Metaldrgn

now I've got to talk to an inspector here and have him come out and check the car out. If he deems it rebuildable, they could help straighten all the paperwork out with the towing company and try and get them to change the title.

DMV people here are really stupid or extremely lazy. Even the supervisors. Shesh... I do have a smart DMV contact though so I can get the right info.

Metaldrgn

It rained like hell last night. The tunder even woke me up a few times it was so loud. I hope my car was covered like the guy said he would do. called once, but he wasn't there. We also have a hurricane that looks like it's going to hit us around thursday and there's another one that could possibaly hit us from the other side later on. It could go around us, but as of right now it's headed right for us. I am hoping that guy some something so the car stays safe. I wish I could get it on base. I am trying to work out my financial spendings so I can be able to buy this car on the first of next month and get it on base. I will get more pictures. I found someone with a DC. Also the guy who bought the original hatch will trade me it back for an '88 hatch if I can find one. He also has the original red 16" rims for it, but I'm not a big fan of the red rims so I think I am just going to get a normal pair or Iroc rims.

BTW, I called california and from what the main people who title cars is that if it is inspected once here and deamed rebuildable and once in cali, that I can get a rebuilt title for it! The guy also has to sign an affidavit saying that the car has no title and that the cert. of dest. is the only paper saying who owns it + the bill of sale. Now I have to figure out how I am going to get it back to cali and how long it's all going to take and how costly it's going to be.

9T7 Trans Am

I got a soft spot for that car. My sister-in-law has a 92' RS Vert with the Red Interior & Red Wheels. It aint fast, but it is just cool........

Metaldrgn

Thanks, I plan to make it cool and fast (fast to keep it cool? ). I don't know whether to put my new enigine in it or my TPI from my yellow car (really nice, but needs a rebuild soon). I will have to keep it stock until I get it titled so that way, if for some reason I lose it, I won't be out a $5000 engine too if I decide to put it in there.

Metaldrgn

well luckily the tropical depression died before it went over us and the hurricane is going to miss us. So that give me a little time to spare to get this thing paid for and on base. I plan to get it here by the first week of september.

Metaldrgn

Thanks, I missed this post. I've been offered 5k for each of the 2 I currently own because one sounds really good and the other looks really good. Both being IROCs too. I can't let them go. I got way more attached to them than I thought. I will definitly take care of her . I've never been in an accident that had noticable damage. At least to my car .

Since I started this, I figured out that this would be my dream car. Not because of the model or value of the car, but because of the effort that it took to get it. I mean to bring a car from a soon to be stripped and crushed status to soon to be road worthy by turn of event is by far something special and unique. Anyone can go to a car lot and buy their "dream car". This is something most people would walk away from. And I almost did a few times, but I couldn't stop thinking about her so I kept going back and making more calls.

Metaldrgn

Well hopefully either friday or saturday I can get the car on base. Everything seems to be in order. Everyone there is friendly now. Heh, probably because I overpaid for the car. Once I get the car I have to figure out what I have to do with the COD and what I can do to get it titled and registered in California.

I called their tag and title department and they looked up the VIN and it's condition was "Unknown" so obviously it didn't register to cali's DMV system which is better for me. They are the people who issue titles and they said as long as someone signs an affidavit saying the COD is the only proof of ownership along with the bill of sale I can get it done. I told her about what it said about saying something about the department not issuing another title once it has that COD and they said that didn’t matter in cali because they have different laws. They also said as long as I get the body inspected, get a smog check, and a brake lights test done, and have it all pass of course that I can get it titled. One thing I wasn’t catching onto, but I think the lady I was talking to was saying I could get it done here and send it back to cali instead of making the long drive. They don’t do smog checks here in florida as far as I know, but certain parts of gorgia do. Anyone know if there is a closer place? I haven’t looked at Alabama or Mississippi. Mississippi would probably be the best place to smog it because I have been there before at Keesler AFB for one of my tech schools (was an awesome base btw).

OH yea, BTW I am trying to get that camaro here before that hurricane hits. It's already a cat 4 and they said there is a possibility it could turn into a cat 5 before it hits! Though, if it hits us, it probably won't be bad because I am on the far west of florida and the jet stream should push it away from us, but if it curves far west before it gets there we will be hit. It's supposed to be here later saturday so I am shooting to get my car friday.

Metaldrgn

The package has arrived . And she is safe at the auto shop with car cover on. The hurricane might barely hit us, but nothing bad. The guy had no keys for it and it was in park so we had to roll it off and in doing so put a few dents in the underbody frame, but nothing big.

This is but one step of many so I am trying not to get too excited.

Metaldrgn

Well it doesn't look good for us at Tyndall. Hurricane Ivan is headed straight for us and I must leave the car here. The base is going to be evacuated (haven’t gotten the final word, but looks like it’s going to happen). I couldn’t get the car under any kind of shelter. I did buy some foam mats and taped them to the roof and hood of the car just incase debris or hail starts hitting my car. I also tried to secure the car cover the best I could with some nylon string, bungee cords, and more duct take. Still no rear hatch... I did however rig up a metal bar and a few pieces of tape to allow water to drip off and not gather as much on the back because one morning it was full of water again (separated by the car cover) and I had to siphon it out of the back and got a nice big mouthful of it. I also have to leave my '96 LT1 short block here and I just hope this thing doesn't wipe out the base.

Metaldrgn

Wow, this figures... Looks like we are going to evacuate tomorrow and my alternator took a dump. The main problem being it is a one wire alternator so I have to go find a self exciting voltage regulator (that's what went out last time). There are a few places around here (thank god) that will probably have it. It went out a few months ago and I think the one I got was for a stock alternator (mines like 130-140amps I think the guy I bought it from said). I really didn't want to have to leave any cars here, let alone the one I have to.

Metaldrgn

Phew, hurricane past. We ended up not getting evacuated. It was pretty awsome to watch even though it didn't get that bad here. I checked on my car like 5 times that night too. Luckily it hit far enough west of us that we didn't get hit too bad here. A few towns got tornados around here, but they were small (up to F1 or F2). there's like 2 blocks without power right now downtown. I think they counted 2 fatalities. My car held up fine except it got alittle water in the back which isn't a big deal. The cover stayed on (I hope it would've seeing how I put bunjie cords on it to hold it down and rope to keep it secure) and no branches fell on it. I also heard over the radio while the hurricane was going by us that a huge sign blew off or broke free from its grounding and almost crushed someone in an expedition. The guy was fine, but I'm curious about the expedition. Maybe I can buy it off him... Sorry, I have a soft spot for those vehicles. Not only is it a good vehicle to tow a camaro around in, but it looks good too. If I got one though I am definetly thinking of putting a chevy engine into it. Besides the fact that not many people do this, it is cheaper and easier to build and I would love to see the look on everyones faces when I post some pictures of it on the ford truck world forum.

red96taA4

im stationed in pensacola at Corry station and they evacuated everyone, so i went to tennessee. the only bad thing is i had the leave the beast there, and im not going to be back until sunday afternoon. ive been trying to reach the base but i get no answer, and the only thing i hear from friends off base is that its really bad in the areas around base. NAS Pensacola got hit real hard, it was under 5ft of water. and they say Corry Station is bad as well, with some buildings missing roofs and such. the only bad thing is they were doing construction, and i think they just left everything out. i left monday afternoon, and there was all there equipment and supplies just laying around outside..... hopefully everything is ok...

Metaldrgn

Wow, I can't believe it. I really think this car was meant for me.

This mourning I got a rude awakening from my smoke detector that's in my room at 10am and seeing how I didn't go to sleep till 4am I really wasn't ready to get up, but I wasn't sure if there really was a fire or not so I got up, got dressed and went outside to find what? Apparently it was only mine that went off. They are all supposed to be linked to each other to set all of them off when one goes off. Or at least I thought. It was a REALLY LOUD noise too. Anyway the firemen came and disabled my alarm and will replace it tomorrow. So an hour later I go eat lunch and then went home for a few more hours waiting for the auto shop to open. I went down to radio shack and bought some wire and alligator clips to make this resistor thing easier. I went back to the auto shop and pulled the car cover off and got my ohmmeter out and started connecting wires, but I realized something wasn’t right the last day I worked on it. It had no resistance or voltage going through the wires in off/run or any mode so I starting investigating. The VATS wire that goes from the ignition switch to the connector was smashed under the steering column support (I don’t know what it’s really called, but you know what I mean) by the flared nut. I took it off and behold, broken wire… So I went swimming around the area where I thought the other connector would have been. After a while I got up to look at some wiring diagrams to see if they would help (and of course they didn’t) and spotted a loose connector on the floorboard. It didn’t have the orange outer jacket, but the 2 wires coming out of it were the same gauge and color. But I still didn’t know where to connect it to so I went swimming once again. I was almost ready to give up when I spotted it hanging in the background and the connector seem to fit flawlessly and seem to be the only one that could fit. So I went back home and soldered 2 wires to the connector to replace the broken ones and went back out and hooked it all up. I read +5v in all modes. So now I start testing different resistances (I have the 15 for passkey II and their tolerances) and am finally getting the security light when I am wrong. BTW it takes alittle over an hour to try all combos because you have to wait at least 4 minutes between tries or it won’t work and there are 15 possibilities. I was working from last to first thinking I would find it faster and I didn’t. I was going to try one more before calling it a day because they were closing in 15 minutes. It was the one closest to what I consider to be my lucky number (or numbers). I tried it and got the security light. One thing I found on the VATS that I forgot about is that you have to give it +2 seconds after you put the key to the run position and then the light will go off if it’s the right resistance so the other combos I tried could have also worked because I didn’t try to crank it every time. I was ready to accept failure for the day and then I tried to crank it over for the hell of it and I heard the starter and saw the lights dim. I just froze for a second and looked and the car in disbelief and tried it again. Of course now I get the dead batter grinding noise which is better because I think I have to pull the heads off since I don’t know if there is any debris in the intake at all seeing how nobody knows anything about this car and there is strangely some water damage on the intake bowl. Also I don’t know whether gas or water is in the fuel lines so I’m going to investigate Tuesday.

I now think the reason they left the car behind when they moved is because they had a VATS problem. I could be wrong because there is no way of knowing when this actually occurred unless I can contact the previous owner. It makes perfect sense why they would’ve left it in the condition it was in. Even if the wires weren’t broken before the salvage yard got a hold of it, I was getting a high resistance reading from the 2 wires which threw me off the other day because I didn’t not know what I was supposed to be reading. It looks like something a shady repair shop would have done more than a person because it is a bright orange wire jacket and you can plainly see it crushing the wire as you tighten, but I do know some people that don’t know better could have done it so I can’t totally rule that possibility out.

Metaldrgn

I finally got a hatch, center console, and tail lights for it. It set me back $250, but it's so much nicer to look at now. At first the hatch was a newer black one (from a '90 I think) that the paint was bubbling up on and the wings were at a sharper angle for the CHMT light in the wing with no tint in the window. The side wings didn't fit anyways so I took it back and we went to a red camaro (don't know what year was) that had the upper CHMT and it was in great condition with a nice dark tint done to it. So they took it off along with the side wings and I put them on my camaro. Perfect color match! The only thing I don't like is the fact that one of the wings was broken (it was broken when they got it). It's scary, it's almost complete. I am also finally writing my letter to the ppl who deal with stuff and hopefully I can get a title for it. I can't seem to find the heads I need, but I'm not too worried about that seeing how I need to get it titled before I can drive it (on base is a different story. As long as I get insurance for the car, they might let me drive it becuase they haven't really said I couldn't. It wouldn't cost much because it's just an addon car).

I got it from emerld coast auto salvage and they are somewhat ****** so beware if you go to that area. They are high priced too.

BTW the ground FX are "radiant silver metallic". I will post pictures when I get more done on it.

Birdman7389

wow man, I've been following along with your posts, and admire your persistence......your gonna have another sweet car here soon. Good Job!