/6 Matt
30 Degrees Crooked
We'll just thought I'd swing by and update everybody and say a long overdue hello.
So, I think it's been about a year since I stopped frequenting the site and really just dropped off the face of the planet. I'm still alive and doing well, I just had life happen and haven't really had much spare time. Right now I'm on medical leave with really bad vertigo and I realized that it's bought me a little time to come check out my home away from home, say hi and hopefully tommorrow clean out my pm's lol. We bought a new house, it's nothing much or fancy but it's something that we can finally call ours and a big improvement over where we were before. I got a small promotion at work and I'm loving it. It's opened up a whole world of opportunity for me and proved that there is still career potential at Wal-mart and that hard work is still recognized in big corporate America. I do still have the dart although I'm not driving her. I got a new (to me) truck. She's a 1978 LWB F-150 and she's got a 300 3-spd. I hate to say it too but I've fallen in love with this truck and the cheap parts that's almost always in stock at autozoo. Uh let's see, I finally brought the Falcon back home and my goal is to recontinue it's restoration in January. I finally got an air compressor and some ratchet wrenches and I'm moving on up in the world! It's only a 1.2 horse 20 gallon oil-less but god I forgot how much I love impacts and air ratchets :glasses7:. Now I just need a welder :banghead:. I'm also the proud owner of a scissor type transmission jack I got from HF, it ain't much but it made the clutch job on the truck a breeze! But all-in-all, I'm doing well and the family is too, as is Kayleigh.
As for the Dart. Sometime last summer I converted over to a carter 2bbl from a 318 with the manifolds I got from Rob, I used a Lokar kit to make that happen. I never did get around to getting a bigger exhaust put on or finishing the distributor recurve but I gotta say just the carburetor alone was impressive as hell. Also this last winter when we had our deep freeze where the thermometer hit 4F, the nick that's been on the windshield for ~10 years turned into a crack so I'll need to replace that eventually. Also too, where I had got friendly with that guard rail last year, I did a little more damage than I had thought. I replaced both upper balljoints cause one had ruptured and I also replaced all the tire rod ends cause they were damaged too. It wasn't till I finally got concerned over the worsening wobble/free play in the steering that I took it to a shop who found that the steering box mount has a crack where it meets the K-frame so I parked her and bought my truck to drive till I can fix it. The transmission is failing, it started slipping and overheating again right out of warranty of course and I've decided I'm going to start the process of tracking down a 4-speed bellhousing so I can ditch the darn automatic. So that's where I'm at there... :banghead:
I really miss everybody a lot and while I'm waiting to go back to work I plan to call those of you whose numbers I have and do some catching up. I hope everybody has been doing really well.
BTW, while I was gone did anyone ever find a fix for the crappy aftermarket sending unit issues? Or are we all still guessing how much gas we have? Cause that $h@t was getting old when I parked the car lol!
So, I think it's been about a year since I stopped frequenting the site and really just dropped off the face of the planet. I'm still alive and doing well, I just had life happen and haven't really had much spare time. Right now I'm on medical leave with really bad vertigo and I realized that it's bought me a little time to come check out my home away from home, say hi and hopefully tommorrow clean out my pm's lol. We bought a new house, it's nothing much or fancy but it's something that we can finally call ours and a big improvement over where we were before. I got a small promotion at work and I'm loving it. It's opened up a whole world of opportunity for me and proved that there is still career potential at Wal-mart and that hard work is still recognized in big corporate America. I do still have the dart although I'm not driving her. I got a new (to me) truck. She's a 1978 LWB F-150 and she's got a 300 3-spd. I hate to say it too but I've fallen in love with this truck and the cheap parts that's almost always in stock at autozoo. Uh let's see, I finally brought the Falcon back home and my goal is to recontinue it's restoration in January. I finally got an air compressor and some ratchet wrenches and I'm moving on up in the world! It's only a 1.2 horse 20 gallon oil-less but god I forgot how much I love impacts and air ratchets :glasses7:. Now I just need a welder :banghead:. I'm also the proud owner of a scissor type transmission jack I got from HF, it ain't much but it made the clutch job on the truck a breeze! But all-in-all, I'm doing well and the family is too, as is Kayleigh.
As for the Dart. Sometime last summer I converted over to a carter 2bbl from a 318 with the manifolds I got from Rob, I used a Lokar kit to make that happen. I never did get around to getting a bigger exhaust put on or finishing the distributor recurve but I gotta say just the carburetor alone was impressive as hell. Also this last winter when we had our deep freeze where the thermometer hit 4F, the nick that's been on the windshield for ~10 years turned into a crack so I'll need to replace that eventually. Also too, where I had got friendly with that guard rail last year, I did a little more damage than I had thought. I replaced both upper balljoints cause one had ruptured and I also replaced all the tire rod ends cause they were damaged too. It wasn't till I finally got concerned over the worsening wobble/free play in the steering that I took it to a shop who found that the steering box mount has a crack where it meets the K-frame so I parked her and bought my truck to drive till I can fix it. The transmission is failing, it started slipping and overheating again right out of warranty of course and I've decided I'm going to start the process of tracking down a 4-speed bellhousing so I can ditch the darn automatic. So that's where I'm at there... :banghead:
I really miss everybody a lot and while I'm waiting to go back to work I plan to call those of you whose numbers I have and do some catching up. I hope everybody has been doing really well.
BTW, while I was gone did anyone ever find a fix for the crappy aftermarket sending unit issues? Or are we all still guessing how much gas we have? Cause that $h@t was getting old when I parked the car lol!
