Glinda is the closest, and she’s a drivetrain dropping project away from having her clutch fork engagement corrected. Added to that, every time it rains, her carpet gets wet; the needle on her voltmeter shows a charging voltage that’s too high; her dash still has an automatic transmission shifter sticking out it; and her trunk’s leading edge is a minefield of rust bubbles just waiting to explode. Many, many hours ahead of me to deal with those top of the to-do list items.
Scarlett is many Saturday mornings and Sunday afternoons away from complete roadification – not to mention the challenge it’s going to be to come up with the estimated $1600 of parts that are left to buy. That all assumes the engine is good-to-go – not a surety by any stretch.
Luna has sat untouched since Victoria and I installed her new top eight months ago. Her engine hasn’t run in over a year, and she hasn’t been on the road in nearly two. I blogged back in February of 2014 that she and I agreed to regularly spend time working on her car. Obviously, that hasn’t happened. I wish I could count on one hand the tasks ahead of us to get her car where she’d like it, but it’ll take three hands at least.
Finally, there’s Ringo. When Ariel and I had to pull him from the road, he had a myriad of issue including a ripped out right rear wheelwell with associated body damage, a driver’s door that wouldn’t open, and a driver’s seat that wasn’t fully bolted to the floor. While I have all the parts and supplies to do the work, what I don’t have are the space and hours to make the repairs. Once Scarlett is on the road, Ringo will go in next I suppose.
So, what were the occurrences that caused this trip down Frustration Lane? First, a recent visit with my parents reinforced how important it is to make the most of every moment since we never know when we’ll lose the ability to do the things we love. It’s been a few years now since my mom and dad had to stop traveling due to my mom’s advancing dementia. Now she’s in assisted living and his days are spent as her caregiver. You never know what God’s plans are. Second, the budding trees and warmer weather means winter’s over and our yard needs attention. Finally, there are the never-ending house projects that suck a significant portion of my weekends.
So, what’s a whiner supposed to do? One option is to sell all four of them. The uproar that would cause would be immense, but the girls would forgive me eventually. Fortunately, the lovely Loriann recommended something a little less drastic. I give the daughters responsible for Ringo and Luna a couple ultimatums. They shall find time in their busy schedules to spend at least eight hours working on their cars before June 15, and then enough time to get their cars on the road before September 15. If they fail on either of these, I will sell their car for them.
That addresses two of the four. What about Scarlett and Glinda? Mikhaila and I WILL spend sufficient hours in the garage to get her car on the road by early June so she can enjoy a summer of top-down motoring. I WILL spend an evening a week working on my car knocking out her issues and making her a reliable, racy daily-driver.
One other fleet-related happening is tomorrow’s expected purchase of a second racing seat for Glinda. My occasional Craigslist searches finally turned up a reasonably priced, used seat that looks enough like my existing seat to not induce disgust every time I climb in. It needs cleaning and some coats of black spray fabric dye before being bolted in. Two bucket seats means I now get to find a storage place for Glinda’s original bench.
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