me here with the answer I need. I have since bookmarked it and come here quite often. Figured it's high time I introduced myself.
Story time!
I was 16 years old and had yet to drive anything. My dad let me "learn to drive a stick" once but I wasn't any good at it. Most of my childhood was spent riding my bike wherever I needed to go. Living in a small town made that part of my life nice and easy. As I grew up, I started asking my parents for a ride or asking my friends to come pick me up. Getting my own car never appealed to me because I figured I would have to drive an ugly P.O.S. I was a high school drop out, no job, no car, no drivers licence - I was useless. This all changed shortly after my 18th birthday. A family friend of mine who had practically raised me decided she would help me get my life in order. After passing my GED tests and getting my drivers licence, her and her husband gifted me the greatest birthday present I have ever received.
I fell in love with it immediately, I have always loved the look of old muscle cars and this was perfect for me. It had a good 'ol slant six in it so I wouldn't kill myself. It was in great working condition and it was relatively clean. It drive me to my first (very short) and second (and last) job.
The Duster and I got along great. My dad had helped me with every little problem I encountered. He was a Ford guy himself and I remember him saying something along the lines of "I like my Fords and I'll never down-talk a Mopar... but F-bomb those Chevy's!". At one point I had the muffler explode while cruising in the city right next to a cop. The cop saw me jump when it popped and I looked over with panic in my eyes and he just threw his head back and laughed. A couple months later when I was driving home from work the carburetor fell right out from under the air cleaner. It was an easy fix but everything started going downhill from there. I decided it was time for me to learn how to rebuild an engine. The rebuild took me a while, mainly because I was doing it all on my own (with the help of the internet). I had access to this sweet 4 bay Hydroplane shop, access to every tool you could possibly need. I was almost done with the rebuild when I was kicked out of the house I was living in and had to move the gutted Duster off the property.
The Duster sat on my friends property for many years. Just rusting away with a freshly built motor and transmission sitting in their garage. I was too busy and broke to do anything about it. My work was so sporadic that I either had plenty of time and no money - or plenty of money and no time. A few years ago this all changed - though I wish it hadn't.
I was helping my mom at a fair. It had been a relatively slow day so I decided to walk around. I passed by this place that had these golf balls with pictures and names on them. My dad was a golfer so I thought to myself - Maybe I'll grab him one of those before the fair ends. I finished my walk around the fairgrounds and went back to work. The fair was over a week long and by the end of it I had completely forgot about this small gift for my dad. We were packing everything up and it was starting to get dark out when I got a phone call from my aunt. My dad had passed away.
It's the hardest thing I've ever had to deal with. I knew he wasn't going to be around forever but I just wasn't ready for it. His will was set up so that I wouldn't see anything till I was 25 years old. My aunt, who was in charge of his estate decided that selling his house was the only way things would have worked out. I would like to think that I could have kept his house but I'm not naive - I would have been screwed at this point. I took over half the money I got and invested it and I've been living off the other half for the last 2 years (Girlfriends are EXPENSIVE!).
I had been working for the game testing company for about 6 years when I got fired. Doc says I need to stop rolling my eyes or they'll fall out but I got fired for calling a co-worker a faggot. Now I know this seems a little "Well, you deserve to be fired. That was very rude." but hear me out. Have you ever heard how nerds talk to each other when playing video games? I'm not saying that what I said was OK by any stretch of the imagination but it's friendly banter, camaraderie if you will. So with a fat stack of cash and a lot of time on my hands - I started my dream car project...
We threw the empty Duster on a tow dolly and took it down to the nearest body shop. A quick media blasting shows off all her pretty imperfections. These pictures are from sometime around mid to late 2010 when my car was at a place called A&B Custom Collision. They got a fair amount of work done but due to "know it all" employees and cancer, the owner had to close up shop.
The Duster is now being worked on by the great people over at Kustom Collision and Rods. I'll probably be swinging by there place sometime this week to get some updated pictures.
It took me a long time to finally decide what engine to put in it. I could go with the old six but then it wouldn't be my dream car. Early April of last year I was out in the middle of nowhere - helping my little brother get his pickup running and I stumbled across someone selling a "running" 360 motor for only $250. I talked him down to $200, took it to my friends place and tore it apart...
It's at a shop right now being cleaned - I'll have to stop by on my way to go check on my car because it's been there since ~April and I have not heard from them.
The plan is a stroked 408, EFI, everything replaced/updated.
I have a Shopping List if you care to check it out.
And here's my Photobucket if you want to see more Duster pictures or some of the other random things I have pictures of.
Thanks for reading!
-The Dirty Dunko
Hello everyone!
My names Kyle, I'll be 27 in April. I would like to start off by saying I love this site. Every time I Google a question, it links me here with the answer I need. I have since bookmarked it and come here quite often. Figured it's high time I introduced myself.
Story time!
I was 16 years old and had yet to drive anything. My dad let me "learn to drive a stick" once but I wasn't any good at it. Most of my childhood was spent riding my bike wherever I needed to go. Living in a small town made that part of my life nice and easy. As I grew up, I started asking my parents for a ride or asking my friends to come pick me up. Getting my own car never appealed to me because I figured I would have to drive an ugly P.O.S. I was a high school drop out, no job, no car, no drivers licence - I was useless. This all changed shortly after my 18th birthday. A family friend of mine who had practically raised me decided she would help me get my life in order. After passing my GED tests and getting my drivers licence, her and her husband gifted me the greatest birthday present I have ever received.
I fell in love with it immediately, I have always loved the look of old muscle cars and this was perfect for me. It had a good 'ol slant six in it so I wouldn't kill myself. It was in great working condition and it was relatively clean. It drive me to my first (very short) and second (and last) job.
The Duster and I got along great. My dad had helped me with every little problem I encountered. He was a Ford guy himself and I remember him saying something along the lines of "I like my Fords and I'll never down-talk a Mopar... but F-bomb those Chevy's!". At one point I had the muffler explode while cruising in the city right next to a cop. The cop saw me jump when it popped and I looked over with panic in my eyes and he just threw his head back and laughed. A couple months later when I was driving home from work the carburetor fell right out from under the air cleaner. It was an easy fix but everything started going downhill from there. I decided it was time for me to learn how to rebuild an engine. The rebuild took me a while, mainly because I was doing it all on my own (with the help of the internet). I had access to this sweet 4 bay Hydroplane shop, access to every tool you could possibly need. I was almost done with the rebuild when I was kicked out of the house I was living in and had to move the gutted Duster off the property.
The Duster sat on my friends property for many years. Just rusting away with a freshly built motor and transmission sitting in their garage. I was too busy and broke to do anything about it. My work was so sporadic that I either had plenty of time and no money - or plenty of money and no time. A few years ago this all changed - though I wish it hadn't.
I was helping my mom at a fair. It had been a relatively slow day so I decided to walk around. I passed by this place that had these golf balls with pictures and names on them. My dad was a golfer so I thought to myself - Maybe I'll grab him one of those before the fair ends. I finished my walk around the fairgrounds and went back to work. The fair was over a week long and by the end of it I had completely forgot about this small gift for my dad. We were packing everything up and it was starting to get dark out when I got a phone call from my aunt. My dad had passed away.
It's the hardest thing I've ever had to deal with. I knew he wasn't going to be around forever but I just wasn't ready for it. His will was set up so that I wouldn't see anything till I was 25 years old. My aunt, who was in charge of his estate decided that selling his house was the only way things would have worked out. I would like to think that I could have kept his house but I'm not naive - I would have been screwed at this point. I took over half the money I got and invested it and I've been living off the other half for the last 2 years (Girlfriends are EXPENSIVE!).
I had been working for the game testing company for about 6 years when I got fired. Doc says I need to stop rolling my eyes or they'll fall out but I got fired for calling a co-worker a faggot. Now I know this seems a little "Well, you deserve to be fired. That was very rude." but hear me out. Have you ever heard how nerds talk to each other when playing video games? I'm not saying that what I said was OK by any stretch of the imagination but it's friendly banter, camaraderie if you will. So with a fat stack of cash and a lot of time on my hands - I started my dream car project...
We threw the empty Duster on a tow dolly and took it down to the nearest body shop. A quick media blasting shows off all her pretty imperfections. These pictures are from sometime around mid to late 2010 when my car was at a place called A&B Custom Collision. They got a fair amount of work done but due to "know it all" employees and cancer, the owner had to close up shop.
The Duster is now being worked on by the great people over at Kustom Collision and Rods. I'll probably be swinging by there place sometime this week to get some updated pictures.
It took me a long time to finally decide what engine to put in it. I could go with the old six but then it wouldn't be my dream car. Early April of last year I was out in the middle of nowhere - helping my little brother get his pickup running and I stumbled across someone selling a "running" 360 motor for only $250. I talked him down to $200, took it to my friends place and tore it apart...
It's at a shop right now being cleaned - I'll have to stop by on my way to go check on my car because it's been there since ~April and I have not heard from them.
The plan is a stroked 408, EFI, everything replaced/updated.
I have a Shopping List if you care to check it out.
And here's my Photobucket if you want to see more Duster pictures or some of the other random things I have pictures of.
Thanks for reading!
-The Dirty Dunko