Index:
Page 15 - Floor and trans tunnel fabrication
Page 19 - Gas tank and trunk fabrication
Page 22 - Grill, trunk bed, battery box
Page 25 - Return from 2-year hiatus
Page 28 - Painting frame and chassis assembly
Page 33 - Body sheetmetal work
Page 50 - Coilover upgrade and ITB adapter
I was going to keep this a secret, but I got so much encouragement from this forum during my last Challenge build, the Buick Roadmonster. That's where this story starts: at the $2016 Challenge. Let's face it, the Roadmonster was heavy, slow, under-geared, and ... well, nice. It was a nice car. I kept it that way on purpose, because I planned to sell it. I had never planned to buy a giant wagon, it just kinda happened. Hence the thread title and team name "Wagon on a Whim". I had another plan in mind and it required the Roadmaster to stay nice so I could sell it.
So, a whole TWO DAYS after getting home from the Challenge, I did just that. I sold it. More accurately, I traded it straight up for a 1997 Lexus SC300. It has 294,000 miles on the chassis, was swapped for a 5-speed W58 about 10,000 miles ago, which included a new-ish motor with only 100,000 or so miles on it. The drivetrain is great. Lots of new replacement parts, ran great, only threw codes related to the swap. The body is expectedly aged. The sunroof leaks. The doors don't open OR unlock from the outside, but that's okay because the window regulator is broken which allows you to slide the window down by hand. Besides that, the car was great. By Challenge rules, I had $1,140.97 in the Roadmonster at the time of the trade. The 5-speed swap is worth over $2k alone. Not bad, not bad at all.
Everything else worked, including heat, A/C, power leather seats, etc...wait a minute...this sounds a whole lot like the Roadmonster! Better do something really GRM to fix this condition before another year and another underwhelming Challenge performance comes and goes. Enter the Model A. I picked up this pickup with my pickup back for the sum of $1,250. I had the idea to put a 2JZ in a traditional hot rod / rat rod a few years back in college, when I was working on Georgia Tech's MG Midget with the turbo 2JZ. Just a dream... nevertheless I had been looking for a decent budget-friendly Henry Ford steel body for years. It finally came up last March, so I snagged it.
And in the back of the garage it sat for half a year while I toiled over the wagon and old house projects. After the Challenge, and the SC300 came into my life sooner than expected, I got to work.
