DISCOVERING... TRUCKS!

Usually when you reach a certain (this) age, you are old enough to know better.

it would seem that my Porsche Project is, well.. stalled. -to use an overused bad mechanical pun.

once i get all the details i will post them. -let's just say that i think that Crocket and Tubbs are involved...

let's turn the the other side and talk about trucks.
English trucks. -rather unreliable English trucks. and English guys with bad teeth. -err scratch that last one.

Yes, i am talking about my long term affair with Land Rover.

i think this is what hooked me:
a long time back (like 1996) i had the chance to drive one of the Camel Trophy vehicles that was out in Colorado. man, that was cool. and those guys are HARDCORE. -well not as hardcore as s
some of my friend Dave's friends, but for a candy-ass like myself, let's say i was impressed. there i am in my bright yellow fleece...

needless to say i was HOOKED immediately on the Discovery Series. how hooked? -as soon as i returned, i literally went to the local Rover dealer in Darien and traded in my M5! (and they say experiential marketing doesn't work...).

and picked her up:
not a lot of photos of her. -she was a sexy black SE7 and had a bit of an attitude problem. she would start up, but sometimes she would just quit. favorite was the time on the highway -at 70 mph. or on the tri-borough bridge, on a friday before a long weekend! ah, NewYorker's are such a friendly bunch indeed! -but when she did run, she was awesome. she would go anywhere and looked different than all the other SUV's n the road. i really loved taking her off road all weekend and then driving into NYC with her totally covered in mud. guys at the garage thought i had series issues. -it was the first vehicle that i had owned that really felt free in.

anway, all good things... after a couple of years, i swapped her out for this one
(you'll notice a few pics taken at the same Rover , as the models change in the background):

ah yes, in GREEN all will be better. no?

anyway, she came from Cali. and had to be shipped in. had her for a few of years. she was great, made a ton of trips to ACK and on the beaches out there. -drove the sh*t out of her. after s few years, i put her on ebay and sold her to a... "dancer" -who actually paid me in cash. which is not so unusual. but they were small bills. like real small. try going in into citibank with 19k in 5's and 10's. i promise they will bring you into a small room and have a chat with you. especially when many of the bills seem to curl up on the ends... again, see the Crocket and Tubbs remark at the start.


after getting rid of her though i felt like someone had taken away a favorite old toy.

so i went out and looked for a new toy. a BIGGER one.


i ended up with a G-WAG.
but it really wasn't the same for some reason. maybe because to seemed to start and run, like all the time?...

you can see the clear styling influences that were shared between the vehicles.

this was a strange bird. like dating a girl who doesn't speak english and is mad at YOU about it.

-i remember that there was a leak on the driver's side window and MB couldn't fix it; SO THEY REPLACED THE ENTIRE DOOR. -seriously. she was a g-55 AMG and had B*LLS DELUX.

i mean if you punched it, she would snap your head back to the headrest -with aggression. had this great throaty growl to her too.



she ran like a tank and had the extra feature of getting ALMOST 6 miles to the gallon! -just like a real, actual tank.

anyway, she was fun, but strangely i HATED the way she was off road. HATED her in sand. and found myself missing my old toy...

so to remedy the jones, i picked up this old(er) p-38 Range. LOVE this truck. still have it and drive it. -sometimes, it's the simpler things...










after a while the itch became too much... so..... i wandered back in to Darien Land Rover (where they're always glad to see me. right John?) and traded in the G-WAG for an old (new actually) friend:









ah, home again. great truck. my favorite one on the DISCOS.








Ultimately though, just not big enough. so....











stay tuned... :)

peace,
Joe

A (HOPEFULLY) SHORT TRIP...

So, as any who are actually out there know, i am in the middle (i say middle, but have no idea how long this will take, so perhaps i should say at the start) of a total restoration of my 1968 Porsche.

here, thought i would post some pics of another restoration i did years (*gasp*) i mean over a DECADE ago.

the year was 1999 and much like the Prince song went, we were all preparing for a global meltdown when the "Y2K BUG" hit. remember that one?...

anyway, i always had a thing for that old pagoda style Mercedes SL. so after looking the better part of 3 yrs i found one located in RI through an auto broker from Germany who specialized in classic German autos.

Once again all the paperwork checked out and she wasn't too rusty, so after some haggling, i bought her. she came complete with her metal top as well. small snag was she was a direct import from Germany (had a really cool history about a woman who had her shipped over from her estate and had the vehicle in Palm Beach FLA. after she passed away all her vehicles were auctioned off by her estate and above named broker found her. she was at that time in RI) so i had to spend a lot of time in Weathersfield CT at CT DMV HQ getting all the paperwork together. -for those of you who have never had the pleasure... it's like flipping the switch on a flux capacitor and traveling back to Mayberry RFD. - i think even Goober was there... i remember now i actually had to FLATBED it up there. eeks. NOT for the faint of heart.

unfortunately these are some of the only pics i have of her when she was done. -this was of course before digital photography was the norm, so please excuse the poor photos. i'll pst more if i can locate them.

had a great mech in Southport CT named Ward Jennings do all the work. those guys really knew their stuff! then had Gregg at Fairfield Auto do all the interior. got all the new hides from Worlwide -as per norm.

took about 1 year to complete. and was a blast to drive. i think max HP was like 90. -but she wasn't about getting there fast!

sold her to a good friend whose wife fell in love with it. nice to see her again...

THE BRAKES IS BROKE! -The Porsche saga part deux

Welp, the seasons are a changin’.. so it looks like one of the world’s slower moving projects has turned a bit.

Okay, on this episode, we have successfully rebuilt the brakes on the 1968 912.

-Hey look, there's Frank in the background! -Boy, he sure looks happy!


This was a bit tough, as they were the original EVERYTHING. So, we had to coat the calipers and let them sit for a bit, as the rear were frozen and I really didn’t want to cut them.


Had to order THREE (!) different sets of front discs to get the right set. It’s a long story… trust the guys at Sierra Madre Collection on the west coast and NO ONE ELSE. -they know their stuff!

Anyway, we replaced all the lines (went for rubber. Something tells me I will be replacing these again come spring with a set of braided stainless.) pads, brake grommets, discs, calipers front and rear and the bleed valve screw.

-A pretty tough job bleeding them btw. You have to do it like three of four times, as air seems to get stuck.

Also replaced the master cylinder and brake relay.

Whew.

Now about that rust…

Stay tuned.

Peace,
joe

1985 560 SL and a NEW BATHTUB!

Since we have a bit of time to kill on our hands with the Porsche rebuild, I thought I would take a stroll down memory lane.
So here is my old 1985 560 sl. -I did a frame off an old ’66 230 sl, but that’s for another day/night…

This one was okay. NOT my favorite. Bought her from a painter in SanFran. He had work done on it in a local MB shop and couldn’t afford to get her back out. So we struck a deal and i couldn't resist, as I had fond memories of my old 230 Pagoda. -SHOULD have bought another one of those...

Anyway, had it shipped back to the East coast. She was pretty beaten down when she arrived. -But her back-story checked out and her records of ownership (a one-owner. she had belonged to said painter’s sister. She moved, sold it to her baby brother, etc).


Anyway, when I find the old before pics I will add then.
HEY, here they are. -man, the interior was like a -15 on a 1-10 scale. seeing these old pics really makes me question my sanity.

and the paint job looked really great from about 50 ft... at night...or in a low rez photog in blinding daylight. but i digress...






Oh, there’s the original tool kit, WITH that little top clamp thing.

Changed the serpentine belt. Had a heckofa time getting the timing right… anyway, then the usual: wires, plugs, all major fluids changed out. She also had a broken motor mount (?). Might have been from the cross-country transport.

Stripped all her paint off and had her repainted the picked up a new set of MB disc rims and a sexy set of Dunlop’s from the fine folks at The Tire Rack.

After the paintwork was done I dropped it over at Fairfield Auto Upholstery (as usual) and let Gregg work his magic with the new hides, dash, top and carpet coming from World Auto Upholstery.
She was pretty fine.

Strange end to this one. Kells and I are at the Home Depot in Westchester NY and a guy comes up to me in the parking lot. We make a deal right there, he follows us home (with his wife).

They stop at the bank on the way and I signed her over to him.

If we had never gone to look at bathtubs, we’d probably still have her.

-Actually, probably not.

Peace,
Joe