Ancient History: Which one is the Buick?

Part 1 of the Series

WARNING: I'm not a professional writer so please apply a willing suspension of grammar and prose as you weed your way through this muck.

Let me be frank, this is nothing for the history books. No one is going to submit this to the Library of Congress. What you are reading here is a simple account of a dad, his daughter, and a Jeep - as well as an assorted cast of family, friends, and players to be named later. I wanted to document this journey so that some day, my daughter Kassie, will be able to not only tell stories about how she and her dad fixed up an old Jeep, but to also have this as a week by week account of our follies and triumphs (if any).

Bond in a Box:

(Not the actual water pump)

I was 13 years old when my father, a 6'4" tall electrical engineer and former Marine, walked into our family room, handed me a nondescript cardboard box, and simply stated, "This is a water pump. Put this on the Buick." then just walked away. This was my first indoctrination into the Shade-tree Mechanics Club, and after a few hours of literally doing it myself, the Buick had a new water pump that never leaked or squeaked for as long as we owned it. From then on, he brought home a string of used cars for us 4 kids to drive or to fix and sell, and I was the mechanic in residence. We've spoken about these cars over the years, and maybe time has made us forget the actual costs or maybe we actually did very well, buy neither he nor I could remember a car we didn't turn a profit on.

I joined the Army at 18 and went through various motorcycles and cars over 3 years. Ended up piecing together one ugly green "running" Fiat X-19 out of two cars I bought for roughly $150.00 and drove it (repaired it) all the way from Fort Benning Georgia to Southern California. (That's a story I'll have to cover at some later date.) I got married and worked on every car we owned. Had kids and as every dad has experienced, ended up with a kid driving.

(like this one, only not as nice.)

I'm not a trained mechanic. I will be making mistakes that cost me money. I will be paying too much for things. I will be buying the wrong thing. I will be relying upon forums and friends for help and advice. I will be documenting all the gory details here. That's all OK. It's a process I'm willing to go through with my daughter in hopes of creating that same bond and experience I had with my dad when I was a teen.

I hope Kassie learns a lot about cars, herself, and her dad during this project. I know that the things I learned while fixing cars with my dad have helped me in my life, and if that bond ends up over-budget, that's fine with me. 

In all honesty, when my father handed me that box at age 13, I had to go out and look at each of our 4 cars to find out which one was the Buick. At least my daughter knows which one is the Jeep.

Day 1

I had put up a "Wanted" ad in the Autos section of our local Craigslist. In a nut shell, it spelled out that I was looking for a project Jeep for my daughter and I to work on together. It ran for about 2 weeks and I had two people contact me. One had a Jeep that had been burned up, had no engine, and he would be willing to let it go for $1100.00. The other had a Jeep that was once a real awesome off-roader, but had been stripped of almost all its suspension and had a "tricked out" high performance Chevy engine that had "blown up". That guy wanted $1500.00 for what I can only summarize as parts.

Now, I have a budget of $2000.00 from an insurance settlement on a 1998 Volvo S70 sedan that Kassie had been driving. It was totaled in an accident. So as you can guess, I didn't jump at either one of these "great deals".  I had almost forgotten about the whole Jeep Project and was looking for another Volvo for her to drive when I got another reply to my Craigslist post. This one was from a guy named Brent. Brent, a complete stranger, had read my ad and seen an ad for a Jeep for $1500 that "needed work". He emailed me with, "Here's a 91 Wrangler but needs work for $1500." and linked me to the ad. I don't know who Brent is, but he's OK in my book.

I took a 130 mile round trip drive to go see the Jeep, and this is what I found.

The proverbial vehicle rotting in a field.