Scooter Adventure

Andy is keeping his 125cc motor scooter in Bellingham this winter, so today he had a job interview in Seattle and he got a ride down with our mom so he could scoot back.Michael and Patrick were both working, so I rode down to Stanwood solo to meet up with him and ride the scooters “iron butt” back to Bellingham. We meet up at my friend Jeff’s body shop in Stanwood, Twin City Collision. I got a chance to visit for a few minutes with Jeff and his wife Wanda before Andy arrived and we headed north. Andy’s scooter is definitely faster than my Vespa, at this point in time. We had lunch a taco stand in Burlington, then when we were gassing up next door my the Vespa would not start. I kicked and kicked and tried to bump it, no go. Turns out I had bumped the kill switch. Once I figured that out we were on our way. I was a little faster than Andy on the twisties on Chuckanut, but I have several thousand miles on two wheels compared to his several thousand.

Beau’s P1800ES

After sitting on windshield with an OEM Volvo logo on it, Beau finally had me install it for him. Even with all my experience, I was a little apprehensive about the job, since the stainless windshield trim is a style that I had never installed before. Luckily the gasket was still in good shape, so we were able to reuse it. This made it easier because the gasket already had the basic shape form fitted, so it doesn’t fight the installation as much. It looks much nice, all clear and shiny. It goes really well with the new dash pads, and recovered seats. It been fun seeing that car become what it should be instead of what I had. Beau has put correct sized tires on it, fixed the steering box, fixed the rear axle whine, recovered the seats, added a GT steering wheel, and an OEM radio.

Junk Yard Dogs

Today I decided that if I’m serious about selling the Fiat, maybe I should replace the totally rotten mismatched ( 4 different brands) cracked tires on the car. Maybe I should have done it before taking the cars to the car show, but that was kind of spur of the moment anyways.
I didn’t feel like paying $210 and up for 13″ tires on a car I intend to sell, so I took Andy up with me to Beacon Battery and Tire up in Custer. We were able to climb up on a mountain of tires and found 4 decent matching Kumhos and had them mounted up for $75. Painted the wheels, and lug nuts silver, dressed the tires and they actually look good. The car looks decent now, after a good cleaning inside and out.

Car Show

Today I took three of our cars and crashed the “Sunday at the Depot” show. I didn’t feel like paying the $10 per car entry fee (even though I approve that it went to charity, I just didn’t want to pay and have to stay all day) so we took the cars downtown and parked next to the show. Well, we ended up getting invited “in” for a smaller donation, so we showed the cars for a few hours. Didn’t win any awards which was expected, but I had hoped to sell the Fiat. Lots of cars were for sale there, but the Fiat was by far the cheapest- and the roof comes down!
Andy drove the Volvo, said it feels pretty modern except the view out the back window. Michael drove the Fiat, he complained because it wasn’t fast enough- go figure. I drove the Porsche, not because I didn’t trust the other two, I just drove it because it is actually the hardest of the three to drive.

1996 Miata Supercharged Miata for sale

I figured I might as well put my own car up on my own blog site for sale since it’s a free ad. I’ll get some more information up later tonight. Here’s a link to even more pictures. http://s1017.photobucket.com/home/1996miata

Por-shuh

I don’t want to be the gold chain, aviator sunglasses wearing (or be seen wearing Porsche design sunglasses either), but the first car I ever really wanted even before whole MG midget thing was a yellow 914. A guy that I went to high school with had a piece of junk example, but when I came across a 83,000 mile one owner chrome bumper

survivor, I had to get it. It was many things I had never had before. Targa top, fixed back bucket seats, vintage dog leg gear box, mid engined, German. It’s a really nice clean honest car. Doesn’t really have any needs.

Volvo in a wedding.

My good friend Cam’s younger sister got married yesterday and after seeing the Volvo in last year’s Christmas card she asked if the Volvo could be used as her wedding car. I was happy to do this for a friend, so they used it without a hitch. And it even stop raining by the time of the ceremony. Hopefully I will get some pics of the car in action up here in the near future.

Sold Sarah’s scooter

Kind of a sad day, we had been thinking of selling the Yamaha Vino, since with Clara around Sarah won’t be riding much (at all) and why pay insurance, tabs, and let the scooter possibly depreciate due to age when we could sell it and just buy another at a later date?
The only catch was that I didn’t want to sell it at a loss, it wouldn’t be worth it. So I put out a craigslist ad like usual, for too much $$$ like usual, no one actually came to see it per usual, and when a gentleman finally came to see it, since it was as nice as advertised, he bought. Full price. Good thing since I wasn’t at all planning on dickering. His only catch was that I would have to accompany him to Birch Bay to help him off load the scooter from his truck. Fair deal. Enjoy the scooter Phil. And sorry about the tabs being expired!