Hi everybody! Just signed up and I have a great story to tell: So almost 3 years ago I moved back here to Florida with Lorena. I moved back to Washington in 1998 and soon after bought a 1966 Chevrolet Caprice wagon. I loved that car (I know, I'm a weirdo for loving station wagons. Most are ugly as sin,... but some do look really cool when fixed up.) Those who I associated with knew her as Big Chevy. I Bought her from the original owner for $400, drove the hell out of it for 7 years and then finally sold it (worst day of my life) to a Canadian car collector for $3800. But there was another wagon in my life before Big Chevy. The one that started it all with my and my dysfunctional love affair with '60's Americana in the form of station wagons. Does anybody remember the 1966 Pontiac Tempest wagon I used to talk about when I was here in Florida the first time? Big ugly beast, quite rusty, '67 400 big block with '69 heads and a 2-speed automatic but the front end is exactly like a '66 GTO. I drove the crap out of that one too until the tranny went. I started buying all kinds of parts because it was going to get a body-off full restoration and was going to change things quite a bit. Well I broke up with the girl I was living with at the time and owed her quite a bit of money...so I gave her the title to the Pontiac and never saw it again. Last Saturday nite I was cruising craigslist and whadaya know. There's this '66 Pontiac wagon for sale in Clearwater and sure as hell it looked like mine. I went to the salvage yard this morning and sure enough I recognized the body quirks and stuff, my old Pontiac, the Tempest! She's in bad shape and needs tons of love (and new sheet metal) but she's mostly all there. I went with the owner of the yard to check the paper work that he received and he corroborated my story. He remembers a girl living in Tennessee who had an old Pontiac in storage in Tampa that was an old boyfriend of hers. When he pulled out the padded envelope I read the name off from memory and it matched. Inside was all the paperwork she had. And guess what: the title is still in my name! The DMV still has me as the current registered owner! HAH! I found you! So now I have a decision: do I let it go (the salvage owner has cancer now and crushed every single one of his cars last year just to get of them. All...except my wagon...mmmm...meant to be?) or do pick up where I left off and bring her home and start again what I started almost 20 years ago. Be nice, she's real rough, but she's the original. The real deal. http://tampa.craigslist.org/pnl/cto/3531102162.html
Welcome aboard, Scarymonster! What a GREAT story!! Congratulations on finding the car. Sounds like there was divine intervention involved! There is a lot of Pontiac specific support available for your project. I find these 3 forums to be very helpful when it comes to all things Poncho: This forum is sponsored by Performance Years: http://forums.performanceyears.com/forums/index.php This is an independent forum, LOTS of great tech help: http://psp.aquacomp.net/ This forum is sponsored by OPGI: http://www.gtoforum.com/forum-index.php Home site of Pontiac Oakland Club International (POCI): http://www.POCI.org Home page of GTO Association of America (GTOAA): http://www.gtoaa.org/ Good used parts (not usually much wagon stuff, but you never know...) http://www.frankspontiacparts.com http://www.dvap.com (Very expensive...) These are my favorite Pontiac parts suppliers: http://www.amesperf.com http://www.inlinetube.com http://www.rockauto.com (you'd be surprised how many parts these guys have for classic cars) http://www.usapartssupply.com/pontiac.php I'm looking forward to following your progress! Post questions whenever you need help; there is great advice here.
Scary. Did ya get that crappy piece of scrap metal home yet? As long as the price is right, I'd be dragging it home by hand if I had to! Get a rear under that big ole gal and start pushing. I already commented on your intro thread. But this is an amazing car-guy story and I wanted to let you know we are all rootin for ya!.
I would think it should be quite easy to find a rear end to fit under the old girl to get her home. Any mid sized G.M. from 64 up should bolt right in well enough to get her home, then you can figure things out from there. There is a good chance that the full sized G.M. cars from 77 up would fit as well.
Finally getting to do more work. Got a new ball joint, the spring clamps, and some bolts. Wednesday gonna replace the missing passenger spindle and drum and get the front end bolted back together. Gonna get the rear springs installed and get the chassis back on the rear end. All I need after that is four sorta matching tires that hold air. I have a 93 Dynasty all clogged up with bad gas in me garage so once that thing is running (soon!) we will have room for the Tempest and then home she's bound. All bets are off! The strip down begins!
