It is in a new shop as of one year ago this month, hadn't got that far yet. Takes a while to get even a brief summary of the last 15 years since I started this "couple year project" (cue Gilligan's island theme here "3 hour tour" LOL).
Anyway, I'll try to wrap up and get to the last year where much progress is being made. 2008 started out good, with the new Challenger coming out I was excited about the possibility of getting an RT with a 6 speed when they came out in '09. I had a 2 car garage and if I got a new Challenger, I wouldn't have space for it along with my convertible and T/A in my garage. Plus my old garage had seen better days, the roof was leaking and sagging under the weight of 4 layers of shingles it had got over the previous 50 years. So I looked into maybe increasing the size of my garage and having a new raised roof put on that would give me room for a 4 post lift I could use to get 3 cars in there. I found village building codes wouldn't allow me to raise the roof height, but a friend suggested I talk to a contractor about tearing down my old garage and building a new 3 car. I did that, and came up with an exciting plan. Refinanced the house to take equity out to build the garage and do a long overdue remodeling of my kitchen. I was also excited about the 2008 Mopar nats as the feature was "year of the Challenger". I found someone to trailer my convertible out there for the show and had a blast, after the show, I took the car over to a friend's house in a neighboring town who was kind enough to let me park it in his garage for a couple months while the new garage got built.
Things started going downhill around then though, the economy was going downhill, work was going downhill, my 14 year old niece got diagnosed with cancer, the stockmarket started crashing down, the presidential election, etc. I was bumming out, after the contractors got done with their work, I spent my evenings out in my new garage just about every day insulating and putting up drywall and trim and painting usually until midnight. Working on the garage allowed me a few hours to escape the lousy events going on in the world then.
Nothing seemed to be happening with the T/A project that year, but I had other things on my mind. A few weeks after the election I got the boot at work, around then I retrieved my convertible to bring it back to its new dwelling, and I settled down for a depressing winter unemployed with poor prospects of a new job anytime soon. I ended up being out of work all through '09 into 2010. I did climb out of my funk in spring and finished up some projects with my new garage and set to work remodeling my kitchen with the money I'd left from when I'd refinanced the previous year. With all the time I had on my hands I was able to thoroughly plan the project, shop around for deals, and act as the general contractor. The timing worked out great with the new garage too. With an open stall in the new garage, I had a nice free and secure dry space to stage all the remodeling materials like the new cabinets, my stove, my new refrigerator etc. I ended up completing the project under budget, with enough money left over to have a contractor install a much needed new front door on my house. I was glad I was able to take advantage of my bad situation that year to successfully complete a big project as when I'm working all day full time it's so hard to find the time and energy to devote to big projects. A silver lining to a black cloud!
2010 I found a new job finally, even paid better than my last one! Around this time Ron from MI called me up about my engine. He has an engine shop near the restorer's shop, and my engine had been sitting there for several years because he was going to rebuild it. He was holding off on the engine waiting for progress to be made on the car, as he didn't want the completed engine sitting around for years not being run. But he was getting tired of seeing my engine sitting around his shop and wanted to get it done and out of there. He also had hopes that seeing my engine done might motivate his friend with the restoration shop to get in gear with my project so the engine would get installed in it. So I OK'ed him getting going on the engine.
I'd gotten a home equity line when I refinanced in 2008. An untapped HELOC and a open space in a garage is a very dangerous combination.
In September I went to the Mecum auction in my area with the thought that if I could get a bargain, I'd bid on a few cars. The couple cars I'd had my eye on didn't work out, but for laughs and grins I tossed out a few bids on a '71 Challenger R/T V code well below what I figured the reserve would have been, and no one was more surprised than me when the reserve got dropped and I was high bidder.
When I went there the next day to pick up my purchase, I met the seller who was none too happy the bidding stalled out after he agreed to drop the reserve. Reviewing the file of paperwork for the car he gave me later, I saw the reserve he'd set and it was indeed about where I expected, 20K over what I'd bid.
Very cool car I'd never thought I'd own, but that certainly added another complication to my T/A project, between taking up the open stall in the garage reserved for it, and taking up time and money while I fixed up some issues on my new ride. I displayed it in Mopar Alley at the MCACN car show 2 months after I got it, and in 2011 it was invited back to be in the 1971 invitational display. Great car but I still question my sanity sometimes. What can I say, I'm nuts about Challengers!
My niece's battle with cancer wasn't going well, I heard a former engineering colleague of mine died of a heart attack at 46, my 50th birthday not far off in the future, I was thinking more of my own mortality. I couldn't let the T/A project languish forever. I'd pretty much lost hope for the restorer in MI getting back in gear with it, but moving to a quality shop would cost 10's of thousands of dollars to complete I knew, and with my poor job security in recent years it was hard to make any big financial commitment. Yes, I'd spent a lot of money on an '09 Challenger and a '71 Challenger R/T in recent times, but those were cars I felt I could turn around and sell quickly if need be, the '09 for a little loss, the '71 at least break even..... more likely make a profit. The T/A I'd owned so long is different, I could never see selling it, so any money spent on it was money I'd never get back.
For years I'd known and been friends with Mark from Blue Star restorations. He'd be at many shows I attend, displaying beautiful Mopars he'd restored. I had in the back of my mind talking to him about taking over my project, and at MCACN 2011 when I had my '71 in the invitational and he had his display there we started to talk about my car. He gave me some estimates of time required based on my descriptions of where things were at with the car. As luck with have it with me, I had just gotten laid off once again shortly before the show that November.
But in 2012 I found another job, and soon afterwards I contacted Mark and said I think I want to get something on your schedule, I want to move my T/A to your shop!
So there is my "brief thumbnail" of the last 15 years for background, so I can finally start posting about the project and all the progress made since I made the decision and commitment to move it to a new shop. I apologize for =>
but that's is my reality of how life got in the way of getting this project done for so long!
