Anyone near Elkins WV?

[4babycar]

Well after 12+ hours in the truck and one very long and adventurous day, we are back home safe and sound and WV is now minus one Fiat. There are many stories for the day and pictures as well but sorry folks you will have to wait. We just got back from the final adventure of the day - my daughter's trip to the ER (Doing well now but allergic reactions are scary) and I am too tired to write much more. Long story short is that I am now the proud owner of a new to me 82 Spider and it seems to be a great candidate for the re-incarnation of Babycar! I still have a few more checks to perform but looking good so far...... (Keeping fingers, toes, and any other poseable body part crossed) Hopefully, I can fill you all in on more tomorrow.

[Gunsmith]

Great news on all fronts! Get some sleep and then spend hours telling us all about it and post a million pictures.

[rlux4]

All Right! The Statons are in the 82 club!
Congratulations, and can't wait for the story and pictures.
Ron

[mdrburchette]

In body only, Ron. Michael is planning to hop up his engine with a set of IDFs.

[rlux4]

I'm thinking maybe someday there'll have to be a new club; "Totally original 82 club". But it may have only one member. Me.
Ron

[4babycar]

Well, first of all - my daughter is doing OK. After all the drugs at the ER last night she started to re-breakout again today and worse. The doctors ran more tests and ruled out major things such as Leukemia, etc. but we still don't know what is causing all of this. Wish us luck. I really hope she isn't allergic to having a red 82 Fiat in Lynchburg. Could something like that happen?

Now onto the other adventures from yesterday. Kick back grab a beer and enjoy.

Well, the day started out about 7 when my buddy Travis arrived. We started loading everything possible we would need in the truck and hooking up the trailer. Did I mention that is was POURING DOWN RAIN! Yeah, that sucked but things went quickly. We hit the road and began the trip to Elkins, WV.... 200 miles of mountain and interstate driving fun. The trip up was pretty uneventful and the usually beautiful scenery was blocked by the dense fog. Finding the place wasn't an issue as we had excellent directions from the previous owner but getting down a WV forest service road that is completely frozen over was a bit more of a challenge. Braking and narrow turns were a bit tense at times with the trailer. We got there and found the car. Fortunately after parking the trailer, the rain that had plagued us since Lynchburg finally stopped. We took a few minutes to look over the car and it looked great, no rust that I could find, tires were almost new, 4 turbo rims and an interior full of extra parts. After the brief look over we started to shovel the snow from around the car so we could push it to the trailer since there wasn't enough room to negotiate the truck turns to line up the trailer. The shoveling was knocked out in just a few short minutes and we got to work pushing taking bets who's face was going to bite it first trying to get traction on the ice. Fortunately, neither of us fell. We got the car to within about 10 feet of the ramps and we lost all traction for pushing and the ice was simply too packed for us to break up. We resorted to using a come-along and then the truck to finish the moving and load the car on the trailer. After locking everything down, taking a ceremonial photo or two we hit the road again. On the way out we passed the small house and horse paddock we had passed earlier but this time there was a flurry of people in the field wrestling with a large working horse trying to get it off the ground where it appeared to dead. We stop and ask if they could use a hand and they said they certainly did. With no place to park the trailer we pulled over as far to the side as possible, got out and hopped the fence into the paddock. Travis and I spent the next hour and a half, knee deep in horse manure wrestling with a 4000lb horse and listening to the family fued of what to do, don't do that, WTF were you thinking, OMG Cinamon is going to die, etc., etc., etc. (This with only 32 teeth between the 8 of them) The local vet was at a conference out of state, there wasn't another large animal vet near by and things started going down hill. After being nearly flattened several times and a local bringing out an ATV where he was trying to pull the horses head off, we decided it was best to leave. Oh, did I forget to mention that during all of this someone hit the Uhaul trailer trying to squeeze by? Fortunately, the Vietnam vet in the house came to our rescue and proceeded to yell, scream and lecture the driver who hit the trailer about what he was thinking and the fact that he wasn't getting out to help. After listening to all that and being handed his mud flap, he quickly left before even talking with us. I think I also forget to mention that I am now covered in a thin coat of brown and green manure and squinting, from an ill placed jump from the snow bank while retrieving a blanket for a horse. This ill placed jump was right into a small but rather deep hole of rain, manure, mud and who knows what else that exploded back out under the pressure of my jump to fly back all across my front on its way to flying squarely in my left eye. It was definitely time to go. We said our apologies and wished them well and headed out and quickly to the convenience store for some gas and a bottle of water in which to flush my eye. Meanwhile the $hit jokes had only begun to flow! A quick bite to eat at McDonald's and 4 conversations about what kind of car that is on the trailer, what I was going to do with it, and was it worth a lot and we were on the road again. Shorty after that it began to rain again, the fog set it and it became apparent that the choice to take another, seemingly less mountainous route home, was not the best way. This new route was far more rolling and curvy than the previous route and there were times that I felt as if I could have reached out and touched the end of the trailer as we went around the hairpin turns (would be fun in a Fiat, not towing one!). We spend the next 5 hours enjoying the snow, ice, rain, curvy roads, and $hit jokes. We got back into Lynchburg almost exactly 12 hours after starting out. With my dad's help we were able to unload the trailer and arrange the new spider and babycar in the new garage space.

Now onto the car.....

The car appears to be in great shape other than the seats. I was told it ran and drove as early as a year ago when it started being parked outside. Prior to this it was a garage project and was driven weekly. The only known mechanical problem was a occasionally sticking AFM. There are no signs of rust, the paint is faded but other than 2 rock chips and a mark from the failure of a door check strap. The engine looks well maintained with many new hoses, a new magnetic pickup, new spark plug wires, etc. The top is great except for a few chew marks on the sides. The interesting thing that I have found is the leather/vinyl wrapped center consoles and steering wheel. I thought those were only available on the limited edition models. Anyway, it has power windows and newer pioneer CD deck and a box full of parts such as a new distributor cap, rotor, lower transmission mount, magnetic pickup, solid brake lines and more.

So, hopefully over the next few weeks, I will begin the heart and sole transfer of Babycar into this new body. I am sure many more of you will hear about these trials and tribulations as they unfold but, I hope to have her back on the road before FFO 2010!

Ron - Denise is right.... with any luck this 82 will be in body only and will only be red for a short time and I hope to take her to the color of baby car.

Denise - sorry to disappoint but this one shall remain FI as that is what baby car was and I already have a dual carb 80 so I can have the best of both worlds!

Oh, did I mention that this new car and all the stuff was....... FREE! (Except for trailer rental, gas, McDonald's lunch, a couple red bulls and some beer..... oh and that bottle of water) Thank you to my wonderful Fiat friends and their co-workers that lead me to this discovery, adventure and CAR!

Pictures can be found here:

http://s337.photobucket.com/albums/n400 ... nture_Day/

I hope you enjoyed and good night.

[narfire]

I'm glad you're daughter is doing ok. I/we sometimes take our health for granted untill something goes sideways.

That story made my day, even though there is not much of it left. Glad your back safe . The pics were great,gave a good account of what you were up against. Did I miss some of the attempted horse rescue?
Happy times ahead now with the car.

[ga.spyder]

Michael,
I am really glad to hear that your daughter is doing better!
I am cracking up laughing at your adventure,and it is 6 am here You have already made my day.The people with the horse had to be the highlight(their last name wasnt Nelson was it?).I am glad I wasnt there for the ride home.P-U. That has to be the nicest Free-at I have seen.The car looks to be in great shape .Anxious to hear how it runs.Good find and good luck!!!
Craig

[4babycar]

Thanks.

No, we purposefully, chose not to take pictures of the attempted horse rescue. It was just too sad of a situation to see and it wasn't looking good for the horse and we didn't want to have to remember it that vividly. I do wish we would have taken pictures of our clothes and my face covered in manure but we were in a hurry to get back on the road so we could make it home before dark and I was anxious to find something to flush my eye because to quote a comment from the day "That $hit burns!".

[4babycar]

Thanks Craig! She is doing better but it makes for long nights keeping up with medications and checking her breathing. The hardest part though is seeing how worried she is about this. She doesn't want to eat because she is afraid it will break her out again and she will have to go back to the hospital. Anyway, she is getting another day off from school and is going to have a little fun today with Mom.

Glad I could make your day. The ride back wasn't too bad, after the first 30 minutes or so we both got use to the smell. My wife wasn't so use to the smell when we got home and we left for the ER before I could change or shower so I am sure the ER personnel though I was something else - ratty clothes, disheveled look and smelling of car and horse manure! Oh well they seemed to have taken good care of us anyway! BTW - Thanks to anyone out there that is a nurse, doctor or just know someone that is and who goes the extra mile to make a child feel as comfortable as possible in a very scary situation and place.

Now off to work, it is a shame it isn't time to go work on a Fiat...... or two!

[mdrburchette]

Michael, I hope that sweet little girl gets over what's ailing her. I'll be praying for her recovery.

That story was great! I can smell the horse manure from here. I'm so glad you finally found a donor car to bring Baby car back from the brink of death. That is far better than what we discussed earlier. Can't wait to see it in July.

[baltobernie]

Best wishes for a speedy recovery to your little cutie. Your "family photo" from last year is still one of my favorites.

Have you considered re-naming BabyCar, now that you've got two? How about Dueling Banjo's?

[4babycar]

Kate has made it ~18hrs without a new breakout! Wohoo! The bad part is that we still don't know what set it off. Thanks for all the prayers and well wishes, they seem to be working!

I can't wait to get started on the new car but, I have to get the family well first. Hopefully over the weekend, I can get in a few hours or so.

I am kinda stuck on how I want to go about doing all this and the name is just part of it. The Babycar name is actually what my Mom always called the car and my wife just picked up on it when she started the work over a year ago. My wife actually had named the car Veronica when we were best friends in high school so I have always been torn between the two names so this just adds to it. Since the black Fiat is Betty I am thinking Veronica is pretty appropriate (think Archie comics). Does anyone know the name of an Archie character who died and was an organ donor so the other character could live?

Hmmmmm maybe one of these:

Bridgitte - Exchange student who Betty was the first to meet her and introduce her to Veronica and others. http://www.mightycrusaders.net/a_whoswho/brigitte.htm

Ginger - Works with Betty and Veronica to create new fashion lines http://www.mightycrusaders.net/a_whoswho/ginger.htm

Marcy - Veronica's nearby cousin and comes to visit now and again. http://www.mightycrusaders.net/a_whoswho/marcy.htm

What do you think?



Along those trains of thought and my previous descriptions of Babycar and Betty I would ask that you see how accurate they are in correlation to their Archie counterparts!

http://www.mightycrusaders.net/a_whoswho/betty.htm

http://www.mightycrusaders.net/a_whoswho/veronica.htm

[So Cal Mark]

I'd vote for Veronica, and there's a pretty good song of the same name and it shortens into a nickname easily when you don't need to be so formal

[ga.spyder]

How about Jughead??