Preparation

I loaded all the spare parts, wheels, hub caps, original oil filter housing, original heater valve, valve cover gasket set, original steering box, etc. into the trunk today. I also removed the license plates and the battery float charger pigtail. I noticed when I opened the car door, the edge of the fender at the gap with the door is scraping just a bit. That is new! Never had it do that before. UPDATE: I think I know why... the inner fender panel I removed to re-route the heater hoses a week or so ago... that would throw the fender out of alignment enough to do this. Hmmm...

I'm working on getting together what documentation I have and putting it on a CD-ROM. All my stuff is in electronic Acrobat/PDF format, so it's very portable.

Chatting and Arranging

So the deposit came through last night and then this morning emails were going back and forth with the wire transfer info and stuff. I got a call from the buyer's son who is in Turkey. He was using Skype to call my cell and it wasn't bad but sometimes there were strange pauses where the last sound before the pause seemed to stretch out like string of mozzarella cheese from a bite of pizza. Odd. I talked to the shipper today too and he is going to have one of his drivers call next week sometime. Naturally the payment all has to be settled before the car can be picked up. I'll need to gather all the stuff that will be going with the car now.

Sold!

Well, I ended up not doing too badly. I think it went for more than I really expected but at the same time, less than I paid for it and certainly none of the money invested in repairs and maintenance was recovered. Such is life. Had it not sold, and I had kept it longer, it would have meant even more money spent, as I would have to deal with the exhaust crossover (not a problem functionally, but the sound was annoying), and eventually the interior. There are so many things each of my cars "needs" that I just don't see any end to the amounts of money I will continue to throw away. But at least there is one less to throw it at. This will pay off most of the Pontiac loan and when I polish that off, I have to decide if that will be a keeper or one of the ones liquidated. :(

I looked up the web site from my buyer's email and found a "partner" company, http://www.baz-dreamcars.com/, so I don't imagine the buyer will be keeping Lucille as his own but will resell it. Well, this is what Rik Gruwez of the Cadillac Mailing List does too, so I guess I don't mind. I looked at the cars on the site and I see one other '58 Cad for sale, as well as an Impala. I see lots of Benz's there too. Nice ones, but I didn't look all that closely.He has already sent the deposit and I sent him wire instructions for the balance. He said his son is going to call me. Hopefully this is quick and painless for all involved.

eBay Fun... about a day and a half left

I had so many offers to end my auction early, I finally set a reserve. It's below the "low retail" value NADA lists, but I was starting to feel it wasn't going to even come close to getting that high. Now tonight I see it is less than $900 from the reserve and there is 1 day, 18 hours left until closing. I'm really starting to get nervous. Am I doing the right thing, is the buyer going to feel the car is worth the price, am I stupid to sell, isn't it really worth hanging onto, no I need to get rid of some of these projects that I can't possibly finish... And that is kind of the bottom line for me. I like the four hobby cars I have, but the '76 needs some work and maybe a paint job to be decent. The Pontiac has been stopped cold from any progress for a couple months now, the '49 has just rekindled some excitement in me and I need to make some progress there... The '58 is a solid car, with lots of potential. I made some headway on it but I'm not happy with the exhaust and the front end work was a great start but now the rear needs to be gone through, the upholstery is not bad but it needs a refresh. Fortunately she still looks good enough to take out and have people just make a fuss over her, so that's why I think she is the one to sell... a very popular style with some solid value. I hope the new owner... assuming the reserve gets met... feels good about the purchase once he's got it.

eBay Fun

I listed this as an auction the other day... started it off low, or what I think of as low. $9K. 3 days and no bids so far. Man, things are rough out there in the market. I got one person emailing me and wanting me to close the auction for the opening bid price. Where do these people come from? I blocked him.

Headlight Downgrade...

Removing the Hellas from Lucille today. Why? It was an expensive upgrade and I'd just as soon not pass it on to the next owner... and have them not appreciate it. It also is just a bit overkill, being super bright. I might have gone a bit too hot with the wattage on these. :-) Anyway, took about 45 minutes to do all 4 lamps and there were no issues. If I keep the car and decide I need to drive it in the dark, I can put them back in.

A Little Tinkering

Pulled Lucille out of the garage and took off the left front wheel so I could go back into the fenderwell and re-route the heater hoses and put some ties on the wiring harness there.I had to pull the inner fender panel to do this, but it's been so long since I did the brakes and it needed to be tidied up.So that's done now. And I also undid what I had started to do with the Start-em-up kit. No point in proceeding with that if I am going to sell her off. (Still kinda torn on that issue, but I think I just need to do it.)