Post by HardRocker on May 27, 2009 8:21:17 GMT -5
In another post I had mentioned to be sure to clean your car right and prepare it for an extended park. Sometimes, it is not expected to be a long period of non-use, but it may become one.... Be prepared.
When I stopped driving my 80 Monte Carlo daily, it was because I had bought a new car so that I could preserve the Monte and get it closer to a show car kind of quality. I still liked to drive it when I could and I was on the road traveling with work quite often. Sometimes it was spur of the moment trips that lasted a month or two. Then the house and wife and children started coming along. As I was working on the house I needed to move the Monte from the driveway into the yard to unload lumber, and firewood, and gravel, etc.... Each time I moved it, it was "just this once", and then I'd drive it tomorrow or next week..... or so I thought.
Without the proper washing of road dirt and liquid calcium and salt out of all the frame and body corners, and without keeping it from the condensation from the moisture of the ground and grass... the old iron-oxide monster loomed in..... fast, ferocious and hungry.
So after a hard winter and it sitting in the yard with a car cover and tarp on it (I thought it would be safe wrapped like this and the snows had come before I could get it moved back into the driveway...) I drove it to work one day. I had discovered the tank was leaking on my way to work with it that morning. On the way home the speedo gear stripped in the trans. When I got it down to my father's barn to work on it a weekend later, I found the driver's side frame was rotted from near the top of the dog leg down almost to the bumper mount. No more box frame.... more like ragged angle iron. The passenger side frame rail was beginning to crack and split as it rotted. The tank was leaking at the seam because I had less than 1/2 tank of gas in it and forgot to put some 'dry-gas' and stabilizer in the tank. Then I found the corner where the inner fender meets the outer fender and the trunk pan was rotting out... how do you fix that crossroads.... easily... without it being a cob-job. Well, I cut out some heavy gauge steel to weld the frame back together with (so much for show quality.... let's just keep it driveable). I then decided I'd get a new gas tank to drop in. But I was still puzzling over how to fix the rotten fender-fender-trunk corner. In starting the car up to back it out of the barn, the engine started to bog down.... like it was in gear and then it sputtered out. I tried and tried to get it to start but no luck. Pulled the plugs... yup, they were wet with gas and would shoot an arc, but they were oily. What the
Then I looked under the car and saw a blackish puddle.... OIL !! and ... what a minute, the black oil when I rubbed it on my fingers smelled liked gas and was too thin.....hmmm.... Well, I pulled the rest of the plugs and cleaned them up. Fired the car up once again and had to keep my hand on the throttle. AHA !! Gas & oil were blowing out of the fuel pump... Ruptured diaphragm.... Aaaaggh, when will it end.
Anyway, seems like there was another thing or two I found with in the next weekend, but by then I was spending money on baby clothes & cribs and 2x4's and sheet rock... the gas tank had to wait...
So here it is today. My father finally towed it up on the hill where the farm junk yard is. It waits for me to strip the salvageable parts off it to one day rebuild it once again. No washings in a long time... No wax... Just UV and the elements now.
And then the mice moved in.... They did their damage with their little black filthy traillings and nibbling of wires, (I did salvage the radio, equalizer and front speakers before they got to those wires).
It wasn't too long for them before the snakes came in to clear out the mice (thank you.....)
When I stopped driving my 80 Monte Carlo daily, it was because I had bought a new car so that I could preserve the Monte and get it closer to a show car kind of quality. I still liked to drive it when I could and I was on the road traveling with work quite often. Sometimes it was spur of the moment trips that lasted a month or two. Then the house and wife and children started coming along. As I was working on the house I needed to move the Monte from the driveway into the yard to unload lumber, and firewood, and gravel, etc.... Each time I moved it, it was "just this once", and then I'd drive it tomorrow or next week..... or so I thought.
Without the proper washing of road dirt and liquid calcium and salt out of all the frame and body corners, and without keeping it from the condensation from the moisture of the ground and grass... the old iron-oxide monster loomed in..... fast, ferocious and hungry.
So after a hard winter and it sitting in the yard with a car cover and tarp on it (I thought it would be safe wrapped like this and the snows had come before I could get it moved back into the driveway...) I drove it to work one day. I had discovered the tank was leaking on my way to work with it that morning. On the way home the speedo gear stripped in the trans. When I got it down to my father's barn to work on it a weekend later, I found the driver's side frame was rotted from near the top of the dog leg down almost to the bumper mount. No more box frame.... more like ragged angle iron. The passenger side frame rail was beginning to crack and split as it rotted. The tank was leaking at the seam because I had less than 1/2 tank of gas in it and forgot to put some 'dry-gas' and stabilizer in the tank. Then I found the corner where the inner fender meets the outer fender and the trunk pan was rotting out... how do you fix that crossroads.... easily... without it being a cob-job. Well, I cut out some heavy gauge steel to weld the frame back together with (so much for show quality.... let's just keep it driveable). I then decided I'd get a new gas tank to drop in. But I was still puzzling over how to fix the rotten fender-fender-trunk corner. In starting the car up to back it out of the barn, the engine started to bog down.... like it was in gear and then it sputtered out. I tried and tried to get it to start but no luck. Pulled the plugs... yup, they were wet with gas and would shoot an arc, but they were oily. What the
Then I looked under the car and saw a blackish puddle.... OIL !! and ... what a minute, the black oil when I rubbed it on my fingers smelled liked gas and was too thin.....hmmm.... Well, I pulled the rest of the plugs and cleaned them up. Fired the car up once again and had to keep my hand on the throttle. AHA !! Gas & oil were blowing out of the fuel pump... Ruptured diaphragm.... Aaaaggh, when will it end.Anyway, seems like there was another thing or two I found with in the next weekend, but by then I was spending money on baby clothes & cribs and 2x4's and sheet rock... the gas tank had to wait...
So here it is today. My father finally towed it up on the hill where the farm junk yard is. It waits for me to strip the salvageable parts off it to one day rebuild it once again. No washings in a long time... No wax... Just UV and the elements now.
And then the mice moved in.... They did their damage with their little black filthy traillings and nibbling of wires, (I did salvage the radio, equalizer and front speakers before they got to those wires).
It wasn't too long for them before the snakes came in to clear out the mice (thank you.....)
HardRocker 
.
