desertrefugee wrote:You know, I thought I'd closed out this thread, but realize now that I did not. No excuse other than absentmindedness (and laziness on not finishing what I started)
To begin with, it was kind of an impulse buy. I don't usually make those, but in this case, I did. Plus, I actually have always thought the Terraplane was a cool sidecar. So, I finally did get it running reasonably well, but the harness was a mess. The paint was a mess. It needed three tires. I lost interest in the sidecar mystique. And it took up LOTS of garage space - space I really don't have any more. I used to, but after the big "D", I've adjusted a few things to reflect the new reality. The biggest PIA was that the carb rack was a mish-mash of parts (with two different body stampings!) and damage to the bell crank which made throttle action pretty unpalatable. It really needed a complete, unmolested rack. Of course, I realized this after spending $150 on carb kits...
Anyway, I began to realize that to do the "right thing" would mean spending a lot of coin. Maybe more than the very limited target market would bear. And although I didn't buy it to simply flip, I never intended to keep it forever. So, I mentioned on one of the sidecar forums that I was considering getting rid of it. This nice fellow (a dentist) from SoCal contacted me and we ended up negotiating a deal.
I pretty much broke even - and was very happy to do that. He already has a Terraplane with a Magna tug and was happy to find another "nearby" and a dry western example to boot.
So, apologies to those who expected me to "go the distance" on this one, but in the end, I decided it wasn't for me. But, it leaves open the opportunity for another patient.
It happens...it took me a lot longer than that to realize that my '55 CJ5 project was too big for the amount of time and money I could throw at it. It literally needed *everything*...and on top of that, it had already been disassembled by a guy back in the '80s who was going to fix it up, and it was missing a bunch of stuff that had been lost over the years. I had it for...must have been about 12 years, when I finally decided to part with it. Went to a guy who was going to restore it with his grandson. He was into restoring old tractors, so I think it went to a good home...old Jeeps are kind of like a tractor with more than one seat
. That yellow '62 I got is still a project, but a much smaller one...the hard stuff is mostly already done. So, a much better fit for me and my time and budgetary constraints. Well, actually better for both me and the Jeep, which seems like a good ending to me
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