A little disappointment

Well, this past weekend I wanted to install my newly purchased electric choke on to the wagon. However, when I pulled the part out of the box and started to mock it up... I realized that I had the wrong part. I had an electric choke for a 1bbl. :-( I was highly irritated because I was sure that I had ordered the correct part. I went back to NapaOnline.com (where i ordered it) to verify. LIke before, I specified my car all the way down to the 2bbl carb option. Even though I specified 2bbl, it listed both chokes for 1bbl and 2bbl. I just ordred the wrong one.

So, instead I took the car for a nice drive yesterday. Had to top off the tranny fluid, it was a little low. The drive went well, although I may have discovered a possible overheating problem, I'll need to research.

Ordering the correct choke today, so maybe by next week it will be installed.

Tire Overinfated

This isn't about the Aspen, but about the other Dodge in the fleet, the 2008 Nitro R/T. This morning we got in after breakfast and the low tire pressure warning system came on. When I looked at the on board diagnostic readout, this is what we saw.



Eventually it triggered on all three tires that registered at 32 PSI as being low, but the left rear at 193 PSI was hillarious. Lucky for me I had the camera in the car... because when I turned it off and back on, the system reset and it now reads at 33 PSI.

Right Side Sport Mirror - Installed

Last weekend the passenger's side mirror didn't get installed because I couldn't find the drill. I realized much later that night that I had loaned it to a friend and hadn't gotten it back yet. The drill has returned, and I was able to finish the mirror installation.

I used the gasket as a template to mark and drill the holes. I used one of those stepped drill bits to get the holes drilled.


Taped off the holes to put some primer down on the exposed metal to keep the rust at bay.




And viola... installed. Looks real nice with the matching one on now.

Junkyard Finds

This morning I went hunting through the Junkyards and ran across these two wagons.

#1 - 1978 Chrysler LeBaron Town & Country



This one might look familiar to reader's of the blog. It's my old parts car wagon. It was actually the reason I went to the junkyard, to see if it was put out for parts or already sent to the crusher. It's a wierd feeling to see a car that had your name on the title in a junkyard.

#2 - 1976 Dodge Aspen



I found this one odd due to the position of the luggage rack. It is the factory luggage rack, matches the one on the Aspen (and on every F & M Wagon I've seen). But it is placed to far forward. Mine (and every other one I've seen) lines up with the rear of the car, and the front posts are above the rear door. But this one lined up with the windshield, leaving alot of space towards the rear of hte car. There were no other holes in the rear of the car (to indicate someone moved it forward after the fact). All the proper gaskets were there as well. Factory screw up?

Some Old Photos

Was just digging through some old photos and ran across these. These were taken soon after brining the car to San Diego, still had the New Mexico tags on it. As you can see, the first thing I did was slap on the Mustang Bullitt rims.

Gas Prices lowest in 8 years ... at least for San Diego

We moved to San Diego just over 8 years ago. When we got here in November of 2000, gas prices in our neighborhood were right around 1.75-1.80 / gallon for regular unleaded. We live in the same area as we did 8 years ago, and yesterday the local gas station in our neighborhood regular unleaded was being sold for 1.75/gallon (for regular unleaded)!! This was after this station was selling regular at 3.90/gallon (for regular unleaded) just 8 months ago. What a crazy drop in prices, I love it.

Chrome Sport Mirror : Installed Part 1

Today I did a little work on the Party Wagon. First off, I installed the missing piece of trim on the passenger side front door. The trim is green, so it will need to be resprayed. I intend on respraying all of the vinyl trim a darker maroon color to give the faded pink trim some new life. For right now, it looks Christmas festive with the red and green.

I also installed the driver's side chrome sport mirror that I snagged from the junkyard a while back. There were no installation issues at all, bolted right up. The driver's side door panel already had a piece of the cardboard perforated where the control mounts, I just had to remove it and cut through the door panel fabric to allow the control to pass through.I went to start on the passenger's side, but a hand injury from earlier in the week started acting up so I decided to call it quits for the day.