Teh Hound's Goat

[D Griff]

I learned on my mom's 1979 Chevette. God, what a piece of that car was.

Not too many stories about Dad's Miura on this forum.

RIP the other Eric... his dad has probably owned some totaled Italian exotics

[D Griff]

Not too many stories about Dad's Miura on this forum.

Nope. Closest I've got to that is the second car I drove, around the same time that I learned on the Shitvette, was my brother's X1/9. Dat mini non-exotic exotic.

One of the first cars I drove on (this was before the Civic and before I properly learned as well as after) was an MGB. My good buddy in HS drove one. It was awesome when it worked, so fun to cruise in (shitty driving thing though) but we much more often took my Civic as it was an actual operational automobile.

[Huckleberry]

The one bad thing about GTOs is that they are expensive as fuck to repair when it comes to body damage. The headlights alone are $600 each, as an example. This is attributed to the fact that the GTO was only made for three years in this country, and it shares its chassis with absolutely nothing else in the United States. It truly is a bastard. The one component that bolts on from another car is the set of door handles from a Cadillac Catera, and when is the last time you saw one of those running around? So, the high replacement costs coupled with the low resale value make these things extremely easy to total out, and that is just what my insurance company did after the accident.

How did the accident happen? It all boiled down to typical mid-20s late night shenanigans: hit the gas to kick out the rear end, but the gas was hit a little too hard. So, the ass end whipped around faster than I could counter the wheel, and that was when she started spinning.


It wasn't long before my trajectory found a curb... and then a telephone pole. It was then that my inner Ace Ventura kicked in, I said, "Quick decision," and pulled the battered car into the nearby parking lot to view the damage. At first sight, my heart sank. I knew it was going to be totaled. It felt like the end of an era to me. Sure, other people had moved on to different vehicles, but this car was so much more than metal to me. It had started friendships. It cultivated my mechanical prowess. It had become an extension of my identity. When I drove it, everything had just felt right. And here it sat, banged up and mangled. I didn't know it at the time, but that car had one last trick up its sleeve: it became the catalyst for my love of building vehicles.

It took a few days for me to wrap my head around the events and figure out my path forward. I contemplated buying another one. I pondered swapping the drivetrain into something else. I even went as far as to look at a 1967 Pontiac Firebird Sprint 6, but when I drove it, it was too original and simply didn't speak to me. That was the point where I had decided that I needed my car. The first step was talking to the insurance agent. They naturally came in with their lowball offer of $9,000 or $10,000. After a couple days of going back and forth, we settled on a deal: I keep the car and they write me a check for $11,000, as well as a check to the body shop where it had been sitting indoors waiting on a decision. Once the check cleared, I needed to figure out where I was going to do this surgery. I called up a friend I had met through another GTO owner who had a nice garage on his property and asked if he would be alright with the project living there. He was fine with that, so I loaded up the car and took it down to his place. Here is the damage:




The last part of the puzzle was finding a new shell. I thought I had found one locally in Dover. It was another GTO in Quicksilver Metallic, which is the same color as my GTO. However, the more I spoke with the guy, the shadier the deal was getting. It became revealed that the car still had a lien, even though the drivetrain was stripped out, and the lien wasn't in his name because some guy gave him the car as payment for something. Something was fishy, and I wanted no part of it. Luckily, I came across another guy who was selling a black 2004 GTO as a roller. It was pretty stripped out: no interior, no chassis wiring harness, and no drivetrain. However, it did have the engine harness and dash in place, as well as upgraded outer axle stubs, front coilovers, ARP wheelstuds, a new pair of headlights, and a new AC condenser. The only downside was that the guy was located down in Florida. However, a friend of a friend offered to drive a trailer down and pick it up. Including the shipping, I believe I had picked up the roller for about $4500. Not bad since it included $1200 worth of headlights, among other things.

The car was delivered in January of 2012.




I couldn't get started on the project just yet, though. Before the accident, my cousin had given me his 1995 Caprice for free.99. It had a blown power steering line and something was going on with the transmission. With me being me, and knowing that he had the 4.3L baby LT1 in the thing, I had purchased an LT1 to drop in. I had gotten the car together and intended to drive it, but I was struck with a little bit of financial hardship and needed to sell it. I listed it and it sat. I did not get a single hit on the ad. So, I pulled the car apart and sold it piece by piece. The last piece I needed to sell was the motor, and the guy who bought it from me had asked if I could install it. I asked my friend if we could do the swap in his shop since the guy lived closer to him in lower Delaware, and he agreed, and we agreed on a price to charge for the work. So, we knocked it out.

Old motor out:


New motor in:


We also sent the guy this picture just to make him nervous:


Why am I including this detour in the story? Well, at the end of it, the guy asked if we could put his old motor in the trunk of his car. I said that we could, but then asked if he had a way of getting the engine out of the trunk. He said he thinks he and a friend could lift it out. I cautioned him against doing that, given the weight of the motor. I also told him that he may have a mess of coolant in his trunk to deal with after the journey. He thought for a second and asked if I wanted the engine. I told him, "Sure."

And the crankshaft from that engine is currently in the El Camino.

And the block from that engine is the basis of the motor in the 944.

[wap]

Nope. Closest I've got to that is the second car I drove, around the same time that I learned on the Shitvette, was my brother's X1/9. Dat mini non-exotic exotic.

One of the first cars I drove on (this was before the Civic and before I properly learned as well as after) was an MGB. My good buddy in HS drove one. It was awesome when it worked, so fun to cruise in (shitty driving thing though) but we much more often took my Civic as it was an actual operational automobile.

A neighbor had an MGB when I was growing up. Super cool looking, but yea, it was pretty outdated by the time you were in HS, lol.
The X1/9, OTOH, was great to drive. Sounded fantastic like only small Italian engines can, handled great. It was dangerously slow, but so much fun to drive, when it ran .

[wap]

5/7 next story chapter, Hound!

[Huckleberry]

5/7 story so far man! It is always fun to hear about journeys to becoming car people. My parents had lame ass cars as well (including a Caravan and Grand Voyager), I think more due to financial restraints than anything else. I was the youngest kid and when I left the house, my dad bought a Citroen DS out of the blue. He claimed that he had wanted one since being stationed in Germany in his twenties in the 1970s but was never able due to . Funny, he must've buried that deep down, never even mentioned it.

Anyway, if you have lasting friendships in the GTO/car world, try to get them on DFD! And get Geoff back.. I feel like this place is slowly dying.

In4more Goat shit

I'll see what I can do. I think Geoff stays camped out at VW Vortex more than anything these days.

[D Griff]

I am loving the Tale of the Goat though! Very well written so far and certainly can bring many of us back to those early car guy memories

[Huckleberry]

I am loving the Tale of the Goat though! Very well written so far and certainly can bring many of us back to those early car guy memories

I'm glad you're enjoying it. I haven't looked through these pictures in years, especially the old pictures of the silver car from meets of yore. They definitely brought back a lot of memories.

I also went to school for writing, so I'm happy to see I can still somewhat compose a comprehensible piece.

[Huckleberry]

The mission was - well, I won't say that it was simple. The mission was concise: transfer the silver GTO into the black GTO. The path to accomplishing that mission was far from concise. Up to this point, I had been wrenching on a handful of cars, installing things like headers, clutches, brakes, suspension components, shifters, and other similar performance fare, but I had never before taken a car entirely apart, catalogued everything, and reinstalled it into another car in the correct order. I had a few things working in my favor, however. The first being that I probably had the perfect blend of modest experience and youthful naivety to bolster the confidence in my ability to tackle this project. The second being that I had a supportive friend group who was willing to lend a hand, which also added to that bolstered confidence. Lastly, I was transferring items from one shell to another shell of the same model. In terms of swaps, that is the simplest scenario. There were a few things working against me, too. Firstly, while it was the same model, the model years were different. I was transferring a 2005 GTO into a 2004 GTO, and as I came to find out, there are many differences between those two years. The second thing working against me on my path to success was the literal path itself. This was 2012, and the economy was still in shambles for someone who had graduated college four years earlier, and the only job I could secure had me relocated up in Pennsburg, Pa. The problem with that is my friend's garage, where the project was being housed, was located in Lincoln, De.



This meant that I would leave work on Friday, stay the night at my mom's house, which was close to the halfway point, drive the remaining distance early Saturday morning, put in about 8-12 hours on the car, drive back to stay the night at my mom's, finish the trip the next day, and repeat the next weekend. The saving grace for me was that I had purchased a Cruze Eco and averaged about 45 MPG each tank. The car sucked in every other way, but the fuel economy was outstanding, and in my case, necessary.

[MrH42]

I have to ask: do you do some sort of trade or manufacturing as your main job? Your skill set is wild if you’re just learning this all as a hobby. I’d make sense if you were also in HVAC or welding or engineering or something.

[Huckleberry]

I have to ask: do you do some sort of trade or manufacturing as your main job? Your skill set is wild if you’re just learning this all as a hobby. I’d make sense if you were also in HVAC or welding or engineering or something.

I'm in Facility Management as my day job. It used to be rather hands-on, but moving up in roles has me more planning, directing, and managing projects now. With that said, the job never required me to weld, solder electrical wires, or such. I've found that I'm very good at figuring things out through a mixture of trial and error, taking the time to get an understanding of the basic principles, and being my own worst critic.

[MrH42]

I have to ask: do you do some sort of trade or manufacturing as your main job? Your skill set is wild if you’re just learning this all as a hobby. I’d make sense if you were also in HVAC or welding or engineering or something.

I'm in Facility Management as my day job. It used to be rather hands-on, but moving up in roles has me more planning, directing, and managing projects now. With that said, the job never required me to weld, solder electrical wires, or such. I've found that I'm very good at figuring things out through a mixture of trial and error, taking the time to get an understanding of the basic principles, and being my own worst critic.

Wow, that's impressive as hell. Most guys I know who are doing the level of work you are performing are also full time mechanics, or have a ton of fabrication experience.

[ChrisoftheNorth]

I'm in Facility Management as my day job. It used to be rather hands-on, but moving up in roles has me more planning, directing, and managing projects now. With that said, the job never required me to weld, solder electrical wires, or such. I've found that I'm very good at figuring things out through a mixture of trial and error, taking the time to get an understanding of the basic principles, and being my own worst critic.

Wow, that's impressive as hell. Most guys I know who are doing the level of work you are performing are also full time mechanics, or have a ton of fabrication experience.

I find it incredibly inspirational. If I had the time, I'd love to do stuff like this. The 944 has me and incredibly . Would be have been my life if I stayed single.

[Desertbreh]

I'm in Facility Management as my day job. It used to be rather hands-on, but moving up in roles has me more planning, directing, and managing projects now. With that said, the job never required me to weld, solder electrical wires, or such. I've found that I'm very good at figuring things out through a mixture of trial and error, taking the time to get an understanding of the basic principles, and being my own worst critic.

Wow, that's impressive as hell. Most guys I know who are doing the level of work you are performing are also full time mechanics, or have a ton of fabrication experience.

Both his skill level and patience are not even human. He is Chip Foose as a hobby.