I thought a good way to "drive the hell out of my car" like my dad wanted me to do was drive to Eureka and pick up my paycheck, an 80 something mile trip. And I'm not having a good day today. It all started about 2/3 into the trip that my gen light was slowly brightening but never turning on all the way, so my first chance at a turnout I pull over and find out the belt was loose, and lucky me I had tools and fixed that right up and didn't have another problem. Then about 8 miles away from the nearest town the light turns completely on and I pull over and find out the belt is gone, thinking I could make it I nurse the car to the town (way to agitated to realize that this belt also controls the water pump) and when I stop at the gas station steam billows from under the hood. And I'm lucky enough to find out they don't have a car parts store in this town, but someone at the gas station offers to drive me to the next town and let me get my belt for gas money. Finally I get it all fixed up and 10 miles from Eureka city limits my speed starts falling, and giving the car gas only makes it hesitate and sputter. Now I'm really nervous so I pull over and halfway in the attempt the car dies and I coast to the shoulder, being stopped by the frame rubbing on the ledge. This time when I open the hood more steam billows out and I see some oil splatter on the inside fender, but I don't see where it's coming from. Luckily a CHP comes by and I tell him what's going on and he calls a tow truck for me, but as my luck is being so good today the tow truck can't get its equipment under my car thanks to being so low and being half off the pavement. He also realizes there is some oil leaking out of the front of the intake manifold, and I want to curse more. So I call my parents but no one is home, so I wait. When it cools off enough I filled up the radiator (I had everything with me) and try to start it, it turns over so slowly and after the 6th time it finally starts but it runs very choppy and not for long so I give it more gas and hold the gas down further so it idles high. When it can finally idle on it's own I get out and as soon as I open the door I knew I had a problem, it sounds like a trash can band in my engine, it's knocking and pinging and just sounding bad, so I turn it off and realize I have to wait whether I like it or not. A few hours, 3 good samaritans, and 3 more CHP later my parents call me and tell me to call Geico and insist on getting a flat bed to come out. Well what they sent wasn't a flat bed but they did manage to get my car, and they take me to a repair shop.

And as you may know, just my luck, I didn't get to pick up my paycheck and my car is in need of repairs. How was your day? :D

dude i feel completely for you. I learned the hard way to always carry a few spare parts after a lousy trip to Utah. My old beetle lost its fan-belt in the middle of nowhere on a sunday when every shop in the nearest town of 20 miles distance from where i broke down was closed. Had to wait till the next day get a friend to drive two hours to pick me up, then drive me to saltlake get a fan belt that would fit from a VW store, because NAPA, checker and some other auto stores in provo didn't have anything that would fit my application. lesson learned... always carry fan belt, points, condenser, (throttle cable for beetle), regulators, hoses, a dancing bannana graemlins/banana.gif , and anything else you can fit into the trunk that you might worry about.

Originally posted by johnny:
always carry fan belt, points, condenser, (throttle cable for beetle), regulators, hoses, a dancing bannana graemlins/banana.gif , and anything else you can fit into the trunk that you might worry about. I'm assuming that the Banana would be in case of a sudden hunger attack..right? :)

Well I will no longer own the Rivi, the shop said it would be about 5k to rebuild the engine that's assuming that heads, crank, etc are still good and it will cost me 1700-ish to get a long block from Kragen. So sadly I looked around in the paper and found an 84 and 91 Buick Century for sale, they weren't in any good shape that I wanted to undertake but coming home my dad and I saw 2 classic cars for sale at basically a thrift shop that was going out of business. We stopped and looked at them. The first would be a beautiful car all I can remember was something like Imperial Sky Coupe on it or something (the center of the back bumper had a spread eagle) but it needed a lot of care. And there was a '65 Mercury Montery, both were 500 each and the Montery was in good shape, much better than what my Rivi started out as.

So basically I bought the Mercury and I'm wanting to know if any of you know of a board like this for Mercuries, and I hope I'll come back to this board (the Rivi was an awesome car and hopefully one day I'll have another Buick).

sorry, haven't been checking out the ford boys.

Actually it's a big surprise that I haven't found much considering Ford and Chevy are the big collector cars.

Messing around with that Mercury today I learned a few neat things. Such as it's a "Breezeway" model, with the top of the car extending a foot or so past the rear window and the rear window rolls down, with power smile.gif It doesn't have a monster 455 like the Rivi but a nice 390. At least there's not pools of water in the car like the Rivi. But there's like EVERYTHING inside of it (the thrift store guy said the last owners were literally hippies) There's maps, rocks, cigerette papers, parking tickets, excuse notes for their kid for school. I have some things I have to deal with like rust bubbles but the only holes is this cancerous hole the whole width of the trunk lid which means I'll need a new one of those. And I'll have to take off the horrid trailer hitch hanging off of it.

I'm just hoping I'll be able to find info for this thing. Because at this rate I'll put much blood, sweat and tears into this car too and kill it somehow too. Hell I would have been all happy if I killed that Rivi's engine racing or something, but it was just our first long drive :(

Originally posted by darkfall_13:
Well I will no longer own the Rivi, the shop said it would be about 5k to rebuild the engine that's assuming that heads, crank, etc are still good and it will cost me 1700-ish to get a long block from Kragen. So sadly I looked around in the paper and found an 84 and 91 Buick Century for sale, they weren't in any good shape that I wanted to undertake but coming home my dad and I saw 2 classic cars for sale at basically a thrift shop that was going out of business. We stopped and looked at them. The first would be a beautiful car all I can remember was something like Imperial Sky Coupe on it or something (the center of the back bumper had a spread eagle) but it needed a lot of care. And there was a '65 Mercury Montery, both were 500 each and the Montery was in good shape, much better than what my Rivi started out as.

So basically I bought the Mercury and I'm wanting to know if any of you know of a board like this for Mercuries, and I hope I'll come back to this board (the Rivi was an awesome car and hopefully one day I'll have another Buick). The only ford board I found was Farimont 302. I have a Fairmont Sedan and would get information there of how to keep it running....Now it's totaled, got rear ended at a red light. So now it sits in my yard with about $1,200.00 worth of brand new parts including Tires that have less than 75 miles on them. It still starts, runs, and stops like a new car. The damage is all cosmetic, but the insurance company said it would have cost more to fix it than it's worth...

Jim.

ps. I can hear you all growling at me. It's only a Ford, not a disease! :D

There's a copy of the 32 pg. Mercury sales brochure for 65 (viewable for free) at www.oldcarmanual.com (http://www.oldcarmanual.com)

On the site, there's a wiring diagram there too.