Music. Welcome to the hole in the head podcast working on old cars and motorcycles, especially the weird ones, can produce some pretty dramatic ups and downs. This week, we catch Blaine in a particular mood the once prized Grail moto Marini has presented a series of issues and mysteries that seem to be getting the better of him. So just a bit of forewarning, this episode has a bit more frustration and expletives than normal.
Okay, hey, Blaine, we were talking before we started recording, which happens, but you're not having the best time with some projects, and I can I can commiserate on that.
I can't stop saying awful things about the Italians ability to communicate about how to fix their shit. Okay, I can't stop saying it. I keep trying. It's been over 30 days, and I still can't stop questioning the stupid goddamn manual. Okay, that's it. That's all I'm going to say about it. All right? Because it is completely, completely defeating to me. It is almost ruined my whole entire life. I don't even know if I want to wake up tomorrow. Okay, that's how mad I
am about it. But let's put that beside and let's talk about how your life is going.
Yeah, well, I feel great now. I appreciate,
yeah, neat.
No, actually, on that front of problematic Italians, it's actually sets us up for something I'd like to talk about, which i Spring has sprung here, or it's trying to at least the sun. I saw some shadows the other day. It was amazing, because the sun was out. There you go. And so I, I thought, You know what? I'm gonna get the Fiat, I think, you know, Fiat, 128, that I swapped motors out. It looks beautiful.
It runs. Everything's great. I even did a kind of a shakedown test, where the tie rod popped off and I went into a ditch, you know, but I was able to so, yeah, that, but that was three years ago, okay, or two at least. So it's been sitting in a garage since then, waiting for an actual run in. And so I thought to myself the other day, I'm going to have that for my summer car. I'm going to, I'm going to pull the Fiat out. It's completely impractical, but hey, it's springtime. Let's, let's
have a fun, fun vehicle. Pull it out of the garage, go into the street, drive it down to Les Schwab to get an alignment done, because, again, tie rods just want to have everything done, pull into the parking lot and waiting for my turn to pull into the bay to do my alignment. And I can't pull out of the parking spot because I don't have reverse sudden you're gonna mean like suddenly, reverse is just
gone, gone. Yeah, and okay, well, okay, so I'm under the car trying to get the linkage, you know, maybe something's wrong, and maybe that did it. Well, let me try it. And so I get up there and try and start it. We won't start. Yeah, okay, so maybe more fuel, and so working with that, and then, yeah,
because you don't want to have just one obvious problem to fix at a time, you want to have several, right? Yeah, that's how you want
it. And if they were all contingent on the other that'd be great too. Like, I couldn't fix one because of the first one. So, so there I am. I'm stuck in the the Les Schwab parking lot, and I go into the guy said, Hey, man, can we just do this alignment with a dead car? I mean, it weighs 80 pounds. Do we need to, you know? I mean, like, push it in there? Yeah, yeah. And he's just, he didn't know what to do with it.
I think they were kind of trepidudacious about touching it in the first place, but, right, oh, we can't do that. So okay, so I just, I borrowed a battery jumper and pushed it out into the street and drove it forward the way back to the garage. And so I'm kind I was at my end of my rope on that one. I almost just got an Uber home and said, Fuck it, yeah,
yeah.
So I absolutely get it. And so now I've just decided to say, You know what, I'm going to spare myself the agony on the van, because the van desperately needs a new clutch, throw out bearing. It pops out of gear. It needs a lot of stuff on the transmission done. And I thought, hey, that's an area that I don't have a lot of expertise in. But so you're so you're going to put
the the Fiat 128, aside, yeah. And you're going to move on to the van, which is a 64
Yeah. What is it? 6464 GMC, yeah,
okay. And you're going to say, I can't possibly deal with the disappointment of another Italian film. Year, with the with the the Fiat, and you're going to hope now that the world will turn and that you don't have success. No,
I know. I know that I'm not going to have success on that van. So I took that guy down to Ed's transmission down on North, okay, found the found the old guy, yeah, and who wasn't scared of a dirty, greasy van rolling in and right, it's there. Now I'm ordering parts, having them sent. Like, do it for me. Guys, okay, okay,
but you're hopeful that you're going to come get a transmission. Do you have you haven't been denied that yet. Have you? Or have you? Yes? Is there no? Is there no way to fix the gearbox? Or is there possibly a way?
There's possible ways, like, there's, there's, I could swap out for a new one or an automatic but no, at this point, just fix what's there. Yeah, and, and then it's done, and I don't have to worry about it.
That's a there's, there's a time for that, isn't there. I mean, you could always go back, oh no, I'll fix it. I'll get it out and I'll understand it. But then there's just a time when you just figure, I cannot possibly believe I have to engage in all this detail, let someone else just do it and then. But now, the curious thing is that, did you find someone who really can do it?
I think so. So, you know, I'm on the forums, and I'm like, Hey, I'm in Seattle. Who's here, who can do this? First of all, who's here, who can do this? Is it worth just swapping it out, upgrading to an automatic? Like, if I'm already gonna spend five, 600 bucks, can I just source an automatic and throw it in there and be done with the whole thing? And, oh yeah, you can do this. Then you're gonna fabricate this mount and get some cables and run your own. You know what? Let's just, let's just fix
what's there. I like it. So what
you want is just a functional four speed,
which I don't think is a lot to ask. Yeah,
it doesn't seem like it. It doesn't seem like it, but it
is for the Fiat. And so I dropped the van off, so the van's being fixed. And now back to the Fiat I'm calling the guy. There's a there's a shop called performance Apex here in somewhere Pacific Northwest, and they rebuilt the engine in the first place. So I thought, You know what? Okay, I'm going to, I'm just going to pull out of savings and get these things
done. Yeah. So I called the guy, and he was, he's like, as optimistic and giving of his time and knowledge as anyone that I've met in that community, like he was just no, this is what you got to do, get under that with the vice grips, do here, here and here. So now I'm very inspired to give it a shot. So he's
thinking that. He's thinking that an adjustment in the linkage is going to somehow get you to be able to get this thing into reverse.
He says, X, Y and Z are known failures or known issues. When you rebuild an engine, go ahead and do X, Y and Z to fix those things
so it but he's speaking about the transmission when he's saying that correct, but he's not speaking to the fact that it wouldn't start and that,
oh, that's just dead. That's dead battery. No, it's, I think, yeah, yeah, easy,
yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, by the way, which blew out my alternator, which, yeah, all that. So knock on wood, easy enough. But I'm a little bit hopeful around
that. So there's a possibility that you'll get it to go into reverse.
It's a possibility that I will have a functioning summer car in the Fiat, yeah, yeah. Which? Well, it doesn't, doesn't help you in your Marini situation,
but oh no, no, no, no, no, I'm gonna harm my I'm gonna stick things in my eyeballs until all of a sudden I decide which is more painful. But in your case, I think you're gonna be successful. I think you're going to be able to drive around with a nice little, little cup of coffee in between your legs. And, you know, and a little like a apple, what's that little Danish? Called? It like a fritter. You can have a little
apple fritter. You're going to drive around, drive around with your little coffee drink, yeah, and you're going to go, I'm driving my son in a car, and then I'm going to go down and check on my van, and my van's going to be ready. And then I'm going to drive it out and camp alongside a river somewhere and just reflect on how lovely my life is. You're
so you're so angry at that marine right now,
well, I can't possibly put the anger away. I just can't. I can't I know I should be able to.
Well, let's, let me ask you this, let's, let's, let's, let's think about another area of interest, of of having a success, right? Like, where have you had success in selling stuff?
Yeah. All right now I can't, I know I should, but all I can't even focus on, no, no. I don't give a fuck about one other thing other than getting that goddamn motor marine need to run long enough so it can belong to somebody fucking else. Okay, that's just where I am. I'm sorry I and the thing is, you know, there are. The things I've, you know, I pursued other problems in my life and been able to solve
them. Sometimes, there's been a few things I've tried to fix in my life that I was the only one that figured out, okay. And then I think, look at me, you know? And that was good. I went after that, because I solved it, you know, I reclaimed it. So I have brought some things back into
this world. This one, however, I wish it could just go off of a fucking cliff, but what I need is for someone to give me 3000 fucking dollars that I lost on it so that I can I can afford to push it off a cliff into somebody else's truck, or down the bottom of a ravine, and somebody else can collect it, or something like that. Can possibly happen. But what can't happen is for that thing to sit in my goddamn shop for another fucking minute and look at me and not know which way to set up
the fucking valve timing. God,
I'm I just hate that. For you, I want you to have success with that Marine.
That's sweet. That's so sweet of you. Is there anything else that's very happy in your life you'd like to talk about?
I got the Ducati going pretty good. Well,
tell me all about that. Start from the top.
Well, you know, I think it's worth, I think it's worth a little trip down to Tucson area and putting our heads together on that Marini,
I think it's, yeah, yeah, to be totally honest, apart from the, you know, exceeding amount of anger that I have, I'm pretty sure, yeah, I think if you came and you had a look, you might like immediately see it, or see it shortly, or just someone else, you know, but after I've just been in it and on it and in it and on it, and nothing works. And I keep, you know, about about half the time I do the same thing I tried last time, and it's still, I cannot seem to
get it to line up right. And so I think it's 50% chance that you would look at it and go, Oh, it's this, you know, great, I would take it. But even then I would say, good. Now take that thing to fuck off my property, and you can either sell it or give it to somebody else. But I do not ever want to have this kind of experience again, where let me just review. Okay, let me just fucking review for you.
Just for a minute, the fact that the Italian manual tells me where to set it, the American manual tells me somewhere different on the website, they have two different ideas about how it should be set up, and no one can be absolutely clear, okay, you're the only one I've heard of that has a clear idea about where you think it goes. You're the only one everybody else is out to make sure that my life becomes completely meaningless. All right, that's what everybody else is about.
You're the only one that cares that something decent might happen for me. Yeah. Does that seem overly intense?
It's a little but what's fucked up is, like, if it were anybody else, I would say, Okay, what's going on really? But no, I think that's really what's going on with you. I think that's I
don't have other emotional problems or family things that are building up tension somewhere, or all of a sudden, I just can't take it. And this is the one thing that pushed me over the edge, because I got conflict everywhere else. You know, I don't have anything that worries me. I live a happy, wonderful life in the middle of the desert, except for that one fucking moto ringy who cannot possibly communicate to me what the truth is about where the goddamn valve timing should be.
Alright? Well, maybe that's a question. Maybe that's a question we can ask. But I
Yeah. I mean, well, let's look forward to that when you come down, I'll buy you a Danish, maybe. And, yeah, an apple fritter, maybe, maybe, I'm sure you prefer something fancier than that, because you're a fancier guy than I'm no, no, this is made at a this is made and sold at a gas station. Hey,
you know what I really do miss, speaking of gas station, apple fritters, or those little, those little fruit pockets, the fruit apple fritter things in a little wax pack you get from a gas station. Do you don't remember those? Like, I do not know what that is. No, oh, my goodness. Okay, so next time, skip the good and plentys and grab an apple fritter in the wax pack. It's by the donuts and the zingers and all that.
I've never recalled ever seeing an apple fritter
cinnamon. Anyway, Apple they're not like Bear Claw prefers they're like, they're like turnovers. Apple turnovers. Okay. Anyway. FY, well,
yeah. Well, I would like to have anything that would take some of the pain away from my
life. So I, I'm, I'm having a good time with my Italian. Um, is there,
is there anything else that you're cruising through to success on I would love to hear it tell me about
maybe it's because it's half, is that exactly half as many cylinders. So, you know, the problems are actually, no, I'm not having a good time. I'm having, I'm not having a fuck this throat in the garbage time, to be fair, like I'm still, like, Oh, I'm still, yeah, I'm still chasing things optimistically. So, well, good for you. I. I'm good for me. Let's talk about so let's talk the Ducati goddam, the Ducati 350 that was so hard, won with that cylinder, right? So I got everything in, got it all
together, runner, right? But I don't know about your Ducatis. Yours are not Desmos. They're spring, spring valves, right?
They are not Desmos, that's correct. Okay, so same 60, the 64 and the 6067, is the two that I have. Okay, so
mine's of spring valve as well. Okay, and there's a certain amount of tappy, clicky loudness from the top end. That's to be expected, right? Those are loud. Those are loud engines. But when I get this 350 running, there's a, it's like a clack, clack, clack, clack, clack. I mean, it is a clanging that sounds like the engine's going to explode, but it's, it runs fine, right? And so I can't, I can't. It sounds extreme compared to the other, certainly the to the 250 that I
have say. And so I was in the shot, was in the garage last night. Let's set the valves right. So I'm in there looking at the valves, in and out, valves, and there's no screw tap. It's these are valve shims, little bucket shims. And then I realized, like, I never did, I never set the valve clearances on this. And so, you know what I mean, like, oh my god, it ran anyway. So I'm playing around. One of them is really, really tight, the other one's kind of
sloppy. And I'm playing around, and, you know, swap the buckets. But there's such a difference between the shims and and so I ended up just taking the valve tappets and swapping those, okay, so I put the in on the out and whatever, and made the clearances much more aligned. Runs better, arguably, but it's still really loud, yeah. And so what I'm dreading is that it's like the crank, I don't know, a bearing or something at the bottom of the rod that's loud.
It sounds like it's lower in the in the cylinder, and so I'm a little bit worried about that pessimistic around that. But, you know, I don't know that I'm ready to throw out the trash yet, but it is very frustrating to have gone this far, and then have to go back down to the lower end, you know? I mean,
yeah, yeah, no, there's no doubt that. I mean, there's only, there's only so many things it can be. I mean, I Right. I mean, you're going to get it. It's just a matter of whether or not, you know, on how many different days can you put the time in and not have it get resolved? You know, it's like there's probably something for us to talk about, in general, about how you approach a legitimate problem solving, trial by error. You know, situation where you just gotta keep moving through something
until you find it. You know, because I understand that there really is no well, I shouldn't say that. I don't think that there's an actual entity alive in the universe that is trying to make sure that my life seems so completely meaningless at the hands of this Marini. And I don't think that there's same thing is happening to you with
anything that you're facing. I believe there are very simple little things that have to be considered and corrected in order for it to run properly, because there's a pretty narrow window about what makes a motor, engine or a motor and engine run properly, right? I mean, it just is. It's got to be it's got to have the right timing, it's got to have air, it's got to have smart I mean, all these things.
It isn't like there's this huge variety of options, you know, but I don't know, are you ready to but I would say, yeah, it turns out backwards, because it's a series of going backwards, is what's hard to swallow. Yeah,
but it turns out there are other things, and I think that's what's frustrating, because you get those core, you know, time, you know, suck, squeeze, Bang, Blow. You get the time, you get the fuel, you get the air, and you get, you get all that dialed in, and it should be right, but there's something that's idiosyncratic to that particular engine, or whatever, for that year of engine, and the two, you know, and so that's, that's the frustrating part where you can't get a straight answer. And I
feel you on that. I
think, I think really, if I were to trace the again, I don't. We don't need to be talking about my feelings. We want to talk about your feelings and your success that you're bound to have with your Ducati. And what I think is that once the right information is provided to you, you're totally capable of using it to be successful. You
just don't have that information. I
don't have that information, you know, and how you know, what? What have I missed? You know, again, we're back to me, sorry, back to you. You're going to get it. It's going to be just fine. I do think I have had a little bit of setback in doing the vows before. Where actually the the on the last Ducati that I put together, the old. This one I had to, you know, grind those
little valve shims. So I don't know if you've ever seen a grinder for doing valve shims, my buddy happened to have one, and boy, it is the slickest
thing ever. You just go over there and you put it in this little fixture, and it's just got this grinding wheel that comes down almost like a cutting wheel, you know, and you just kind of wind it up, you get, you know, getting, you got total precision, because you can do it by the 1000s, you know, slowly move it in, and you just bring that thing anyway, you just make one nice little skim, go back and put it in, you know, if it's not it, you make a nice little skim, and pretty soon we have it
perfect, you know. So, yeah, so it can be very, very fulfilling when you when, you know, you have a chance to do that. I've also had to do it where I just took the shim and put it on a piece of glass over a piece of Emery, emery paper, you know. And then you rub it back and
forth, you know. Just go try to get something, yeah, just try to get something off of it, you know, because you only got a, just a very little bit to skim off there, but, but anyway, so I've had some success in kind of getting that all set up and go right, but I haven't had anything else to suspect in the
bottom end that I remember. So I don't know if there's a, you know, something clearly obvious when you take it apart, or if it's going to be a little bit of a hunt to see what it is, what's making the knock, you know,
yeah, well, I don't know, we'll see, but at least right now I'm I'm holed up in my little, tiny garage, and that actually fits, and so I can't actually move that one out until I finish it. So yeah, might be that I just say it, screw it, put it back in storage, pull something else back in But on that note of having someone with a shim grinder, of all the thing, how specific valve shim grinder, right? Like
there? I think, yeah, I know, you know, it's funny is that, obviously I don't have one, but when I use this one, I think among motor guys that there's lots of vehicles that have valve shims, you know, shim and bucket is very, very
common. And so being able to skim those things is, and it's a nice little bench top piece, you know, it's a, you know, about the biggest two of our little laptops here together, and there's a place to put it, the, you know, hook everything up, and it's just, it's kind of an adorable little machine. And I think sometimes you can get those, you know, because obviously the world's turning away from anybody doing this kind of stuff. So there's only guys like us that care about
this. But I think you can find a little machine, a little valve grinder deal, you know, for a couple 100 bucks, and then you have it, and then you can set up all the valve shims in your life. Anyway, it can be done. I'm sure, I'm sure you'll get there, but it is kind of cool that there is a little, little valve grinder out there? Well,
it's funny, because I think about like there was once upon a time where having a multimeter or calipers or bullet terminal crimper was like exotic tools, like, God, I don't have that, you know, I need to go get one. Yes,
yeah, no, it's funny, yeah, yeah, no, there's these things that you work around your whole life. You know? It's just like, Well, okay, here's, I'm on the brink of another thing that probably make me even more angry, but I have to change power steering seal, power steering box seal on my Land Rover Discovery. And in order to do that, I better take a pitman arm off. And the seal is fairly straightforward to
replace. And then what usually do is you replace the seal, then you find out, okay, the whole box got to come out because you got to rebuild the box. But we all start with this $30 seal, and a lot of hope that that might be enough, right? So I'm going to start there. It's not going to be it's going to fuck me, but nonetheless, I'm going to start there and see if we can
kind of be alright with it. And then I've always just used pickle fork, you know, you put that wedge fork in there, and you beat the hell out of it with a sledgehammer. And then, you know, pops up part of ball joints. I need to take off a ball joint. And then there's a separate little puller for the pitman arm. And then all of a sudden, you realize, well, wait a second, there's this for $20 there's this nice little um ball joint separator that you just hook up.
Oh yeah, just read it, yeah. You just pop it just comes off so
sanely, instead of being under there with a sledgehammer trying to separate that. And the funny thing is, is that I've successfully separated maybe 87 to 90 ball joints in my lifetime, I've taken off with the with the sledgehammer, and it only cost $20 to take them off with the separator that's completely sane and proper. Yeah, you won't break it only, yeah, Only an idiot would use the you know, or when you're stuck in the middle of nowhere,
whatever. Only you know. Why would you use a pickle fork when you all you need is a $20 gear puller, you know. But for years, I've done it the other way, and now I'm going to go buy myself a nice little gear puller and change that seal tomorrow, because I got a seal coming in, and I'm going to change it and put it in, and for 15 minutes I'm going to hope it doesn't leak. Because it only goes through a court about every 30 minutes. So
well, you're going to get it and the seal's going to go in, you're going to have a great success, and, yeah, and you're going to go for a ride somewhere. Yeah,
that's that's easy to save because you're not as suicidal as I am, but I certainly appreciate. I so appreciate the compassion and the hope. I mean, you're giving me everything a person like me need. You're giving me what I need to get through it. But I can tell you, if you give me everything I need to get through it, it's still not enough, because I'm so fucking angry beyond the pale here,
here's, here's an idea, here's an idea. Okay, and break and and I hope that I don't want to like, meet, meet your problems with ideas. I think that's called mansplaining. I'm not trying to do that. I don't know. I don't I'm not saying, Hey, here's what you should do. You know? I'm gonna say, like, I like, I say to my wife, I'm just gonna say, that sucks, yes, and leave it alone. That sucks, man.
But tell me, tell me if there's something you know of that I can
try. No, it's I think it's okay. So have you gotten any mail lately? Yeah, I did. What would you get? Well, I
got a box, and in it was a mug. And what's I want to say again, what a lovely surprise it is to get a mug in a box. However, I haven't drunk anything out of a mug for 27 years because I don't drink coffee or anything that goes in a mug. But I was so happy to receive a mug because it was a thoughtful gift from someone. And then I noticed upon it is an aerial photo or aerial logo, and we both have aerial projects that we're going to go ahead and
get into. And I don't think I'm going to be as horribly disappointed as I am now, because I expect that this one is a complete mine is a complete go through.
I'm so glad I didn't send you the Marini one, because they have no
I would have crushed it and sent it back to you. You just said, Don't ever send me this. I don't want to see anything that that even looks like a Marini logo. But anyway, the aerial logo I love, and I still believe that it's not out to ruin my life. And so I'm looking forward to whenever that project starts, but I know that in my case, it's absolutely complete, because I bought just not quite enough parts to make one and so, and it's all beat
up. So, I mean, I'm expecting a full, you know, tear apart and put together to make anything out of it. So I don't have a lot of expectations, I should say, for that coming together quickly, but that's just something that I can go out and work on and occasionally well, and I would say most the time I have enjoyed these long process projects, you know, because I just keep chipping away at it. So I don't think that's over for
me for the rest of my life. It's just that the motor Marini can fuck itself for the rest forever, ever. Just
send your marine t shirt. Well, maybe that's just, let
me just, let me just say one more thing about the motor ring, if I could, okay, everything about the goddamn motor is brand new. Everything, okay, I mean, the bottom end is new new bearings in the bottom end, new pistons, new rings, new valves, everything hard part in the motor is new. Everything is perfect. It had assembly lube on it when I first opened it up and began to wonder, what's wrong? All the proper parts are there.
And it mocks me. It just sits back, yeah, and says, What can I keep with out of his reach that he can't intellectually grasp. What can I do? So there is a, there is a entity behind it in this one, yeah,
well, we're gonna, we're gonna figure it out. So, so with that mug, you all right, I hope,
I would
hope that you can take some honey, maybe put it a little hot water. Yeah. And just have have yourself a little sip something comforting, is what you're saying. It's yeah. And just know that you're an aerial owner, even though you haven't touched one yet. You're, you're an aerial square for owner. And that that's just, that's just in the line of it's in the queue, yeah, and that's 19. That feels good.
1951 mark one. Yeah, I can't wait to get to work on it. And I believe that there's, you know, some I would imagine that out of one. And let's say the next 365 days, there'll be one day that won't be full of absolute misery. And I hope that's related to the aerial project,
yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, it's a, it's a test of your metal and your devotion to, Hey, you, you work in a Greece cathedral once one's faith in the grease. I don't know, whatever metaphor. I know, yeah, you've done this before, yeah? Well, no, this
one, I've been defeated. I mean, I'm clearly defeated. So, all
right, I'm gonna look up. I'm gonna look up one way tickets to Tucson and come
out to Tucson and look at it for me. Yeah, because I am completely baffled.
Well, so one last thing is, I've had this Hank in the van. Oh, but
by the way, thank you for the thank you for the for the mug. That was very kind of You're
welcome. Alamoto mugs are really there's I was going to send you a Marini one. I was this close to sending you a Marine One as a Yeah. Congratulations for finishing.
Yeah. Oh boy, that was, I'm glad we avoided that. But in the meantime, I'm going to use the mug. I'm going to keep all of my feeler gages in the Aerial. There you go, and keep there, right there on my toolbox.
It's a, it's a, it's a pencil holder with a handle.
So I love it, and I love you. Okay, I want to be clear about that. Fair
enough, appreciate it. Well. So the van I sent to the transmission place very specifically, meaning, if I, if I'm going to spend money on a thing, go ahead and spend money on the thing that I already have, get it fixed, have have Ed do it, you know what I mean, and just and hadn't be done with it, because I can't stop looking for early 50s Studebaker, oh yeah, and international trucks. Well, I don't know why I just, I have
a Tacoma, I have a 64 van. I just really want one of those old, round body stewed trucks. They look like giant toy trucks.
I think those early Studebakers, especially the ones that like I kind of gravitate towards the one ton trucks of the period, because they have those neat bud wheels on them. You know, they don't have the just the slotted bud wheels that I love, hard to find tires for and hard to change tires with. But anyway, I love the looks of those by far. And so the higher capacity trucks from that area, like the half tons in the three quarter. I don't even know if they had a three quarter ton or half ton
truck. I don't know how they were rated in those days, but I know that they had one and one and a half tons, and like I have a Dodge one and a half ton. But yeah, those old trucks were just so simple. Well, I hate to say that, because I've obviously been mocked by a motor marine motorcycle. I don't know too but too soon, yeah, if I was, yeah, if it wasn't so easy to make me feel stupid, I would say that a Studebaker is possible to make it run. And they are so cool
looking. And I think that driving it around with that original little six cylinder engine, it would just be a treat.
Yeah, well, yeah. And I'm really interested in the Flathead, you know, I looked at the Flathead V eights, but just at a certain point, like it's a lot, you know, and you start to get spindy and straight six flathead. But as I'm looking, I realized, you know, a project is in the two to $3,000 range,
yeah, yeah, lots of field fines, yep,
plus, plus about a six hour drive, really, you know what I mean, runway. And so I thought, I can't justify that. I cannot justify that with a van that needs work, right, right? And so getting all these things, the Fiat, the van, the Ducati, getting all them sorted done, maybe even ready to sell, is the current goal. So because I want to go buy a stewed free and clear.
Okay, but guess what? This is the big dilemma, right? Because we all know we should finish what we have. Yeah, what's out there that you don't have yet seems so compelling, and it seems like it's going to be the deal of the century, and you're never going to find it again, and that you have to go ahead and extend yourself and take the risk to acquire it, knowing full well that you have plenty of other projects in front of it. But when you love something like that, you have to do it, right? Yeah,
well, but I mean, again, the universe lets you know what's time to do. What you know I found, okay, so I found something in Montana. Found two in Montana. Oddly enough, one of them is in Houston, Hewson, Montana, which is about 50 miles south of the Flathead Reservation. By the way,
crazy, Yeah, crazy coincidence.
I was ready to get in the truck and stop by U haul on the way out there this morning, but my daughter has a thing this weekend that I cannot miss. Yeah, you know, I mean, like, I want to be there kind of thing. So it's like, Ah, okay, finish the van, finish the Fiat, and then see what, see what the universe provides. Well,
can I tell you what the universe. Is provided. What? Okay, please look up a 1940 diamond tea pickup.
1940 diamond tea pickup. Now, is there a diamond engine? Something? Diamond is a thing that's
a the international used to categorize their engines as, their engines as I think they had, like a blue diamond engine. That's what they called their international okay, but this is a completely different makeup pickup. It's called the diamond T. It's ultra special. It's the best looking vintage pickup ever produced. Yeah, you see it? Yeah? It looks great. You see how Yeah, they look. They just look incredible. In their day, they had 100,000 mile warranty on the engine. In
their day, they did that. Wow. Okay, they were just good, super high quality, commercial grade trucks, and just the best of the best. And they and they really put design work into them, because you can see how special they look. So I don't who's listening. Look up these diamond T pickups, and you'll find that up until the up until about 1950 they had just impeccably beautiful styling, right? So ask me why I brought that up.
Why did you bring that up? Well, I already have
one. All right, okay, so I have one here, ready to restore and ready to go with a new engine in it. All right, so I've got a diamond T I mean, this is, like one of the Holy Grail, things that you'd like to have, right? I mean, you just, I have it. But guess what I found? What? I found three more of them in a field, in Phoenix Andy. Three more of them. And now I want you to look at it, because I'm pretty sure you need a diamond tea.
I might need a diamond tea because that that grill is amazing. It's the most of the whole front end, yeah, oh, okay, look
at how Vitamin T looks. Do you is there
a listing for them, or is this a Guy? Guy? No,
it's a it's a Facebook listing. I got a message into the guy. He's got three of them in different stages sitting there. And now, again, this could be a scam. All right? Because, you know, we both looked at, I don't know if you about you, but I've looked at Facebook stuff or Craigslist before, gotten committed to it, only to find out that it was never real. So that happens a certain amount of times. Okay, so I, and in this case, could
be, could be legit. I got a message into the guy yesterday, but there's three different models of diamond t2. Look like the commercial grade pickups. And one of them looks like a 1.5 commercial truck. And and you'll probably notice too, if you look at some of the ones that are finished, you know, the diamond T's come in quite a nice little price. Yeah. So a finished diamond T is a, is a, is not a bad truck to have. And probably
easy. I don't know if it's easy to sell, if that many people like it, but they're a bit more expensive than like. If you restore a Dodge pickup and you restore a diamond T, the diamond T has less people that are interested in it, but they'll pay more for it. So, I mean, I think you can easily turn if you were to restore one, you're probably, you know, 30 to, you know, 25 to 35,000 solid on a
diamond T pickup. And I think it's going to, I think that's going to continue to hold and get better financially, because there were, there's not that many of them, but they're just the most beautiful looking
vintage pickup. They came with a six cylinder motor that just notoriously ran forever, the only one drawback in all of the vintage pickups that I see is that I think even up until 1955 or 56 commercial grade trucks were rated at 45 miles an hour, they figured that's the right speed for a truck, And so they all cruise beautifully at 45 at 55 you're ringing its neck. Yeah, you know. And so there's something has to be so usually people going to change out the rear end or get an overdrive or
whatever. But so to make it ultimately crucible at 6065 there's you're going to probably have to mess with something to bring it into that category. And I think that would be true with an early international or a Studebaker as well. But I don't, yeah, but somewhere along the line, I think it might have been the late 50s that all of a sudden the trucks could go 55 or 60. The gearing was changed and and it allowed for that. So,
yeah, that's the that's the drawback that I have, or hesitancy I have around the Studebaker NAT right now is because where we live in Seattle, it's just not, you know, jump on the highway ready, you know, I mean, I mean, that's, yeah, I'd rather have it in Oklahoma, where 4550 is a good, just kind of going to town speed, yeah, yeah, but, but now
you need to consider the diamond T possibility. Oh,
I'm open to it. I just really like that, that era, late 40s, early 50s, even late 50s, just the simplicity of it, everything was so big and sort of, you know. But lots of sheet metal. Yeah. Drawback of that is that, you know, it's usually dinged and banged up, whatever. But,
yeah, what's nice about it is that you can decide where to go with it, you know, like, the truth is, I think I could probably live with one that went 4550 miles an hour, even if I was going to drive it out to your house in Oklahoma. Just slow down, you know, get my, get my aerial mug, you know, full of, full of a nice drink. Get my apple fritter and put it on the seat next to me. And just go 50 miles an hour. What? Who cares, you know,
yeah, you get there. When you get there, you get there. When you get there,
it doesn't have to be an interstate cruiser.
Well, okay, well,
but I'll just say mine is because I have an overdrive in mine. So sorry, you
already have an overdrive in yours. Yeah, yeah. Sorry. Is it alright? It is on. Okay. Now I'm going to go down a rabbit hole. I appreciate that. Am I going to get anything else done today? I was really trying to, I was, I was ready, like, I was ready. What is today? Thursday, I was going to leave this morning and say, Okay, I've got to be back. Her game is at nine on Saturday. No, I could leave after her game, and then I could, I could be back for
Monday. And then if this does, you know, I'm like, yeah, no, yeah, dude. And then just, okay, just calm down. Just go working with Ducati. Shut up. Nope.
You're right. It's clear that both of us should spend the next $5,000 on our own junk getting it to work. But yet, we're looking at these diamond keys, thinking, let's get these. And I already have one, but I'm thinking about getting another. Let's
get things that are a complete different. Skill set, tool set, muscle memory, yeah, and that take up the most room possible of all the consumer vehicles.
Yeah, you're gonna need a commercial vehicle just to get it home. Yeah,
I think I could tow one with the Acadia.
Well, I do think that if you, if you want to buy a diamond tees together that you can come to come to Phoenix, pick it up, and then just bring it down here, and we'll work on them and see if we can make them drivable.
I think there's I do have at some point I I do have a one way ticket drive at home type trip in me. Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, like, there's, I really want to do one of those and, and I think that whether it's motorcycle or car, you know, at the end of it, like, there's a couple Ducati st twos in Northern California that are gonna, they're gonna get me home. I'm not worried about them. But, right, it's still the thing of flying there and I I probably make it back, you know? I
mean, yeah, yeah. Well, it's kind of like, what we talked about is, I want to go to England to try to buy a Douglas motorcycle. And it's a big risk, because, you know, can I fix it, make it run while it's there? Because I want to ride it around and ship it home. But there's something about the expedition that I desperately want to do. And I love the idea of going out like I looked at the dump truck two weeks ago up
in this old mining claim. I thought, I'm going to buy a dump truck because, you know, I got to drive my driveway is, you know, needs gravel, and I'm going to buy a dump truck. And went and looked at one, and it, you know, just was going to be, I'm going to be, I'm going to have to camp out here for three weeks while I fix this truck, you know. And it's like, I can't spend $3,000 on a motel, a cheap, terrible motel in a little town while I try to fix a truck, you know. So it really
is. It's an impacted situation. If you go out to try to recover a motorcycle or car, because, you like, I've only got two or three days that I can really afford to mess with this thing before I try to get it home. Because you just, you just drive up all this expenses. So all of a sudden, this great find, you know, all of a sudden you're about matching the price of the fine just in logistics to go out there and work on it, and they can come a lot down the street,
yeah, yeah, yeah. So all of a sudden you're $3,000 truck. You're 6000 into it. But on the other hand, I think it's worth it to do that rather than to buy the one for 6000 that already runs. Because look at what you learn and what you adventure that you have. You just can't let it go like the motor marine he did, where it got into my soul and killed, you know, killed me. Well, I think
the argument could be made that the other side of that is the you have a different emotional attachment to it, and I don't think that's, that's correct, that's right. It's not all good, yeah, because I have a garage full of stuff that is relatively commonplace and but I got it for a really good price, and I got it in a way that is meaningful. And so I don't know that I'd get rid of it, because I can't buy that same thing again. You know what? I mean? You're certainly not in the same
way. So that's, it's true, or there's,
are there those things that, like, you've had the buy of a century before, right? You know, you just got something, you've had something that you bought that was like, I cannot believe the deal I got, right? Yes, you know, you've had that happen. And that brings such a lasting joy and that, you know, it's just like, I can't believe the good fortune, you know, that the universe is willing to share this with me.
That's like, wow, you know. And you can, that can just be, you can live off of that forever, you know, yeah. So that feeling is just profound and is fun, and you got to have that once in a while, you know,
especially as opposed to, well, especially when it's narrowly one, yes, like, like you, it was on Craigslist for a while, but somehow you were the one that the guy answered, or, yeah, I mean, that kind you or the first there, or something, whatever.
Yep. Okay, here, let me real quick. I'm gonna tell you the best one I ever found in my life. I'll just do it in two minutes. 19, I don't know, 70 somebody. 7273 74 BMW advertise sitting beside somebody's house in California, wants $100 for it. So I call on it, thinking that's a misprint, or it's whatever. And the guy goes, Yeah, I want $100 for that. So what can you tell me about it? He goes, it belonged to my sister. She bought it new, and then I wrote it. It's got
21,000 miles on it. It's that copper penny color, whatever, which is the best looking color. And they said, and it's and it ran fine. We just parked alongside the house, and now the seats rotten. You know, and it's cosmetically terrible, you know, but I'm going to need $100 for that. And so I respond to him by going, well, I can, you know, here's what I'm saying. Yeah, that sounds fine, you know, I
appreciate that. And but what's really happening inside is, oh, my God, I'm going to get a BMW for $100 and so while he's just kind of explaining things to me. I'm walking out, getting in the car, right? I'm clicking on the belt, and I'm trying to be so casual, yeah, yeah, no, I understand, yeah, okay, I'd like to see it. You got Are you around today? And I'm already driving toward the town, right?
And then he goes, Yeah, you can stop by today, okay, yeah, it just so happens I'm going to be in the area, you know, so I appreciate about 15 minutes, yeah? And I just go straight in there, 90 miles an hour. I park in the driveway, I walk in there, and he's talking to me, wants to tell me everything about it, and he's still talking to me, and I just pull out this $100 and I go, Yeah, yeah. Well, I sure appreciate the chance to deal with you, though. And I think, and he's going to say,
oh, no, this is a mistake. It's $1,000 right? And he takes the 100. Goes, okay, yeah, thanks. You want me to help you load it up? I go, Yes, I do. And we go, we put on the trailer. And then I raced out of there because I thought for sure he's going to take it back. He can't possibly tell me this. It was a very nice r7, 50, you know, R 75 excuse me, in that copper penny color, or whatever that I really like. 28,000 miles, $100 I never forget how wonderful that felt. But also, did I take advantage
of the guy? Should I have told him? You probably could have me to, yeah, yeah, I should have given more than that. Should I have but hey, he's the one that said $100 in my clean side yard is what I want in life, and I gave it to him, yeah. Well, how do you, how do you stop doing that, right? Yeah. And if that, if that happens one in 100 times? I'm going to try it 99 times to see if that happens again. Yeah,
I think the van was the was the one that happened, because it was listed and you were with me, it's, oh, that
was a, that was a killer buy. I was so glad I got that $1,200
or something in the garage, or whatever. And we went and looked at it. And then at that point we were having pizza, we all wrapped up, and we're like, Okay, let's get some pizza. On the way home, and called the guy back, and I said,
You know what? Or before I called him, I said, if I get it, I get it, but I don't want to pay more than, like, 300 bucks, which, I mean, which is realistic offer, yeah, basically, that was me saying, I'm scared of buying this, and so I'm going to lowball it so much that he's going to, I know he's going to say no, and then I'll be off the hook in front of these guys, you know what? I
mean, yep, yep. And so I called him and said, Hey, I think I, you know, I don't think I could do more than like, 300 bucks, you know? And I realized that he's Yeah, this is fine, really. He said, Yeah, yeah, come get it when you want to come tomorrow. And, okay, yeah, I guess so. So that next morning I had to go to U haul and y'all help me. Y'all help me, yeah, but yeah, that was a good deal. It's like, I don't Okay, and I love that thing because, like, it's like, the Yeah,
that was such a nice buy. And that's such a nice project you have there. But the feeling of acquiring a project is, you know, I guess it's for me, because let me go back to my, my deep psychological problems for a moment. I think I was raised by poor dad, not rich dad, you know that distinction, right? So I really love it,
yeah, yeah. And so for me, I can almost never, in my mind, I'm always trying to leverage the fact that I probably don't have quite enough money to finish this project, but I want it anyway. But when you get something your great deal, all of a sudden you think you. Oh my gosh, I'm gonna order $3,000 worth of shit right now for it, and I'll be so far ahead. I mean, I'll actually finish one,
and it'll pay dividends. And the picture you have in your mind, yeah, can you just see me, you know, parked at the beach, you know, sitting inside, looking out the windshield, and, you know, just enjoying my time there, having a little something to drink and thinking about the things I want to think about, and watching the sunset, and then making a little, you know, making a little hot dog outside. Or you'd probably, you'd make some real fancy, you know, something fancy on the fire, yeah,
yeah, yeah, something with goat goat cheese in it, yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah. No, you'd have something very complicated. I'd have a hot dog on the fire. Anyway, all of a sudden, you just instantly go from field find that needs a lot of work to you start to make historic progress, just nothing but progress, because you order and fix and order and fix and order and fix with the idea that someday it's going to take you
somewhere. And that is just the most lovely feeling a gear guy can have, is making progress and having success, yeah, which is completely beyond my reach now because of that, God damn
well, alright. Well, go back to it. Go fix it real quick, and we'll talk later.
I feel strangely better having vented to you. Thank you for the call.
I'm happy to, happy to I want you to enjoy some hot water and lemon that works wonders. Okay, I'll
give it a try.
Don't worry. He'll be okay. Check back next week for project updates and some news. Follow along on the socials at hole in the head Moto, or you can send an email to actually at hole in the headpod.com want your own aerial mug, check out alamotomugs.com and use the code actually for 10% off. That's a l, a, m, o, t, O mugs.com, and check out code. Actually, this podcast is produced and edited by hole in the head moto. We'll see you next time you.