1600mi Road Trip! Only made it 20mi...
- Thread starter ckjarr
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You nailed it! It’s all a grand old time! And on the bright side, now I have so much invested in this thing I will just have to keep it and drive the value out of it!! It’s perfect!
Great story with a happy ending and some great FABO guys involved in the outcome. Too late now but @Mopar Tim lives in Cali and has a trailer as well.
And causing stomach ulcers... Now it’s just part of the family!
It’s not over yet but we’re getting closer! We fly out of LA in about an hour and the truck should arrive in Gleason, TN within the next 10 days. Then the fun will begin! He may be thankful we didn’t have his contact info... We would have taken advantage of everything he had to offer like we did with Steve and Mike!!
It's a shame you weren't able to make the trip. It would have been a great experience.
The FIRST thing I ever bought on EBay was a 1968 Barracuda sight unseen in 2003. See avatar.
I'm in Ohio. Met Barracuda buddy Max at Spring Fling 2003. He drove me north to San Jose where I picked up the car and followed his 67 Barracuda to his house about 20 mikes away. The 68 was practically undriveable. He put me up for 4 days while we worked on the car. I have a list of 34 things that were bad.
The point of no return was Tuesday as I had a return plane ticket. I Left Thursday afternoon for the 2800 mile trip home alone. No radio, no heater. Got pulled over by cops in CA, NV and CO. I slept in the back of the FB in a sleeping bag. Had to make a few repairs on the road but when I came down the snowy pass through Aspen on Easter Sunday it was go go go. My cell phone was analog and I didnt have a charger so I was pretty much incommunicado the whole way. My cruisung speed was limited to 62 MPH the whole way due to suspension issues causing a bad vibration. My credit card company shut my primary card down because they smelled a scam with the cross country chain of events. I hit the wall Monday in Indianapolis where I ran into a HUGE construction traffic jam and almost called another Barracuda buddy to call it quits. But i pushed on and made it home at 11pm that night. Got up the next morning and went to work at 8am. Nothing to it. There's more but you'll have to wait for the book.
If I get the engine swap done, I'm thinking of driving it to Spring Fling next April. That'll be the last chapter.
The FIRST thing I ever bought on EBay was a 1968 Barracuda sight unseen in 2003. See avatar.
I'm in Ohio. Met Barracuda buddy Max at Spring Fling 2003. He drove me north to San Jose where I picked up the car and followed his 67 Barracuda to his house about 20 mikes away. The 68 was practically undriveable. He put me up for 4 days while we worked on the car. I have a list of 34 things that were bad.
The point of no return was Tuesday as I had a return plane ticket. I Left Thursday afternoon for the 2800 mile trip home alone. No radio, no heater. Got pulled over by cops in CA, NV and CO. I slept in the back of the FB in a sleeping bag. Had to make a few repairs on the road but when I came down the snowy pass through Aspen on Easter Sunday it was go go go. My cell phone was analog and I didnt have a charger so I was pretty much incommunicado the whole way. My cruisung speed was limited to 62 MPH the whole way due to suspension issues causing a bad vibration. My credit card company shut my primary card down because they smelled a scam with the cross country chain of events. I hit the wall Monday in Indianapolis where I ran into a HUGE construction traffic jam and almost called another Barracuda buddy to call it quits. But i pushed on and made it home at 11pm that night. Got up the next morning and went to work at 8am. Nothing to it. There's more but you'll have to wait for the book.
If I get the engine swap done, I'm thinking of driving it to Spring Fling next April. That'll be the last chapter.
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That’s amazing! I would have loved a memory like that! Our biggest issue is the time... It would have been a 3day drive if nothing happened so I didn’t have the 3-4 days to sort it out like it needed. That’s awesome you made that work!!
mopardude318
Well-Known Member
Sounds just like something I would have done! And certainly would have happened to me with my luck!
It’s a wonderful thing what car guys do to help each other. This place is full of awesome individuals!
It’s a wonderful thing what car guys do to help each other. This place is full of awesome individuals!
Damn, we’re you in Compton?
Welcome to the life of...
“ROADKILL!”
This is stuff I have done half way through my life and I have always had a blast. But reasonably thick wallets only need to apply. Though I have never attempted such a long drive never mind your mammoth trip, hats off to you and 3 cheers for the FABO rescue crew.
“ROADKILL!”
This is stuff I have done half way through my life and I have always had a blast. But reasonably thick wallets only need to apply. Though I have never attempted such a long drive never mind your mammoth trip, hats off to you and 3 cheers for the FABO rescue crew.
Just north of it. I was cautioned before leaving to deal in a commercial area, leave, and don’t be there when the sun goes down...
It’s been an experience! We’ve never bought something running that we didn’t make it home in. Never bought something over 400mi from home either... But we had to at least give it a try!! As for the thick wallet... I didn’t meet that qualification when this started and now... well, it’s worse!!
So now I really need to sell at least one car and some stuff and I really don’t like selling stuff. I like selling cars even less...
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I hear ya! At least it is a great story and one to tell the grand kids one day. Where in Tn. are you? The wife and I are looking around on the east side.
I’m in Gleason. It’s a small town in North West TN. We love road tripping to east TN! Especially in early fall. Taking a drive through the Tail of the Dragon when the leaves are changing is unbelievable! Kristi and I spent 7 years together before starting a family and had the opportunity to take several road trips during those years. Of all the places we could go we always seemed to like just going east for a few days...
Did those 318 turns in 11 miles on a ‘03/1200 Sportster w/a HD touring seat. (Which was awesome!) I’ll be doing it again with the wife soon.
TT5.9mag
Two atmospheres are better than one
Glad to help. On the plus side I get to walk out in my back yard and see a cool old d100 every day. Kyle and his dad are both genuine, honest, good people. I feel like Ive know them 20 years and we only spent 4 hours together. I got to help them out and show em around my property bragging about all my junk. It may not have worked out exactly how they wanted but they still have a great story to tell and I’m sure they’ll tell it often.
Hopefully I’ll be looking at it in a couple weeks... until then if you accidentally apply some of your fabrication skills in some different places that would be ok with me... Honestly, I’ve made it home to my family and my little piece of heaven here in TN just thankful to have enjoyed another sunset with the ones I love most!
Mike, you and Steve made this possible for me tonight!! Someday I will find a way to better compensate the two of you for all your help!! I’ve already painted the two of you as Hero’s to my little ones!! Thanks again to the both of you!!
TT5.9mag
Two atmospheres are better than one
That is beautiful. We will visit you on a road trip some day for sure. I am glad you guys made it home. I’ll make sure your truck is safely on the hauler when it shows up and it will be in TN before you know it. And just like I said yesterday, no compensation is necessary. Just car guys helping car guys. And I will not be working on your truck at all. I would never rob you of the joy of discovery you’ll get when you start to tear in to this thing. That trans crossmember is a work of art! And not good art. Like the kind that people leave on the wall when they move out.
pishta
I know I'm right....
Look me up. Hell, I make almost every fling. We drove my sisters old RWD Corolla up the mountain to go skiing with her boyfriend. He was a very local sprint car driver so he had alot of fun drifting it around the snowy corners. We drove it home and the oil pump failed. Light came on so we put a quart in. light came on again so we put another in thinking the thing was burning it. by the time we got home the thing had about 8 quarts of oil in it and was barely running on just splashed lube. It finally conked out on us about 10 miles from home. I tell you I almost feel safer driving the older cars than the newer ones when a Crank position sensor can fail and your high and dry with no amount of tools to fix it.
If anyone tries that out here in the PNW, let me know! I can give a couple hundred miles of support. A spare bedroom if needed! We did this stuff in the early 70's with quarters and a phone booth. I would be proud to support any kind of road trip like this. Especially with the many members on this site. Rumble in NY, YR in the Yakima dessert, Rusty down south, That coo l dude in Vegas(I'll remember his name in a minute)
That is beautiful. We will visit you on a road trip some day for sure. I am glad you guys made it home. I’ll make sure your truck is safely on the hauler when it shows up and it will be in TN before you know it. And just like I said yesterday, no compensation is necessary. Just car guys helping car guys. And I will not be working on your truck at all. I would never rob you of the joy of discovery you’ll get when you start to tear in to this thing. That trans crossmember is a work of art! And not good art. Like the kind that people leave on the wall when they move out.
That crossmember will be hanging on the wall at some point! It will be a conversation piece!!
Same here! We’re not really close to anything but if someone was within a couple hundred miles and needed some help I bet we could make something happen. I owe it to someone X2 from the kindness and willingness that’s been granted unto me!!
FISHYPETE
Well-Known Member
About15 yrs ago My son bought a 73 Fury Suburban in Washington sight unseen and couldn’t get anybody to go with to pick it up. So he talked me into going. He sent sent a package of tools and stuff to the guy because couldn’t bring on the airplane. We only had a few days to do this as we both had to be back at work. Drove that 400 nonstop back to Minn......9 tanks of gas. Looking back I wish we could have taken our time but it’s one hell of a memory I don’t regret
replicaracer43
Grumpy Old Man
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Awsome story! I cant help but notice though, that truck is NOT a 71.......
That’s awesome! I’m not older by any stretch but it seems the memories are what’s there at the end when most everything else is gone... Hopefully we can all take advantage of the time we have to make memories with the ones that are special to us. As for the tanks of fuel, we had calculated if the truck got anywhere close to 12-14mpg, we would need 33.333 tanks to make the drive... That was going to be costly within it’s self!!
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