Hello! So the wife and I were starting to see a need for a 2nd car (we have a trusty 2000 Camry) and were thinking of going the practical route. That is, until I saw this funny lookin' station wagon in the local park-and-sell lot. I taunted my wife that I was gonna buy it to which she responded "Fine! Do it!" It looked pretty good for an old 80s wagon, and it looked remarkably like that one station wagon from Back to the Future that I had always thought was completely hilariously awesome.
Long story short, 3 days later it was mine. She's a 1985 Wagon Base with 155,000 miles (only 3,000 more than our Camry). The previous owner bought her from someone else for nostalgic reasons and the only offers he had on it were from 2 separate dudes who wanted to run it into the ground, so he opted to sell it to a kid like me who wanted to keep her going as long as possible. I think of her as a rescue. I got her for $1800, so I guess you guys can tell me if I got ripped or not.
The one kicker is I'm an almost total noob when it comes to really *working* on cars. I've changed the oil in the Camry, and I can change a flat, but beyond this kind of stuff, I don't even know the lingo. Hence, the Eagle and I will be learning much from each other!
It's a good thing she's my secondary car, but I do plan to use her as a daily driver of sorts.
EXTERIOR:
The passenger side has trim. This side doesn't because the PO took it off to fix a rust spot, but...
...he never got around to it and lost the trim.
In any case, the spot is about as big as a quarter, so that's an issue.
There's a good amount of this on the hood, too. I'll need to look into the best ways of taking care of this stuff asap, so any suggestions or experience is appreciated.
You can see the first of a couple things the PO did. He was the type to get cars and work on them, so he wasn't shy about tinkering. I believe that tow hitch and the light hookups behind the license plate are his handiwork, as well as the exhaust, which he redid.
In his own words: "Fenders are stock but painted. I had the carb rebuilt and a cast aluminum valve cover to replace factory plastic one. New front shock, ball joints both sides, air conditioning upgraded and 2" straight pipe exhaust with a flows master super 40 muffler" She sounds good, but he left off the catalytic converter because our county doesn't require an emissions test, so I'll need to install one of those somewhere down the line.
A couple issues here. Need to fix the headlight alignment there, and I that's a huge crack in the grille. I'm thinking I'll poke around for a good-looking Spirit grille as I think I like the look of those.
ENGINE:
I believe this is something to do with the AC? PO was a plumber so he rigged up this and the oil resevoir plug back there.
Another issue. He found antifreeze on the floor mats once and since he never drove it in the winter, he bypassed the heater core. Might need a replacement core.
Other than that stuff, the alternator belt squeals like a stuck pig in first and I haven't been able to decipher how to tighten it, and there's something up with the carb settings (or it's just too dirty) so she's moody when I start her and she's stalling during idle pretty predictably. Those 2 things are priority one right now, so I'm hopefully gonna have a car-knowing friend help me out with them this weekend.
Any observations, advice, experiences or comments appreciated. Hopefully I can learn quickly and start paying back any help I get!
Topic: Car AND Eagle noob - Rescued 1985 Wagon (Read 12606 times)