I need some advice from you guys. Maybe even some affirmations and other sob stories, who knows! It's a long story, but it's straight from the heart...
I always loved classic cars. My dad was a mechanic and I would sit behind the wheel of his 1965 Buick Special (it's long gone now) and pretend it was mine since the age of 6. I love the smell, nostalgia and the feel that newer cars lacked. Fast forward to age 19 to when I was looking for my first car. My love for Gen 1 Mustangs was all because of a falsely advertised white, 1964 1/2 convertible on a used car lot and totally out of my price range. Siting in that pristine white interior beauty, I was immediately and forever overtaken by the allure of a classic Mustang.
My very first car back in 1999 was a 1966 Code C 289 for $1200. I did eveything you should do when looking for and buying a car. I also had delusions of making it a daily driver. Looking back, I was naive at an embarassing level! Although I thought it looked decent on the outside, in reality it was barely hanging on. I was falling apart everywhere with rust cancers like you wouldn't believe. The windshield had that funky frosting issue going on, exhaust had holes all through it, firewall was swiss cheese, my feet got soaked when it rained, floorboards were shot, quarters had lots of rust bubbles, the car reeked of gas fumes all day, it smoked on days that ended with a "y", passenger door swung open on left turns and the list goes on. But I loved her to death. Then one day sitting at a light, a brand new Lincoln navigator smashed in to the back of me and crumpled my whole back end. It was awful. She could barely drive after that. Insurance wanted to total it (you know how it goes). I decided to keep the car with plans to eventually get her fixed. So one night, the car breaks down on me (I think it was the points now that I think about it). I leave it overnight at an Arbys and notified the manager I would be back in the morning to tow it. I come back and the car is gone. There were no reports of it being towed. It was stolen. The car was never recovered. I was so fed up and trumatized by the whole experience, I swore off Mustangs and all classic cars. I gave away all my mags, manuals, model cars, took down posters, cancelled my subscriptions, stopped watching car shows on TV. I did not want reminders of my car because it too much to bare at time. I'd see one on the street from time to time and my heart would absolutely sink.
Fast forward 7 years later to 2006 and I come across a listing in the online auto trader. I would sometime check the ads, fooling myself in hopes of finding a steal. Except this time, I thought I did. It was a 67 coupe with a 302 being sold for $2100 by a guy that needed to "sell in a hurry" because his mobile home association noted the he had too many cars. This time I really did look the car over (which in retrospect was still not good enough compared to what I know now). In a hasty move to avoid losing this great deal, I blow mine and my wife's tax return. She was not thrilled at all, but she wanted to support me because she knew that my love for cars never really went away. At the time, we lived in an apartment, worked in retail for crappy pay and had no access to a garage, but I was determined to make it work.
After paying for the car and driving off with it, I blow out the rearend stopping on the gas at a light. The car roared like a banshee, inside and out now. I was upset because I was off to a crappy start. And this is where the story of my current car began.
To date, I have only driven the car 30 total miles. It was originally an I-6, with an I-6 rear-end. I swapped out the rear-end with a 67 gt rear-end I bought on this forum that was shipped via Greyhound (learned something new from that)! I changed out the fuel lines, gas tank, U-joints, master cylinder, brakelines, rear drums, wheels. I have bought floor panels, weather stripping, distributor kit, dash pad, grill, healight assemblies, etc. The car is sitting in my tiny, one-car garage with not a whole lot of room to work in a house I am currently renting.
I am currently in the process of looking for a house with a larger garage for my aspiring hobbies. I am making better money now, but that is getting absorbed by my lovely 3-year old daughter. My wife and our friends constantly poke fun at my car, calling it a rust pile (thanks to my lovely wife's joking comments). The car has basically sat for 2 years with me doing nothing to it. I decided to make a major push today to motivate myself to get back on the project. I cleared the boxes and stuff that had been sitting on it. My brother and I tries to push her outside so I can clean up the garage. The passenger wheel is completely locked up (brakes or hub probably), I see rust bits coming from the cowl area (common, I know) . But what really took the cake was some troubling rust on the front frame rail on the passenger side and radiator support frame. After seeing that, I was ready to throw the towel in.
I'm at a crossroads. I don't know whether to cut my losses and sell her in hopes of eventually using the proceeds to buy another one with less issues in order to work on more fun projects than rust control and bodywork. I even considered buying a fully restored 67-68 and finance it with a loan, but I don't know if my pride would let me. I look at Craiglist and eBay only to see less and less classics for sale. Plus the ones I see are either too outrageously expensive, too destroyed, or seemingly too good to be true. My wife gave me the nastiest look ever when I pitched the idea of selling her to buy or finance a more expensive one.
Please impart some wisdom, I would love to hear what everyone has to say about this, because I know I can't be the only one dealing with this. Sorry for the novel, I just had to get it out of my system.
I always loved classic cars. My dad was a mechanic and I would sit behind the wheel of his 1965 Buick Special (it's long gone now) and pretend it was mine since the age of 6. I love the smell, nostalgia and the feel that newer cars lacked. Fast forward to age 19 to when I was looking for my first car. My love for Gen 1 Mustangs was all because of a falsely advertised white, 1964 1/2 convertible on a used car lot and totally out of my price range. Siting in that pristine white interior beauty, I was immediately and forever overtaken by the allure of a classic Mustang.
My very first car back in 1999 was a 1966 Code C 289 for $1200. I did eveything you should do when looking for and buying a car. I also had delusions of making it a daily driver. Looking back, I was naive at an embarassing level! Although I thought it looked decent on the outside, in reality it was barely hanging on. I was falling apart everywhere with rust cancers like you wouldn't believe. The windshield had that funky frosting issue going on, exhaust had holes all through it, firewall was swiss cheese, my feet got soaked when it rained, floorboards were shot, quarters had lots of rust bubbles, the car reeked of gas fumes all day, it smoked on days that ended with a "y", passenger door swung open on left turns and the list goes on. But I loved her to death. Then one day sitting at a light, a brand new Lincoln navigator smashed in to the back of me and crumpled my whole back end. It was awful. She could barely drive after that. Insurance wanted to total it (you know how it goes). I decided to keep the car with plans to eventually get her fixed. So one night, the car breaks down on me (I think it was the points now that I think about it). I leave it overnight at an Arbys and notified the manager I would be back in the morning to tow it. I come back and the car is gone. There were no reports of it being towed. It was stolen. The car was never recovered. I was so fed up and trumatized by the whole experience, I swore off Mustangs and all classic cars. I gave away all my mags, manuals, model cars, took down posters, cancelled my subscriptions, stopped watching car shows on TV. I did not want reminders of my car because it too much to bare at time. I'd see one on the street from time to time and my heart would absolutely sink.
Fast forward 7 years later to 2006 and I come across a listing in the online auto trader. I would sometime check the ads, fooling myself in hopes of finding a steal. Except this time, I thought I did. It was a 67 coupe with a 302 being sold for $2100 by a guy that needed to "sell in a hurry" because his mobile home association noted the he had too many cars. This time I really did look the car over (which in retrospect was still not good enough compared to what I know now). In a hasty move to avoid losing this great deal, I blow mine and my wife's tax return. She was not thrilled at all, but she wanted to support me because she knew that my love for cars never really went away. At the time, we lived in an apartment, worked in retail for crappy pay and had no access to a garage, but I was determined to make it work.
After paying for the car and driving off with it, I blow out the rearend stopping on the gas at a light. The car roared like a banshee, inside and out now. I was upset because I was off to a crappy start. And this is where the story of my current car began.
To date, I have only driven the car 30 total miles. It was originally an I-6, with an I-6 rear-end. I swapped out the rear-end with a 67 gt rear-end I bought on this forum that was shipped via Greyhound (learned something new from that)! I changed out the fuel lines, gas tank, U-joints, master cylinder, brakelines, rear drums, wheels. I have bought floor panels, weather stripping, distributor kit, dash pad, grill, healight assemblies, etc. The car is sitting in my tiny, one-car garage with not a whole lot of room to work in a house I am currently renting.
I am currently in the process of looking for a house with a larger garage for my aspiring hobbies. I am making better money now, but that is getting absorbed by my lovely 3-year old daughter. My wife and our friends constantly poke fun at my car, calling it a rust pile (thanks to my lovely wife's joking comments). The car has basically sat for 2 years with me doing nothing to it. I decided to make a major push today to motivate myself to get back on the project. I cleared the boxes and stuff that had been sitting on it. My brother and I tries to push her outside so I can clean up the garage. The passenger wheel is completely locked up (brakes or hub probably), I see rust bits coming from the cowl area (common, I know) . But what really took the cake was some troubling rust on the front frame rail on the passenger side and radiator support frame. After seeing that, I was ready to throw the towel in.
I'm at a crossroads. I don't know whether to cut my losses and sell her in hopes of eventually using the proceeds to buy another one with less issues in order to work on more fun projects than rust control and bodywork. I even considered buying a fully restored 67-68 and finance it with a loan, but I don't know if my pride would let me. I look at Craiglist and eBay only to see less and less classics for sale. Plus the ones I see are either too outrageously expensive, too destroyed, or seemingly too good to be true. My wife gave me the nastiest look ever when I pitched the idea of selling her to buy or finance a more expensive one.
Please impart some wisdom, I would love to hear what everyone has to say about this, because I know I can't be the only one dealing with this. Sorry for the novel, I just had to get it out of my system.