I have been working on my old 300ZX this weekend or rather it was working on me. I bought new wiring harnesses for it hoping that they would correct the electrical problems I have had with it over the years. I have spent about 6 hours over the last 2 days rerunning the new wiring harness and scraping my hands and arms and saying naughty words, when I discover that the harness I bought isn’t the right one for the car. (Insert your favorite naughty word here.)
Well, first off, the car only became mine when I had spent more time and money on it than Ben, whose car it was originally. He just had to have a sports car, so he sold a perfectly good Ford Aerostar van (not the kind of sexy a 19 year old wants) to get the cash for this car. It had been sitting in the weeds behind some guy’s house and he sold it to Ben for about $850. He said that it ran great, but wouldn’t let Ben start it first to see, so he and his friend put in a new battery. The colors on old imports are black for hot and red for ground. They didn’t know and hooked it up with red on hot and black on ground and promptly burned up the computer. Up to this time, I had $0 in it.
It was near his birthday so he called me up and asked if I could buy him a new computer for it for his birthday. So his sucker dad bought it and then went to help him put in the new starter and computer and the second new battery. I spent hours working on the thing and it never did start. So far 1 days work, more money than I care to say.
He took it to a mechanic to look at and they found out that mice had built nests in the car and chewed up a bunch of wires. Wonder why it wouldn’t start? Then while checking out the rest of the car, they found out the gas tank was mostly rust held together by the gunk in the tank. After a lot of looking around, they found out that you can’t get a new tank for a car that old. They ordered and installed a rubber bladder in place of a new tank. After two or three weeks, they finally got it running.
“Dad, can I borrow $xxxxxx to get my car out of the shop?” Most of you reading this know that where your kids are concerned “loan” means give. So the next time I’m in Atlanta, I “loan” him the money to get his car out of the garage. Everything goes okay for months until one day I get a call “Dad, the brakes went out on my car.” (Insert another naughty word here.)
So I help him get a newer car and I move the Z up here with us. I get new parts for the brakes and take off the driver side wheel and see that the rotor is see through, not holey like the racing rotors, but worn completely down so bad that even the brake pad is almost gone, bare metal on mostly air. I hope y’all are laughing cause by this time, I’m fixing’ to cry.
This was supposed to be a project car so Ben and I could work on it together, turns out his idea of helping is to come by while I’m working on it and say, “good job Dad, I gotta go now.” I worked on the car off and on for a while until one day it finally won’t start and I get kinda bummed out and then after he died, I just kinda gave up on working on it, too many memories I guess. I had hoped to get it running and go out for one more ride before I have to sell it, but alas, that is not to be. Sometimes it is just best to let things go.
So, if any of you want an orange 1986 300ZX that used to run, have I got a deal for you.
The Purposeful Geek 