neohic

Something like that. It's right in the middle of town.

Ugh... I think that felt more like work than it did a quick getaway. :grrrr: We just got back home (or current home?) a couple hours ago and the wife and I are exhausted. Sure would've been nice to be able to relax a little more than we did, but I think we made the most of the time we had available. Here's how the last few days went down... Tuesday: We both worked our usual hours. I got off at 4:30, got cleaned up, loaded up the car, and we were out of city limits by 5:30. Things started off fine until we hit about hour number two of our seven hours or driving. By the time we got to Sioux Falls, the rain was already getting overwhelming. 10:00 hit as did fatigue of being up since 4:30. Slightly before 12:30 FINALLY came and the Omaha exit was in sight. Checked in to the hotel... hit the pillow. Wednesday: Wednesday started off as a carbon copy of of Tuesday night... pouring rain. Another eight or so hours of seat time was made very much easier immediately at the Colorado border. The clouds broke up, the sun came out, and velvet ropes appeared to have parted. Colorado was beautiful! It didn't take much to get a couple of "flat landers" excited about a faint gray line way out on the horizon... mountains! Denver traffic was busy, but was totally worth it for out destination. Jim was expecting us and I was hoping to have gotten down to Pueblo by 2:00. 4:00 rolled around just as we were making our way up his driveway. Visiting was had... met his wife Katie (she's amazing!)... dinner at a neat little mountain diner... and we had to get back on the road back for Denver. Another late night of checking in to a hotel. Thursday/Friday: I made plans for stopping at the Commerce City location for the company I currently work for. They process drainage pipe there which isn't anything close to the bridge building that I do now... which was expected. I wasn't quite excited about what I saw, but I was kind of expecting that. I ran over to the 4 Wheel Parts in Westminster as they were expecting me, and met the whole gang there. Very cool store! We don't have anything close to that in MN! Unfortunately, they really didn't have anything to offer me at the moment or withing at least the next few months. Fortunately after doing some more looking around, we abandoned the idea of pursuing the Denver area. The store manager at the 4WP put in a good word for me at the Colorado Springs location... and that went over great!!! Sounds like I have a position waiting for me! We took most of Friday looking around the Springs at apartments. Found some nice places. We already heard back from the one place we really liked enough to consider for a temporary solution that they'll have something available when we want to get out there. Fingers crossed it's still available when we're ready to go. Saturday: Troy and I made plans to meet up in the morning followed up with some lunch. Great guy! I always enjoy breaking bread with fellow CC members! It was another day of cold blowing snow, but I did get out to his storage place to see some of his inventory. Good parts... good trucks. We then ran back to his place to pick up his wife (she's also amazing!) for some lunch. Had a real nice time with the both of them. It's interesting seeing similarities between CC members and their other halves and this was no different. Definitely going to have to make more time for them once we get out there. After lunch... more snowy driving. Another-er late night getting into a hotel. This trip was good, but I wish it could've been longer. It's an odd thought thinking that the next time we'll be out there is probably when we'll be moving there. Timing didn't work out in my wife's favor for any interviews, but the feelers are still out. Today was another long day of driving and by the time we got back to Alexandria we already had that feeling of just wanting to turn around and go back. The atmosphere of the town feels off... the land is flat again... and the cars are all rusty. I've got plenty of work to do before we go back and selling the house is the biggest hurdle. We did get excited along the way back when we got word that there was an offer on the table. Albeit an awful offer, but an offer none the less. Fuel for other interested parties to make offers of their own, I hope. Anyhow... this post doesn't have any pictures yet... Bridge that came from my plant manufactured that everybody nerds out over in the middle of Denver: Average scenery... ... Colorado... here I come?

Ugh... Hit some nasty rain last night. Got to Omaha really late. Regardless... here I come, Jim!

Sioux Falls!! Still going...

We be rollin'!!

I had one in my '91. I think I remember pulling the bulb out though because it would glow through the little crack at the top opening of the ashtray. Kind of an annoyance. :roll:

Yessir, Jim! Hoping to be in your neighborhood early afternoon.

Still have your number, Troy. Looks like it'll be Thursday or Friday that'll work best for me. :thumbsup:

Received the replacement tire from Treadwright a couple weeks back. It balanced just fine... which made me happy to put the truck back on all fours. I like them! :) Emissions updates to come over the next few weeks.

Getting excited! Leaving for the recon trip in a couple days! :banana: Plans are to stop and see Jim on Wednesday along with Robyn's relatives up in the Springs area, Thursday through Saturday will be looking at temporary housing and interviews, and then I'm hoping I can work out some time to meet up with Troy one day along with Rick on another. Going to be a busy week!

Colorado emissions compliance, here I come! I cut up the exhaust when I first got it to clean it up some. The Flow Master something-or-other muffler that was on it was a bit obnoxious to say the least. Not too bad on the trail, but hit a hill on the road or pass someone and it was nothing short of Fast and Furious! :bs: That needed to change and being that I needed to add a catalytic, I figured it was a well enough time to remedy everything. Old, busted, dented, and noisy. Old and noisy next to a dumpster score. They're both 2.5" and the dumpster freebie had tons of bends to work with. Giveth to the scrap, and the scrap sometimes giveth back! :D I'll admit that the new pipe has way more welded joints than I'd like to have, but free is free. Some of them along with the short piece of straight is now three or four times recycled from other Jeeps! :rotf: All hung and tucked up as high as it would comfortably could be. Threw in a new O2 sensor while I was in there. The main reason for all the bends is that I wanted to put the fart pipe out to the bumper rather than just dumping out under the back seat. Makes for a huge difference as far as interior noise! The muffler I went with is a cheap Cherry Bomb turbo. I've used them in the past and they last okay. For about $20 a piece, they're cheap enough to not feel bad about banging it around on the rocks. Overall, I'm happy enough with it even though my Jeep season will probably be non existent this year. Next on the list is new u-joints in the rear driveshaft. Major vibrations when letting off the gas. There's a laundry list that it could get, but we'll see what happens and what I have time for.

The engine for now is going to be a stock 1600cc. It's currently sitting under the table in my shop waiting to be gone through. Not sure what it all needs, but it doesn't have much for compression. Stay tuned. As for today, we had a showing on the house today, so I didn't get a whole lot done. I and got myself a quart of Red-Kote to line the fuel tank. Really good stuff!... stinky though. I made up the upper mounting tabs on the tank and finished the welding, then put the tank outside to vent as to not get remarks on the house like "smells like paint" or "made my husband high". :roll: Looks like strawberry syrup!... smells like chemicals. I had a little time to kill before we had to get out of the house so I turned my attention to the dash. It'll get wrapped in black vinyl when it's done, but this is what I'm thinking right now... Overall, I like it. It's the same shape as what was there, but here's my issue with it... ... notice it? From my view, I only see from about 35 mph to 80. I suppose about 30 to 70 is really the important range to keep an eye on, and the fuel gauge is completely visible too which is nice. Obviously those blue dots are place holders for other gauges. It'll be a temperature gauge and an oil pressure. Trying to find a nice set of gauges that sorta match either the speedometer or the tachometer is proving to be difficult. Apparently Sunpro is no more... which is a real bummer. I like the classic look of that tach and I was hoping to keep that going. We'll shall see. In other news, my harness came! Very cool to see everything labeled and easy to follow. I'll make up a filler panel between the bottom of the hood and the top of the front bulkhead to serve as a place to mount the fuse block and to just fill the gap. There's about 4" of open space up there. Getting closer...

I think the best documented build with a 4 link was H3RESQ's. Rear links start around page 20. :thumbsup: ... pretty much the Comanche of the century. :drool:

Should be easy enough to just copy and paste the build thread then!

It's no secret that I was a VW guy before flocking to Jeeps. Sure, I've had way more Jeeps than VWs, but the VWs from my past have been nothing less than special to me. This is mainly the story of my 1972 Beetle. It's been around longer than I've been putting together build threads, so it kind of got the short end of the stick. I've been thinking a lot about this car lately, and I found it fitting that I put something nice together for it. Things start way back in 2000. I was 14 ar the time and I had was bugging my parents about letting me buy my first car. See... I had it in my head that I'd buy something cool and fix it up in time for me to get my driver's license. That did happen... sorta. I started scouring the newspaper classifieds (because that's what we did way back then) along with asking my parents to drive down side streets in hopes of finding that forgotten jewel. That jewel was found in the form of a 1976 Volkswagen Beetle. /uploads/archive/72db7ddb67bce7006e21265936c1fac1/d9aa9148bf627713acff33823ef517c7.png /uploads/archive/72db7ddb67bce7006e21265936c1fac1/3fe4bd3da419b9b31890718856571377.png /uploads/archive/72db7ddb67bce7006e21265936c1fac1/cb9ccf58f5692594b99a1598ea52f448.png Not bad for a Minnesota car. It was in an accident... sandwiched, actually. The front end damage wasn't too bad, but the rear was pushed in pretty good. This car would end up being a very large piece of my vehicular education. The deal was originally made that the car came with the parts needed to make it whole again, but they were still attached to another car. One afternoon and a sawzall later, and I had the start of something! /uploads/archive/72db7ddb67bce7006e21265936c1fac1/7e3633429ae552bfb7fb0a1b9bd49baa.png /uploads/archive/72db7ddb67bce7006e21265936c1fac1/b2cf006e09544b49001d1318ce9867a3.png /uploads/archive/72db7ddb67bce7006e21265936c1fac1/40e14c731a2e3f7c780417df8f6c90cd.png It made for a fun summer! Bodywork... built a hot little engine for it... put it up for sale... wait, wha'?! Yup... just in time to start driving, I put my first car up for sale. /uploads/archive/72db7ddb67bce7006e21265936c1fac1/b8f39a1a1a291ed09f38270be0b97b93.png /uploads/archive/72db7ddb67bce7006e21265936c1fac1/a1a2380d8a042cbe38c36fafff84c50e.png The problem with the '76 was that, while it looked good on the surface, it had some rust and a few other little issues. I had it in my head that I wanted a clearer car to start with. This was really the first automotive adventure I'd been on. California, here I come!... and I did! I found the '72 online (that was something special in itself at the time!) and my family decided to turn it into a road trip. /uploads/archive/72db7ddb67bce7006e21265936c1fac1/bab3f15f5107c5282ec65743c2dbb200.png /uploads/archive/72db7ddb67bce7006e21265936c1fac1/c3438c00110b2e12caef80c8603f877f.png /uploads/archive/72db7ddb67bce7006e21265936c1fac1/ea1a13f1e2f557f5f069ef98326ee922.png /uploads/archive/72db7ddb67bce7006e21265936c1fac1/f9219485737766d3ba49f27ff5df5285.png Let the bodywork begin! I was 16, full of ambition, and Dad was willing to help. Time for another fun summer! /uploads/archive/72db7ddb67bce7006e21265936c1fac1/7855ee9b70307b94d905eca6c332229f.png /uploads/archive/72db7ddb67bce7006e21265936c1fac1/3a75b461616bec6bc47f17efff26f851.png /uploads/archive/72db7ddb67bce7006e21265936c1fac1/01dac5dd867d446fa407d8fcada1feb2.png /uploads/archive/72db7ddb67bce7006e21265936c1fac1/aebc58880c6a327ea12cb68f176240fa.png /uploads/archive/72db7ddb67bce7006e21265936c1fac1/091926464223e62cd04d315a10a72211.png /uploads/archive/72db7ddb67bce7006e21265936c1fac1/88b13bd3f3aede0dff8db30b6790c6ba.png /uploads/archive/72db7ddb67bce7006e21265936c1fac1/3f6fc8610202229d66b9e18b7bb52067.png /uploads/archive/72db7ddb67bce7006e21265936c1fac1/02fcb4326ccef639c14e489b41ae5c1e.png /uploads/archive/72db7ddb67bce7006e21265936c1fac1/1bfb5cfc5d18b79e3a631e3ae53ea2ff.png /uploads/archive/72db7ddb67bce7006e21265936c1fac1/3d257538548a7f1d7cb6450f3e23be88.png The car got mostly done the summer before my senior year in high school. By mostly done, I mean the bodywork was finished and everything else got boxed up and filled my parent's garage. All the work was done at my cousin's shop about 50 miles away from home. This made for many, many weekends of spending time with my dad. Some fun, some not so fun, but all making for what I consider important while building a vehicle. Since then the little Beetle has seen car shows, my marriage, a house, a shop, a big move, another house, another shop, all the while being perfectly fine with waiting its turn to be enjoyed. /uploads/archive/72db7ddb67bce7006e21265936c1fac1/55b9508c4bd3b8ca26a23b5362e52b82.jpg /uploads/archive/72db7ddb67bce7006e21265936c1fac1/175b3b9ff2b061b077a29967587693db.jpg /uploads/archive/72db7ddb67bce7006e21265936c1fac1/54978d51a660eb7100293a265a92db80.jpg This car was my go-to fun vehicle. I loved it and it seemed to love me back! We too had our fun times and our not so fun times, but it was always in head that that, while fun to have a fleet of vehicles, one can only enjoy one at a time. That being said, the little car would get a few hundred miles or so each year, get put away each winter, and then it would come back out to do it all over again. At this point, the car has been in my possession for 14 years. It hasn't just been me who loved this car though. My dad would drive this car whenever given opportunity. I'd toss him the keys and he'd just run off with them like he had Willy Wonka's golden ticket! The summer we spent working on this car turned out to be one of those experiences that you talk about years later... we still do, and we relate to it like it was just yesterday. I love my dad. Then the decision was made that we'd move to Colorado. That thought was burning in my head everyday since that decision was made... one can only enjoy one at a time. Very unfortunately, this story takes a turn... another major decision was made, and it was time to let the Beetle go. It was a few weeks ago... Easter, I think? My dad and I were sitting in my parent's living room and I just came out with it. "So... would you have any interest in buying the Beetle?" He didn't even skip a beat. "Yup." I told him my price, my parent's talked it over for a week or so, and that was that. It felt like giving up. It felt like sending an old pet off to live with someone else. It felt like... abandonment. I hated the feeling and I hated myself for making the decision. Still, it had to be done. We're hoping to be moving west sometime this summer and moving half way across the country with five and a half vehicles just didn't make sense. Even if we stuck around here, the XJ has its role in life, the Eliminator has its role, the daily driver is just that, the dune buggy will be a fun nice weather driver once done, and the Beetle fit that bill as well. One can only enjoy one at a time... sadly. Today was the day. Funny thing is, the title was originally made out to my parents when the car was first brought into the state. Things have just come full circle. The same tow bar that brought the car to me was being used to pull it away. /uploads/archive/72db7ddb67bce7006e21265936c1fac1/5226f8654f5c733d76907f1829ba6e12.jpg I cried. Never have I cried over a vehicle before. So many memories and so many miles of smiling. I'm happy to know that the car will continue to be enjoyed, however. I'm also happy to know that it will continue to be well taken care of, and I get the joy of being able to keep it in my life and still drive it when we see each other again. We had one last cruise this morning. It was nice. First time out since last year and it had been sitting all winter. Put the key in, turned, and it fired right up as is always did as if saying, "Hey buddy! It's going to be a great driving season!" 30 miles later, I got that thrill again. That smile was back on my face right up until the last turn back into the driveway. /uploads/archive/72db7ddb67bce7006e21265936c1fac1/d77e18cdd2b8deff5cbad7a1898cebc8.jpg /uploads/archive/72db7ddb67bce7006e21265936c1fac1/232f082bdec53b5045f61c3f6018b97a.jpg So long little car. You will be missed everyday I turn a wrench or the key of another vehicle, and you left so much more than an empty place in my garage.

I think you're due for a new build thread. :peek:

There's been a few changes since the last update. Pretty much everything is painted, back together, new parts added, and it's looking like a car again.

You did! I think it just adds character.

Hmm... sounds terrible, Jim! :doh: See you in a couple weeks or so.

Here's to staying ON the wagon!

Yessir.

Really hoping to be settled in by then. Fingers crossed we'll be selling soon too! One showing yesterday, two today, one scheduled for Saturday... peeps be lovin my hood.

At one time I had four Comanches around here... all 4.0s. Can't imagine trying to move and keep all of them! I'd feel bad taking all that rusty garbage into a "clean" state anyhow.

Here's something crazy... :hmm: We thought this was strange when we listed our first house for sale, but the plot thickens. Our first house was purchased on the fourth day of the fourth month of 2007. By coincidence, we listed the house back up for sale on the fourth day of the fourth month after living there for four years. Yesterday was the big day that we listed our current house for sale. This was by no means planned! Once again, the house was listed on the fourth day of the fourth month after living here for four years. :nuts: