| Author | Message | ||
     Ratbuell |
OK, so I bought this old station wagon back in '91. It's a '72 Plymouth Satellite 7 passenger. Drove it through college. Raced it after college (360 V8, 3.23 gears, 12 second quarters on street tires and pump gas). Got engaged, no time for cars, stripped it, sold the engine and trans, sold the car. Missed it after a few years, started looking for another...found IT, bought it back. 360 again, have had it in storage since...oh...'05? Bought a brand new Magnum R/T with 5.7 Hemi in 2005. A bonehead t-boned it at 36k miles. I bought it back as a donor car. Its engine and trans have been on a pallet since...2011, I think. Today, I was at Chryslers at Carlisle and scored a deal on wheels.  17x7" Ridler wheels, lifetime structural warranty, 5 year cosmetic. $500 for the set. Imagine there are tires. The weight of the car is on the suspension so the stance is pretty much correct (it has air shocks so I can lift the rear if needed). Tires are next. Then...clean the carb and get the fuel tank to hold fuel. Get the trans to hold fluid. Drive it around a bit, get my juices flowing again, order mounts, headers, computers, and other bits to install the EFI Hemi into a 1972 chassis. hey...it's a start  | ||
| Pwnzor |
That's f*k'n AWESOME. | ||
| Ratbuell |
Back in the drag-racing days....  | ||
| Fireboltwillie |
i effin love hot rod wagons! | ||
| Mighty_mouse |
Is that a built in spoiler on the back? MM | ||
| Ratbuell |
Yep, factory spoiler, does a great job keeping the back window clear in the rain and snow. Pity modern cars don't use the same basic setup...   | ||
| Mighty_mouse |
That is slick! MM | ||
| 86129squids |
Ummm...  Go Joe GO!!! I've yet to see Gschuette's RZ skunk-ape, hope to see this king-daddy squatch rumbling some day too... | ||
| Ratbuell |
Loooooong day. Registered new web domains for my business. Bought tires for the Satellite. Put together the wheel dollies - little lifts that pick a car up by the wheels so you can roll them anywhere. VERY COOL. I should have bought some of these a decade ago. Moved 2 dead cars so I could get the Satellite out. Moved the Satellite and put the wheels and tires on. Put the other cars back. Washed the Satellite - first sunlight AND first water on the car in over a decade!  Hood and roof are original paint I then moved up to the workshop...removed a 10' workbench and its tools, and a hydraulic press, and relocated them to the MC shop. Moved the Satellite up the hill...put it back on the dollies, put it to the side of the workshop, put it up on jackstands so I can get under it, parked my truck back in the shop where it lives....and took three ibuprofen. What a day. My "day off" lol. | ||
| Ducbsa |
The spoiler in the back looks like it provides lift, not downforce. Might hurt traction with the new motor! | ||
| Ratbuell |
Nah. When I was drag racing it with a 450hp smallblock, it ran pretty consistent 12.90s with 1.60 60' times on street tires. 4 feet of car behind the axle makes for great weight transfer!! The spoiler is awesome for keeping the back window clean in the rain. I wish new vehicles had the same "old fashioned tech"! | ||
| Big_island_rider |
Sweet. We had one of these when I was a kid. Had the rear facing flip up seat in the back. Loved road trips in that thing. | ||
| Ratbuell |
No third seat in mine...just a HUGE cavern under there. Made an awesome beer cooler in college lol | ||
| Ratbuell |
Heheh....  Still the old-school carbureted 360 (and 2 gal gas can next to the radiator because I haven't patched the fuel tank yet)...but she's ALIIIIIVVVVEEEEE.  | ||
| Ratbuell |
...and for tonights surreal note... I found some 1972 vintage license plates for the car, and registered them to it legally so now I can drive it. I got the line lock installed so I took the car out to see how it did. I need to bleed the front brakes again, the solenoid fires but doesn't have enough ass behind it to hold the car for a burnout. What good's a hot-rod wagon without big smoky burnouts? And, the shifter cable is out of adjustment. No park or reverse - good thing it's downhill into the workshop or I wouldn't have been able to park it tonight! Now, for the surreal. I grew up in Northern Virginia. Came to college here in Emmitsburg MD. Bought the car in 1992, in Thurmont MD. Lived - with the car - in Frederick MD for 17 years after college. Never thought about where the car was from or anything like that, just drove the wheels off it and had fun. 3 years ago, I bought a house in Cascade MD and moved up here, and without putting any thought into it, dragged the car from storage in Hagerstown, to storage in Cascade, only to pull it out of storage a month or so ago as noted at the top of this thread. Tonight, it clicked. The dealer sticker on the tailgate - which I glanced at as I was pushing the car into its place in the workshop after tonight's run - is from Highfield, MD. Cascade used to be called Highfield-Cascade. This car has, after 42 years...come home. No wonder it feels so "right" to get it going again It's just a shame the dealer closed years ago - I googled some old newspaper scans and it looks like it was quite the Plymouth dealership in its day. There is still a Winebrenner's body and frame shop - I'll swing by there one day once the car is running happily, and see if maybe they have an original tailgate sticker laying around for after the repaint | ||
| Pwnzor |
I love this thread, I love that car... Keep us posted. | ||
| Natexlh1000 |
I also love this thread/car. I now own a 2004 ram with the same 5.7 in it and as soon as I opened it up a bit, I was already thinking of what it would do in any number of wrong cars. My 1981 cutlass for one We called it the "gutless" since it had the 4.3 engine with 178,000 miles on it. | ||
| Dwardo |
I drove one like it for a while after my Toyota took a dump (last import I ever owned) and I think it had a 440. It was stupid fast and gas was cheap. Now I have a '94 Buick Roadmaster Estate Wagon in really nice shape. Out of my entire fleet it is my favorite car. The LT1 engine gives it surprising performance and good gas mileage. I just love that car. | ||
| Ratbuell |
81 cutlass would have been a 3.8 "ping-o-matic" v6. I started on an 83. Same engine. |
