Runnin' with the Pack

Movies are awesome.  I love watching a good story with good action told in a compelling manner on screen.  Some movies really find a way to capture your imagination and keep you involved long after the projector has turned off.  People start to imagine life within the world of the film and find like-minded people to talk to and hang out with, and next thing you know, it's a cult classic, and people are doing cosplay and writing fan fictions and recreating things from the movie and having conventions.  These movies live on through time and are handed down like oral tradition.

One of these movies is Mad Max.  I love Mad Max, but I love the Road Warrior (Mad Max 2) even better.  I doubt I'm alone on that one.  Beyond Thunderdome is... the third one, but the Road Warrior is where it's at.  It's the one that really makes you wonder how you'd survive in the world of the Wasteland.  I doubt I'd do very well, but that's not the point.  I hate to admit that I haven't seen the fourth one, but I do own it, and as soon as I can borrow a decent home theatre space, I'll watch the crap out of that.  I'm thinking (based on what I've seen and heard) probably better than the first, but not better than the second.  We'll see.

Last weekend, I took the opportunity to tag along on a Mad Max themed motorcycle ride.  I was a bit hesitant when i arrived because I had no motorcycle or suitable attire, but I wanted to experience it and capture it in my photography.  After hanging around the starting point and taking some cool shots, I asked the leader of the pack if it was cool that I tag along.  I knew he was also gifted with the photogenic eye, so I figured he'd be cool.  For as foreboding, ominous, and troublesome as they look, the people in this group couldn't have been nicer, and they were very generous and kind and totally ok with me not matching.  I have ideas on how to fix that though.

The bikes

I thoroughly enjoyed the drivers' meeting before they left.  He talked about how there was rain coming and they were going to change the route to accommodate the issues that could cause.  He talked about some things they didn't want recurring from the last run.  My favorite part, though, was when he gave the basic itinerary.  He basically said that they were going to go to a bar to avoid the rain, go be hooligans in a certain area "until the authorities chase us out," go be hooligans in another place "until the authorities chase us out," and then go eat lunch.  I couldn't help but smile when I heard that.  This was gonna be a fun day.

I had tried to keep my composure as he gave our itinerary.  That was funny.

It was pretty impressive to see them all line up in the street before they took off for mayhem.  We left and drove through downtown Milwaukee on our way through the rain to our hide from the rain destination.  I was accompanied by three other non-motorcycles on the trip.  I'm guessing on years, but I'd say there was a '65 F-100, a '57 Plymouth... whatever the old Coronets would be as a Plymouth, and the landmark: Big Daddy War Bus.  I followed the bus figuring I wouldn't be able to lose him.  Pretty sure he road his brakes the whole time which made it kinda hairy when he actually did slow down, but I was enjoying myself too much to care.

I was glad I wasn't the only car at the bike ride.

We departed Edge-O-Ghetto and proceeded through the East side near UWM and down to the lake front and through downtown.  I was having a blast watching all the people on the sidewalks looking at what had just passed them by.  The look of wonder, amazement, and "what the???" was hilarious to watch as we rode along.  Some people thought it was cool, some wondered what was going on, and some just passed it off as just another day.  I'm convinced they didn't know just how badass it really was.

Traffic stops for these bamfs.

Clearing the roadway of any unwanted animals, debris, or people in our way.

Just too cool.

We got to the rain destination (after driving through a short downpour), and the group split.  Some people stayed outside while it was dry, and some went in.  The outside group eventually retreated to the War Bus when it did rain.  I took the opportunity to check out the Bus, but eventually went inside.  Before looking at the Bus, there was a group of about eight of us standing outside listening to Chad (the daredevil with the sidecar) telling some stories.  As he was talking, a group of about fifteen guys walked out of the bar ( they carried themselves like a bachelor party, I thought), and when they were near us, one guy called out to our group, "Hey, what's your favorite movie?"  Chad turned, mid-sentence, without missing a beat and replied, "Death of a Salesman."  I couldn't stop laughing.  That was probably my favorite thing of the whole ride.  I had to take this picture to accompany the story then.

Nothin' goin' on here.  Go about your business.

The family the rides together...

Chad: Mad Max fan, rider of 2/3 of his wheels, Death of a Salesman fan.

The fun wasn't simple relegated to outside though.  Inside with the rest of the group, we bumped into a wedding party too.  I commented the odd juxtaposition of "our motley crew" on one side, and the tuxedoed gentlemen of the wedding.  There was a photographer trying to take pictures of the bride and groom, and I tried to take a stealthy one of them, but failed.  I did successfully mingle with the group, however.  I met several people in the group throughout the few stops and got a chance to get to know them a bit and share our common interests.  A lot of photographers in the group.  I had lunch with two people who even did 35mm too.  I thought that was pretty cool.  (Sadly, the weather didn't hold for me to take some cool rainy night shots on 35mm that night, so I went home.)  I kinda hope I get to run into some of these people again before the next run in Fall.

Unless they won't have me...

After the rain let up, we drove down around the Port of Milwaukee (one of my favorite places to chill), and we found a big gravelly place to park while some people hooned for a bit.  Some of us got some cool pictures of the group down there, and had some short, impromptu photo shoots with individuals and their bikes, but soon the group was curious enough to investigate some other features of the area.  This exploration led to us getting noticed, and that, in turn, led us to getting "chased out by the authorities..." even if it was just a forman saying we couldn't be in the spherical silo.  In the end, our stay in the Port was short-lived, and with the weather not co-operating, our ride was similarly short-lived.  We then went to our lunch stop which would turn into our final stop.

Who's gonna chase out the bus?!

By the end of the day, I found myself driving home (the long way) thinking about just how cool the experience was.  I really enjoyed the spectacle of the costumes and modded bikes and vehicles, and I wished I had something to bring to the table in that respect.  I really wondered how cool it would be to go to Wasteland Weekend and home much more of this that would be, but I also wondered since this was just a bonus ride, how much better the actual ride was a few weeks earlier.  What I really need to do is make a costume to wear for next time, and buy another Crown Vic that I could build into a post-apocalyptic 4x4 with a short lift and pre-runner bar.  Yes, I'm referring back to the Sno Leopard.  I could build that by May 2017, right?  Right?!

He's probably thinking, "Keep dreamin'."

See all the pictures from the ride here, and like my photography page!

Practice

Makes perfect
(Photo credit: Caitlin Fogle)
(The rest are mine or movie footage)

The Annual Traffic Jam in the Dells: Automotion 2016

If you've ever driven through the Wisconsin Dells on the third weekend of May, you'll understand where I'm coming from.  The struggle is real!  The drive down the strip normally takes about 12-15 minutes from the freeway to the big, open intersection on the North end of town where you turn to go downtown (which is really up a hill), but during the weekend, you can expect anywhere up to and sometimes exceeding and hour and a half due to all the cars driving down that road during this event.  It's kinda crazy, yet still cool to see all the cars cruising.

Favorite car of the weekend

Originally, Automotion was a classic car show and swap meet at Mount Olympus.  This year, I think there were five different car shows plus two or three burnout contests, Hollywood on Broadway (where there are several movie and TV cars parked downtown), and even a drift track at a local paved oval.  The main thing that is inescapable, though, is the cruise.  Wherever you want to get, you need to cruise the strip for some portion of your travels.  And that's really the big draw.

That traffic... for three days

People want to cruise and see who and what is cruising.  You can see pretty much anything on the strip.  From concourse restorations to rice burners, rat rods to garage-built works in progress, high dollar to high schoolers, muscle cars to 4x4s, and crotch rockets to trikes and choppers, pretty much every category is covered driving around there somewhere.  You just need to keep your eyes peeled.  There's no good way to explain the diversity at this weekend-long event other than showing you through photography.  The pictures I took were less for the sake of beautiful pictures and more for the sake of documentation, but feel free to look at them to see what it is I'm on about.  It's so fun to sit and watch the cruise or jump in and drive that in three years of attending, I've never even been to the actual show!  Someday, I'll fix that... but I say that every year.

Or I'll just fix my A/C and cruise my car all weekend

Check out all the pictures here.  See other things I've shot here.

Rehab

Look at it; just sittin' there.  Wantin' to drive.

With my Vic now home, I had to figure out a game plan for what yo do with it.  The original thought was that I wanted an '03, but I found a deal on an '02, so I figured gut the interior for the next one and just drive this until you get sick of it.  After seeing it in person and driving the six hours home, I realized that this car is really kinda good.  Also, they changed the door panels in '03, so if I found a car with a black interior, the only things I really could steal from this car are the seats and console.  Two years later, I've decided I'll build my own console not out of plastic, and I'll just find the seat covers.  With this realization, I found myself looking down the slippery slope of project Bitchin' Daily... Then I tripped.

It's just too cool.

First thing's first; the door hits the fender, and my headlight is held in with zip ties.  We started pulling it apart, and we found the car needed a new fender, inner fender, core support, header panel, and marker light because I had already bought a new headlight.  This project was long, tedious, and not something I'm really looking to do again anytime soon.  Between paying for parts and paying back the money I had borrowed from my mom to buy it and only making $8.50/hr, it was a long road to getting this thing back on the road.

She needed some work

I filled the Impreza with parts.  Not imprezive,

It also needed some overlooked maintenance.

I had some help fixing it, and a deadline in my head to get it ready by; I wanted to take my car on band tour in August.  We worked on this thing for quite a while before it was ready, but eventually, I had it on the road in time for the pre-tour rehearsal and drove it to Milwaukee with my drums tucked neatly in the trunk.  (Fun side note: of all the cars I've had at my disposal, the Crown Vic is the best drum set hauler.  I can fit the whole rig, tools, full-size spare tire, small jack and all my clothes in the trunk and still carry 4-5 people in the car.  Full-size for the win!)  I drove to Milwaukee, and that's when I actually noticed the torque converter shudder.  Not knowing what it was, I played it safe and didn't drive the car back down to Indiana and up to Michigan that week.  Total bummer.

Someday I might actually finish replacing the blend door motor.

It's gotta get worse before it can get better.

Crown Vic is still the master of drum set hauling.

Nice, new, reproduction fender

Primed

Old and new

VHT Chassis Black

I couldn't have done this without help from a few key friends.

No hood is a good look.

My favorite photo from the rehab period.  I drove two miles like this, and I passed a local and county cop almost back to back; no issues.

Almost down to the core support

There it is

Then new fender

Nailed it!

Later that Fall, we fixed the leak caused by a missing exhaust gasket.  That was fun to watch the guy with the grinder, but my car lost its sound after that.  It wasn't until this Spring that we actually fixed the side where the tailpipe was disconnected in front of the axle causing exhaust to get pulled into the back window when it was open.  How did we fix that, you say?  By replacing the tailpipe... and replacing the mufflers with straight pipes.  Now it sounds great, and it has some sweet backfires when you rev it up.  It feels like a muscle sedan.  I love it.

Doesn't fit well in the garage

Last April, I had pieced all the parts I needed together over the Winter, and it was time to do some major rehabilitation on the car's lack of good maintenance.  We replaced inner and outer tie rods, adjusting sleeves, all four Moog ball joints, Moog idler arm, polyurethane control arm bushings, P71 front coil springs, KYB P71 shocks on all four corners, heavy duty limo spec air springs, sway bar links, all four pads and rotor with "Severe Duty" semi-metallic pads (designed for towing and pursuit), belt, hoses, coolant flush, plugs, one new ignition coil... I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but that was over a year ago, and it was a lot of parts.

Polyurethane bushings for the front end

Police spec KYB shocks all around

The suspension installer

Hard at work.

Look at all those empty boxes.

We might have a problem.

I think we raised it too high.

Oh, yeah.  Definitely too high...

We also decided to try a trans flush with some Seafoam Trans Tune to try to clean up the solenoids that were most likely causing the shudder.  Seafoam is a highly refine oil that works great for cleaning things in your engine, and their Trans Tune is five times the concentration of the regular Seafoam.  It worked great.  We also figure, while it was open, we should install a $80 shift kit I bought from AmericanMuscle.com for a New Edge Mustang of the same year with the same motor and trans.  That also worked great.  They advertised tire chirping shifts, but so far the only thing I've chirped had been the belt.  Although, I did also install some decent used Michelins on the rear and some amazing new Continental Extreme Contact DWS06 tires on the front and eventually on the back too (because the Michelins were mad at how I do burnouts, now the Contis won't let me).  These tires are great and stick really well in corners with my 4,000 lb car.  I even left the fronts on over the winter with no real issues!  Not bad for a high performance Summer tire.

I love these tires.

I wanted my car to be done for Automotion 2015, but it just missed it.  I wound up getting it all ready to go in time for Hot Rod Power Tour 2015 a few weeks later instead.  I'll tell you about that trip later, but we went 1,200 miles in four days with no issues to speak of.  It's really needed next to nothing since then too.  I changed the belt tensioner and idler pulley, and I finally bought a marker light, but mechanically... No. It does have an oil leak, and the bearing is going for the steering gear which has also ruined the seal.  I also kind of want to flush the brake fluid, cut the coils in front, the driver's window regulator is on its way out, and I still haven't fixed the blend door.  I'm talking about fixing the rest of the paint and body work possibly this Summer, and I've got a guy who will literally give me a LSD with 4.11 gears for this thing which raises the debate of powerslides vs highway mileage.  Maybe I'll try to get a 3.73 ring and pinion to fit his carrier.  We'll see.

The first day I drove it to work.

So this is what has been done to my car in the two years I've owned it.  I love my car.  It's one of my favorite chassis so far that I've driven.  This is my second Vic, and I've decided I need about six more for the projects in my head, but until then, I'll keep rockin' my bitchin' daily because she's a good girl when she has to be, but she's naughty when you want it.  I love my car.

My car and I on set, acting like a police chief.