Well it's been a while as usual. This time I've really done it.
It's something I've thought about and talked about so many times I just had to finally go for it. I am attempting to use my mechanical skill, or something, to flip a car.
Over the past few months I started looking here and there at cars. Really I only looked at four possible candidates seriously.
The first was a 1987 22re Toyota 4Runner. It is a fantastic auto and this one ran and drove. I have to say they are truly cool cars. Four cylinder power, a very neat interior, complete with compass, altimeter and yaw gauges. It was cool.
Out of pure excitement I was ready to go, even with its rust, shabby tires and tired everything. I paid the guy a deposit and prepared to pick it up for $2500 delivered.
The problem was I looked at the car in the dark.
It was still good when I came back to take a second look and fork over the cash. The problem was there was a hell of a lot more wrong than I saw previously. I knew I couldn't handle it. Especially since I was not much of a Yota mech.
To make things worse the truck was already on the trailer. The owner even had a spare engine sitting on the front of the trailer. It was a nice gesture and a possible omen of problems to come.
I got nervous for a couple reasons. It was going to be too much work and I had to go back on the deal. The owner was a relatively coarse dude, so I knew what I had to do.
I walked straight up and said "It's too much. I can't do it."
He frowned. He said something to the effect of "Oh well, I'll put it back up on Craigslist and see what happens."
I got out of there fast. Later that night I got a text with several four letter words ending in "I hope you buy a piece of shit."
Fair enough.
The next car I looked at was a 1986 GTI, with a 1.6 diesel engine swapped in. The price, again was low. This time, I think, it was somewhere near $2100.
I showed to look at the car. It looked shabby, missing trim. I also noticed the front fender and door were a different shade of faded red.
When I moved to look at the decent-looking interior, the door sill greeted me with an unpleasant deal-breaker. Oh yes that last compound word sentence refers to the big old dent in the unibody.
I didn't even want to drive it. Don't get me wrong, I wanted to drive it. However, I didn't want to drive it and then tell the owner that there was no way I would buy the car.
On to the next one.
I went out to look at another Yota. This time it was a pickup. I think I am starting to really fall for those trucks. I hate to say it, but I've been lusting after every clean pre-2000 yota pickup I can lay my eyes on.
Anyway, this one looked good. I got to the meeting location. I waited. The owner showed. The truck still looked pretty good. The body had an OK paint job.
I noticed the truck really seemed to move with the road when it pulled up. I looked underneath and found out why. The frame was crumbling. I touched one of the rails and it literally crumbled. Again, I couldn't drive it.
Speaking of things I couldn't drive, I did actually buy a car.
I decided to stay in my comfort zone for this first one. I bought a 1992 civic.
The owner claimed it had a Japanese Domestic Market engine. Looking it over he seemed to be right. JDM engines don't have numbers following the engine stamp. The 1992 Civic DX sedan came with D15B7 engine. This had a D15B non-VTEC engine. According to what I could find, that is a later OBDII engine from a Japanese car.
Based on the changed TPS sensor wiring and what seems to be swapped components from the previous engine, I believed him.
The car didn't run and he couldn't figure out why. I could tell he wasn't really a car person, so I took that as a good thing toward the car. It cranked and there weren't any bad noises. It had some ricer mods, but it wasn't a total hack job.
Looking over the rest of the car, I saw an interior in pretty good shape and a beat up body. Since I couldn't drive it, I had no way of knowing how the brakes were or how the chassis was on the road.That's also likely inexperience talking.
He was asking $1300. I offered him $500. I ended up paying him a total of $600 so that I could borrow his plates. A lady operator at AAA refused to tow the car without plates. I hung up with her called back and lied saying I had plates. I hate to lie, but sometimes people just ask for it.
The tow truck driver hooked it up and we got rolling. The previous owner's lack of automotive knowledge bit me in the ass, at this point in the journey.
We were going down a country road, in the pitched black. There was a rail road crossing. I passed through ahead of the tow truck. He started falling behind.
I figured he was passing over slowly. Then I noticed he was really getting far behind.
The previous owner had some stupid big rims on the car when he had it. He sold them and threw some steely wheels on it. In true laze and dumbassery filled form, he only put the lugs on finger tight! And... you guessed it, a wheel fell off!
I had to run into someone's front lawn 100 yards away to retrieve the wheel that slung off the rear corner of the car. Luckily the tow truck driver was going extremely slow.
While the tow truck driver was tightening the lugs, I had to run back to my car. I grabbed a couple spare lugs I had and retrieved one up the road.
Face palms and four letter words, kept me cringing the whole way back to my newly rented shop. You really do get what you pay for.
Now that its here I'm taking care of all the issues so I can turn it over. More on that later.
For now, feast your eyes on this epic, four door automatic 1992 Civic DX, complete with four wheels in Speed Styles Underground. The home of four-bangers always on some number of wheels!
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