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This is the most likely never ending tale of Shirly Lucile my 1965 TR4 rod. This story begins one pleasant summers eve, as most days of the year in California are, on craigslist, as most eve's are spent, hunting down a project car. My search was a vast and wild one ranging from civics, to 240s, all the way to triumph's because hey, bitches love no roofs. I digress, as I was scanning through a load of triumphs that were everything from pristine and for rich folk, and tr7's which are just ugly and need smog, until one posting caught my eye. Perhaps it was the $1500 dollar list price or the fact that it had insane fender flares, either way I clicked on it. It was a rod of sorts with a chevy front end, a 390fe, and a 9in rear end with drag radials on the back. I nearly pooped my pants when I discovered it had been on craigslist for nearly 2 weeks and so I texted the dude immediately. He called me back in the morning and after asking him if he had mistyped and if he meant $15000, he told me no and that his bottom dollar was $1200. I told him I'd be there within the week. I convinced my mom that this was worth getting because the parts alone in the car were worth more than that and she begrudgingly agreed. We then drove out to Salinas California which was 90 miles away to buy the car. We get there and it takes a little ether but she starts up and runs and all that. The dude gives me the back story which is basically that he got it for free from a dude who got it for free from a friend who had built it back in the 70's and then let it sit for the past decade or so. Seemed legit enough. So I bought the car, named her, and then drove her home. After she died several times of course. I mean common why would a classy lady want to go straight to the bedroom? You gotta wine and dine her. Or in my case jump start her. A lot.
So I get home and attempt to jack up the car to see whats cracking and my jack slips and dents my radiator. Hard. That just exposed how bad the radiator was before though. It turned out to have fins, that when touched disintegrated. It was crazy, no clue how the car was able to cool itself with that thing. I finally managed to pull the radiator and take it to a shop. It was $580 to fix because T bird radiators aren't finable so it needed to be rebuilt. Horrible decision, but I was 17 and in love so I was willing to pay any price and not very smart. So then it was fixed, and working. Then it stopped shifting well, its an automatic, depressing i know, and so I took it to a shop and they pulled a piece of metal that had gotten stuck inside the maze thing (sorry its been a long weekend, no time for sounding like I know what I'm talking about) and then it worked! Kinda. At this point there where still a million problems and things, but I'm going to do this build thread kinda like Miroteknik's rx7 build thread and do all my updates in more posts so each post isnt super big. Also i managed to post the two pics from the craigslist add which I had saved but my photos aren't posting so i don't know what to do
So I get home and attempt to jack up the car to see whats cracking and my jack slips and dents my radiator. Hard. That just exposed how bad the radiator was before though. It turned out to have fins, that when touched disintegrated. It was crazy, no clue how the car was able to cool itself with that thing. I finally managed to pull the radiator and take it to a shop. It was $580 to fix because T bird radiators aren't finable so it needed to be rebuilt. Horrible decision, but I was 17 and in love so I was willing to pay any price and not very smart. So then it was fixed, and working. Then it stopped shifting well, its an automatic, depressing i know, and so I took it to a shop and they pulled a piece of metal that had gotten stuck inside the maze thing (sorry its been a long weekend, no time for sounding like I know what I'm talking about) and then it worked! Kinda. At this point there where still a million problems and things, but I'm going to do this build thread kinda like Miroteknik's rx7 build thread and do all my updates in more posts so each post isnt super big. Also i managed to post the two pics from the craigslist add which I had saved but my photos aren't posting so i don't know what to do
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