It's my dream to scale back to a simple life with out the hussle and bussle of Southern California and find a little cabin on the lake like that. I grew up on Michigan. Is your cabin on one of the Great Lakes?
It's my dream to scale back to a simple life with out the hussle and bussle of Southern California and find a little cabin on the lake like that. I grew up on Michigan. Is your cabin on one of the Great Lakes?
In reply to csdilligaf :
Start in Chicago, take your boat almost straight north until you hit land (you want to jog east of of those dangly peninsulas that drop down off of Upper Michigan) and you land on my beach. Houses right on the lake are a little pricey (by Midwest standards) but you can buy a perfectly liveable older three bedroom in town for $53k. I just found out that they autocross an hour and a half north of town. Road America is four hours south. Other than finding a job and that whole winter thing, it's paradise.
In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :
Tried to contact you via the AutoTrader Ad about 2 weeks ago with no success. Can you PM/Message me here?? I’m not allowed too yet.
Noah
Finding a Job and avoiding winter is how I ended up here in San Diego. But Man is there plenty of car building, motorsports auto anything here. I just wish I could afford to retire here and build one car after another and race of coarse!
In reply to NoahWeb :
Just sent you a PM. If it doesn't come through send me a message at ttwo dot elm at gmail dot com and I'll get back to you. Something is funny with emails through autotrader lately.
I'm having the worlds best time talking to the people I meet trying to sell this van. Yesterday I talked to a guy who daily drives a Porsche 928. Complete mad man.
Just got done with having a super nice guy come test drive it for a friend. He's driving and we're chatting and he mentions having watched the Doug Demuro R63 video. At that point I tell him that this is the van that Doug mentions with the absurd repair cost that was fixed in some dude's garage. This is that van and I'm that guy. Blew his mind. It was awesome.
Inevitably everyone who is at least half serious about the van has a history of pretty dumb cars. As much as I'm ready to pass the car on, I'm having a ball.
"Inevitably everyone who is at least half serious about the van has a history of pretty dumb cars."
suggested revision to ad: "Maserati Biturbo ownership recommended but not required."
Van went to the dealer to deal with the minor oil leak. It's not even close to bad enough for me to want to worry about it, but it's also noticeable enough that I feel compelled to tell everyone who calls about it. I spent a bunch of time under the van trying to source it when it started in the spring and couldn't figure it out. I'm not dropping the cross member in my garage to look. Call me lazy, I'm cool with that.
mazdeuce - Seth said:Van went to the dealer to deal with the minor oil leak. It's not even close to bad enough for me to want to worry about it, but it's also noticeable enough that I feel compelled to tell everyone who calls about it. I spent a bunch of time under the van trying to source it when it started in the spring and couldn't figure it out. I'm not dropping the cross member in my garage to look. Call me lazy, I'm cool with that.
Oh come on, you already did it once....
I had a 928, way back then it was my only car. I forget what year I bought it. It was a 1983 model, original price $43,000
I bought it for $5,000 Great experience, not sure if I would recommend it.
Now along with other cars, I do have a Maserati Biturbo, again I consider it a great experience, but on this one really do not recommend, really don't.....
mazdeuce - Seth said:I'm having the worlds best time talking to the people I meet trying to sell this van. Yesterday I talked to a guy who daily drives a Porsche 928. Complete mad man.
Just got done with having a super nice guy come test drive it for a friend. He's driving and we're chatting and he mentions having watched the Doug Demuro R63 video. At that point I tell him that this is the van that Doug mentions with the absurd repair cost that was fixed in some dude's garage. This is that van and I'm that guy. Blew his mind. It was awesome.
Inevitably everyone who is at least half serious about the van has a history of pretty dumb cars. As much as I'm ready to pass the car on, I'm having a ball.
I can just picture that guys face upon learning that! Epic I’d wager!!
At least I'm good at diagnosing things? It was indeed the upper pan seal that was leaking. Fixing that involves dropping the cross member, dropping the lower pan, dropping the upper pan, and resealing both of those surfaces. Additionally you need something to hang the motor in place while you work as the motor is attached only to the cross member. For me that would mean spending something like $300 on the engine holder and then doing all the work myself knowing that the last time I did it I didn't do it quite right enough to not leak. It's $1600 to have the dealer do it, and they're doing it right now.
When we bought this car my wife and I had a big sit down. We were both honest with each other that it would be well within the realm of possibility to spend between $3-4k a year maintaining the car. We might get lucky and have it cost no more than your average Chevy, but it might also be violently expensive. This morning when we talked about resealing the pan we both agreed that we're right where we said we might be and part of finding a good owner for the van is to be good owners ourselves.
Also, this was never supposed to be a build thread. 
In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :
did you come up with "violently expensive" yourself? because that's a great choice of words right there.
Have you considered asking the Dealer you went to, if their is any interest in your vehicle? That is, if you wish to truly unload it. Proper ownership is important, as you so aptly put it.
In reply to AngryCorvair :
I honestly don't know if I came up with it myself. I'm always playing with adjectives to get words to adequately approximate the emotions of car ownership. This one seemed to fit.
In reply to Dirtydog :
Yesterday I mentioned selling it and the service manager asked what the price was. I'll mention it to him agai when I pick it up, but I think I'm very close to having a deal done. Hopefully. If not then I'll have a leak free van with a full inspection report and I'll hit the streets again.
In reply to csdilligaf :
Getting land on any of the lakes, even in the UP, near any sort of stuff that allows one to live is some money. If you are really lucky, you can find cabins that have been in families for decades hit the market cheap, but you have to essentially build a new house if you want to live there year round. If you are really lucking you can find something under 500K that is year round livable.
I'm in the northern LP and it's worse. Most around here start at 1M for enough land not to hear your neighbor fart and a decent house. That is more money than I can afford! Most people around here try to get on an inland lake and just tow their boat to the big lake if they want to go out. I'm about 80 yards from a small lake, I can see it, just not my land :P
In reply to FunkyCricket :
A four season house just down from me on the "good" beach sold this summer for half your number, but it could be argued that being 15 minutes from the big town of 2k people is kind of the middle of nowhere. We do have a movie theater and a decent Chinese restaurant, so it's not too bad. The northern lower on the other hand, is bonkers. When I was a little kid we had extended family with an old cottage on Grand Traverse Bay. No one could even afford to inherit that 20 years ago.
mazdeuce - Seth said:Also, this was never supposed to be a build thread.
The MOST famous of last words for you...
I finally reached the end of this thread after reading a few pages a day for the last couple weeks. I'm a bit saddened to see it for sale, but I understand your reasoning. This was a great adventure to follow along with, thanks for bringing us along and good luck with the sale.
spacecadet said:mazdeuce - Seth said:Also, this was never supposed to be a build thread.
The MOST famous of last words for you...
I think that quote should be on the next batch of shirts.
So I have been away from GRM for quite some time with the occasional visit every couple of months. And I just finished reading this thread from front to back in 3 day while I was at work...I mean home...and I have to say that you sir, are an amazing person for going through all that you did with this vehicle. I had so many feelings over the course of reading this that I am truly in awe of the way you work. Having a seemingly perfect balance of family and work. Its inspiring. You may have also convinced me of starting a build thread of my own about my LS swap E30 that I am currently working on. Though I dont have any sort of schedule of working on it, it may end up being very drawn out with a lot of time between post. But just the thought of it is thanks to you and make me want to turn my wrenches more often. Anyways, what I'm trying to say is I came out of hibernation just to congragulate you on all the hard work you put in and I've loved reading every bit of your endeavor.
In reply to noob5000000 and Bearded.Bird:
I'm glad both of you enjoyed reading. As part of the selling process I've had very mixed feelings referring people to this thread. In one way, it's the single easiest way to present EVERYTHING about the van. If you want to know, it's in there. On the other hand, it's this semi insane rambling twisting very personal semi adventure and I can tell some of the callers are thinking "dude, I just want to buy a car".
Bearded.Bird, start a built thread. Do it for yourself. Outside this community a lot of people think build threads are a way to "show off" what you're doing, and on other forums that sometimes seems to be the case. Here, build threads are a log of what you've done to go back and look at later, a way to have people look over your shoulder and check your work, a way to present questions to a group with a wide range of experiences and get an answer that you don't have the knowledge or skills to answer yourself. You're also providing ideas and inspiration to a surprising number of people that sit on their computers and read and dream but never post, and providing those dreams and entertainment is more important than I knew before this thread. Build threads are also community building, the number of like minded people that I've met through or because of my build threads is amazing. Fill your garage with 40 guys who are all into the same weird automotive stuff that you're into and it feels like a party, spread them out over the country and you'll never meet. Make a build thread for yourself, you'll enjoy it.
Well that settles it then. After I get home from work, I'll dig up all my older pictures and start up my build thread. I've attempted them in the past, but I never got past more than maybe 2 updates bc I ended up not doing anything else with them. Usually bc life would get in the way, I would abandon them. But, being that I'm pretty far down the rabbit hole, I feel I could make a pretty decent start of a story.
On a side note, for some reason my name didn't change in my last post even though I changed it a little while back...must not have hit send.
mazdeuce - Seth said:A four season house just down from me on the "good" beach sold this summer for half your number, but it could be argued that being 15 minutes from the big town of 2k people is kind of the middle of nowhere. We do have a movie theater and a decent Chinese restaurant, so it's not too bad. The northern lower on the other hand, is bonkers. When I was a little kid we had extended family with an old cottage on Grand Traverse Bay. No one could even afford to inherit that 20 years ago.
Yah. I'm near that insanity, the bay is nuts. For kicks I just looked at zillow a week or so ago. Cheapest on the bay with a house that was livable was 1.2 Million. Even the bigger lakes around TC houses start at 500K and just go up from there. It's nice to see the UP prices reaching sane levels again. It's so pretty up there.
BeardedMuffin: DO IT! post pics, post fails, post successes. Take months between posts. We all live vicariously through each other's build threads.
In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :
This. All of this. I've been following this thread since the early days. This thread and forum helped move me from the "read and dream" category to buying a car w/a blown engine and starting my own build thread. Having a few people looking over your shoulder is particularly helpful for a noob. A few helpful tips and words of encouragement can also help maintain momentum.
The part of the thread about how this AMG engine is just like any other engine (except a little more complex and was hand-assembled) was a great perspective. Break down big problems into smaller pieces until you can digest them and map out a solution. Other general commentary on life, etc. makes it more personal and relatable.
I find myself reading build threads here and saying "ahhhh, that's how you do that."
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