Cleaning out the car...

The inside of the car was pretty dusty and parts were everywhere. I had an interesting morning taking an inventory of all of the miscellaneous parts. Thank goodness the ones I had no idea what they were for were undoubtedly for the engine (won't need that anymore!). The interior of the car is in pretty good shape! The heating system and ducts were apart and will need some investigating (although it looks like I have all of the parts). Thank goodness there are replacement parts for the cracked dash (I wondered why there was an extra dash and instrument panel!). A new dash on-line was about $200! The center console is also there (and in great condition). Things just need a bit of putting back together. I will probably do that when waiting for new electric parts. Next, taking out the gas tank (don't want students playing with gasoline - what an amazing experiment waiting to happen!). I swore that I would not do incendiary devices of any kind as a teacher, although the 14 year old in me would love to!

The Cops!

Ah summer! For a teacher that is... Sorry for you folks that are not in education! Anyway, as I drank coffee with my beautiful wife, she mentions that there is a cop outside who is checking the Z. I hurriedly grab the registration and run out to see what's up. He tells me in the matter-of-fact tone that I think police have to have, "The car is being impounded", after I queried what was going. I asked why, and he tells me because the registration is out of date. OOps! I forgot to even check that! Fortunately, I explained that I just brought the car in last week and it is a donor car for a school project, he was understanding. He told me that he will come back tomorrow and the car better be off the street. Well, thanks to my nephew, we push the car (thanks Jill, for driving) up onto a patch of dirt beside our driveway (had to use the old bumper to bumper move with our van to get it all the way up). Thank goodness we caught the police, I would have hated to pay to retrieve the car from being impounded! Sharp eyes Jill!

Retrieved the donor car!

I want to thank Larry Kerr for donating the car to this effort! Also, to my buddy Mike Hayes for making the long trip to Victorville and towing the car to San Diego. The beautiful car is a 1976 Datsun 280Z. We found a big black widow hiding among the spare tires, but lucky for us that we grabbed a couple of the tires! On our way back to San Diego, the Z blew out a tire when we were almost home! We debated getting a trailer vs a tow dolly, and we went with the tow dolly. The one tire did look like it was dried out, well, it was. A quick call to AAA and we luckily had those two extra spare tires. Whew! Picked the best one and off we went back to San Diego! Right now it is parked in the front of my house awaiting to be given some TLC.