Greg In The Desert

Today’s look at Albuquerque Craigslist cars and truck ads finds all red vintage fords. Almost.

A beautiful red 1965 Ford Galaxie LTD with white interior for $3650. A good price if it runs wells.

Has good running 390 4V (factory 4V car) auto. Solid body. Has Power steering and is a AC car, Looks like all the AC stuff is their but the belt was removed from the AC compressor, so I am guessing it either needs Freon or mybe new seals in the compressor. I dont know I bought it just like it sits. Did have current plates on it when I bought it, it was being driven. Good Interior. Dual Exhaust and 9 inch rear end. Good deal for only $3650.00 , Has good NM title.

A 1965 Ford Galaxie 500 that looks to be in good shape for a nearly 45 year old vehicle. For $5000 is better run.

1965 Ford Galaxie 500. 2 door hardtop. 289 with two bbl carb newly rebuilt. Runs great starts right up and is an attention getter. Orange and white paint with Orange and white interior. Calling will be a better way to get a hold of me.

A 1966 Ford Mustang with low miles and in good shape for $2500. I have to wonder why it has a salvage title.

1966 Mustang – SALVAGE Title.$2500.00, Low mileage since engine and transmission were rebuilt 6 years ago. 200cc straight 6 engine, Automatic Transmission. My sons lost interest earlier after stripping paint off of trunk and side as you can see. Small dent on passenger door and front right light shroud damaged. No rust that I could see.

While this could have been a all red Ford craiglist round up, I couldn’t resist this next car. A 1992 Buick Rivera (Rivvy on D’s?) with a gold chain steering wheel and champaign bucket for $2950. Good luck explaining that to APD.

1992 RIVIERA, CRAZY NICE, COME SEE, CASH & CARRY, 9701 CENTRAL NE

I often check out the Albuquerque Craigslist to see what kind of cars are being sold.

There seems to be a number of project cars listed on Craigslist, like this 1941 Chevrolet Master Deluxe.

I’M SELLING THIS 1941 CHEVY MASTER DELUXE CLASSIC CAR IT HAS A NEW ENGINE AND, ALL THE WINDOWS. JUST NEEDS A NEW TRANSMISSION AND WILL BE READY TO RUN. I ALSO HAVE A CLEAN TITLE FOR THE CAR. IM ASKING $4,500.00 O.B.O

I always liked the massive boat-like cars of the 1970’s. This 1975 Lincoln Mark IV is only $5000. Seems kind of expensive but it depends on the miles.

1975 460 motor Runs well, current registration, Power Steering, Power Brakes, Air conditioning, Fender replaced. $5000 OBO

Apparently the economy is hitting everyone, including the rich. This 2004 Dodge Viper is $52000.

2004 Dodge Viper. This baby is one of a kind, convertable or hartop. It has a V10 engine with 505 horsepower, 6 speed manual trani, antilock brakes, xeon head light, power steering, tilt steering wheel, power asjustable pedals, ac, power window, power locks, gauge cluster, clock, odometer, techometer, leather interior, rear defroster, mirror tilt, 6 CD changer, with remolt keyless entry. Low miles (25,500.00) , garaged and covered, never seen snow or rain. It is in excellent condition, run like a dream car. Selling below N A D A blue book

I think I’ve got the worst of my front end issues resolved. When I had the springs replaced last year, there were still issues. I wasn’t quite sure what was left but I figured it was something to do with the brakes. My neglect of the system paid off this week.

The sound of metal on metal scraping is almost as bad as finger nails on a chalk board. I wore down my right front brake pad to nothing, leaving the metal backing to scrape against the rotor. I’d been meaning to get it checked as it was getting worse and worse, i could feel it. The steering wheel would vibrate back and forth when I would brake, for example.

It turns out, I would have needed to replace the rotor anyways. In fact both the left and right rotors needed replaced. I did go 100,000+ miles on these, not too bad. I’ve got friends with brand new cars and have had them replaced under warranty more than once.

It cost me just under $600 to have the job done. Might seem like a lot but I was quite happy it was that cheap. It was fixed and running in under 3 hours. I could have done the job for probably $200 or less, but I’d risk the chance that it would still be up in the air a week later trying to figure out why I can’t get it back together. This is a 4×4, which it makes it a magnitude of scale more difficult (aka a pain in the ass).

I did however replace the spark plugs myself this weekend. This is an easy enough job but still cost me about $75 in plugs and wires. It took me almost a day to complete because of all the crap I had to take off the engine to get to the plugs. Since I had never replaced them before, the wire boots were nice and baked onto the plugs. Let’s see how good my mileage is now.

All that’s left is a front end alignment and oil change. It’s nice to have my wheels drive down the road, in a straight line, without a lot of annoying vibration. Ski season is right around the corner, so it needs to be in tip top condition.

I swear once get a house and a place to actually build it, project Maverick will be powered by MacOS X. Unfortunately it looks like these guys beat me to it.

The team has developed it’s Tiger-powered customized Touareg car (dubbed “Dora”) using Mac OS X technologies for the entire development and race management for the attempt. Power Mac G5’s running OS X inside the car control electronic pistons and belts to control the steering wheel, brake and gas pedals, and gear shifter.

I’ve pretty much got my desgin concepts down, I’ve even put together some prototype software. Including the light in the hood that moves back and forth, it will be a CPU activity monitor.