No More Red Car, The Saga of Mark's Folly (Long story) Options

[markb]

Well, it seems I bit off a whole lot more than I could chew, and the end result is the loss of my beloved red car. 6 years, a lot of sweat and blood (via skinned knuckles), a fair amount of money, invaluable assistance from some good friends, and some killer deals are gone.

The story: In July of 2005, I made a deal with the new body shop down the road from the Cap’ns shop in Santa Maria, CA, to have my blue 72 914 painted. In exchange, I would put together a 914 for the body shop owner. I had a very rusty 71 with a good motor, trans, brakes, etc. The body shop owner took a good look at it and said OK. I stripped the blue car down to just the body, a seat, the dash and the center console. The body shop guy agreed to shave the front turnsignals, paint the car, the early bumpers, the 5 Mahle wheels, and the top. Shortly into his work on the car, he started finding a fair amount of bondo, and he decided to take the car down to bare metal and fix it correctly. At this time we discussed a change of color to a 1970 only color of Metallic Red.

I felt badly about the amount of rust in the 71 he was getting, so I gave him a second body that had monster flares, but was virtually rust-free (OK, it had a rust spot the size of my thumbnail under the passenger seat) to use as a parts car.

The body shop owner took his time doing everything, resulting in him having the car for 9 months. I got the car back in May of 2006, minus the front bumper, which had been bent and had to be replaced with another bumper, the wheels, and the top. He finally finished these, and I picked them up on the 11th of June. I had given him the 71 when I got my 72 back, but the 71 had an oil leak that would require dropping the motor to fix, so we had to wait until there was a Saturday available at the Cap’ns shop. The body shop guy called me numerous times to fix small things, and was quite irritating. He was not a Porsche owner, and was not familiar with the vague shifting and underpoweredness of a 1.7. The Cap’n and I were finally able to get a Saturday free, and dropped the motor. We checked out the oil cooler, and it held pressure for quite a while, and we found rock hard seals, so we judged the seals to be the cause of the leak. The Cap’n replaced the seals, we put the motor back in, and had the body shop guy pick up the car. He brought the car back in on Monday, complaining of the same leak. It turns out the oil cooler WAS leaking, and that we would have to pull the motor again.

At this point, I came across a great deal on another 71, with a rebuilt motor, sideshifter, and much less rust. I made a deal to replace the rusty 71 with the nicer 71. The not-as-rusty car had a few quirks, which showed up as time went on. Many of the problems were electrical in nature, and were tough to track down.

I had finally reached my meltdown point by this time, and had taken time off from the shop to try and get some perspective. My 5 year relationship with my ex-girlfriend had ended abruptly (to me anyway) in February, and was still unresolved, resulting in a high stress period for me.

The Cap’n was kind enough to step in and trace down the problems caused by the PO, and we thought we had it licked. Then it started running badly again. I went down and replaced the MPS, the TPS, cleaned out the throttle body, and it ran well. I also re-keyed the ignition so that it matched to doors. The body shop guy drove the car for a week or so, and the said it was running badly again. I thought about what had been done, talked with a friend about the past history of the motor, and concluded the valves hadn’t been done in some time. I advised the body shop owner to contact the Cap’n and arrange to have them adjusted. A few days later (yesterday, June 14th, 2006), the body shop owner called me up very agitated insisting I come down and work on his car. I asked him if he’d talked to the Cap’n and had the vales adjusted, and he said he thought I was going to do them. He then started complaining about a bunch of other things (such as the key not turning easily in the ignition, due to the new wafers I’d used to re-key the switch with), and I finally had had enough. I knew this guy was never going to be happy with this car, no matter what we did, and I over-reacted. I told him I was going to bring him the red car, and we’d be done with it. Which is what I did. I regret it, and will regret it for a long time, but I saw no other way to please this guy.

Needless to say, the red car was a 7K car. New paint, ALL new rubber seals (including the impossible to find front targa seal), brand new bumper tops and dash top, nice tan interior and carpet, center console and dash with tan faces, adjustable Koni’s all around, freshly rebuilt sideshifter, rebuilt brakes, newish Dunlop A2’s, electronic ignition, electric 911 flag mirror on the drivers’ side (I hadn’t gotten the passenger side mounted yet), Camp 914’s driving light kit and euro front signal kit, 2 tops, one painted, and a killer stereo. All in all a car that was going to need very little for a long time. I now have a slightly rusty 71 that needs a lot of body work. AND, to add insult to injury, I was rearended on my drive home by a hit-and-run driver. This has not been my year. I won’t be going to the WCC now, simply because my heart is no longer in the 914’s. All the car does now is bring me frustration and anger. I would have taken this 71 down to hwgunner to part out in his ebay store, but I now have to hold onto it until the insurance companies figure out what they’re doing.

I sincerely hope your lives are going better than mine is. It’s only temporary, and I’ll get over it, but it’ll take a while.

Take care, Mark