Ripped Apart

Recently I somehow managed to get two days off of work in a row. Because of this, I finally had the time to do the rest of what I needed to do to the engine of the 1971 Cadillac Coupe DeVille I bought a month or so ago. Before today, all I'd done was take the carburetor off and sent it out to be rebuilt, taken the valve covers and other such things off and painted them, and collected parts in preparation for just such a break in my work schedule. Both the front and rear seats, the trunk, and the floor have become filled with just about every part I think I need to get her running right, and now I finally have the time to put her all back together.

Here's the engine, broken down about as far as it needs to be. Just about everything that needs to be off is off and ready for replacing. The distributor cap and wires are only left intact to ensure their correct and easy replacement when the time to do so comes. In fact, the only other thing left to do at the time of this photograph is to temporarily remove the distributor to gain the access necessary to remove the bottom half of the currently broken ported vacuum switch and replace it with a new one. Let's hope that 35 years of sitting in the block hasn't affected its ability to come back out.

Got it! Now to put the new one back in and start putting the rest of the old girl back together. The next time you see this mighty Cadillac 472, it'll be all buttoned up and beautiful.

Reinstated!

This morning, me and President Franklin walked into the Lowell branch of the Massachusetts RMV, and I walked out with a valid driver's license. Sixty days have come and gone and I am once again a productive member of society!

Humble Beginnings: My 1990 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme

So I'm digging through my harddrive a little earlier today, when what should I stumble upon but a few photographs of the first car I ever owned, a 1990 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme sedan.

I came to own the little silver Cutlass in sort of an interesting manner. The summer when I was sixteen years old was spent working around the house with my father; together we remodeled eight rooms, nearly tripled the size of the garage, and relandscaped the entire yard. It was hard work, and, thanks to my mother who recognized this, the subject of my being paid for said work was brought up repeatedly. Around the same time, a gentleman who was having work done on his car at my father's shop wasn't quite able to pay his bill. The man offered the Cutlass as payment, and my father, with his driving-age son in mind, accepted the offer. The car was mine. The 3.1-liter V6 never gave me an ounce of trouble. About six months after I started driving it, a lady slammed on her brakes in front of me for God knows what and I rear-ended her. I put a junkyard nose on the Cutlass, did a little bodywork, and painted it a custom shade of silver (custom meaning I cleaned out the shelf of grays and silvers in my father's leftover paint cabinet, mixed it up in one big giant can, and shot it!). The car came out awesome and I was happy as a clam. That was, until three weeks later when some shithead kid on a blunt ride in mommy's brand new Mercury Sable cut me off, sending me through a strip of woods and into the parking lot of an office building across the road from where I had hit him.

Hitting a ten-inch granite curbstone at roughly 40 miles per hour meant the engine cradle was pretty well buckled. Insurance paid out on it, and the Cutlass was sent to a local wrecking yard not soon after. Rest in peace, little buddy.