A Ride for the trip west

In the form of a ’93 Toyota Forerunner. Imagine my surprise when I got an email saying “You won your Ebay item!” I bid I more or less forgot about, or didn’t expect to get – I put in 1750 for a truck that bluebooks for around 3500. Turns out I got it for 1575. Not bad. Except sold “as is.” Headed up to Elverson Pennsylvania, “The Jeep Shop,” to find the old girl sitting in the rain, off to the side like a red-headed stepchild. Equipped with Mickey Thompson 16″ mud tires, rust over the wheel wells, banged up pretty good, but supposedly she drove. She did. At least down the road to get registration – exponentially cheaper with temporary in-transit plates, with the idea that I would be traveling to Alaska and thus not have to pay Philadelphia sales tax.

In any case – I drove the old girl – Mathilda I’ve taken to calling her – down the street, a good rattle going from the tire treads – I imagined her blushing at her loud noises as we cruised down the ave. A bushing or something or other clinked, echoing off the concrete dividers. I filled Mathilda with gas and drove down 76, a bit confused at how we were almost at half a tank by the time I got to downtown. I called my guy Kong and he agreed to take a look. He put her up on the lift – a leak from the gas line, perhaps the tank itself. It would need to be dropped. Also an oil leak – probably a valve cover gasket, something I could take care of along with the brakes. It was slowly becoming clear that she had been something of a kept woman – not in the spoiled mistress sense, but in the used and abused by a bunch of off-roading nutsos until she was just about worn. She would need some chicken soup and a hell of a lot of bondo.

And a door. Actually she didn’t really need one – but Reed has a love affair with the Gianna’s “You Pull It!” junkyard near the airport – you know you’re in a great part of town when you’ve got just strip clubs and junkyards. Although the Purple Orchid and Oasis do hold a special place in my heart.

So we got up early on a Sunday and headed out to see what we could dig up. Word at the front desk of Gianna’s was that there was one 93ish Toyota Forerunner in the entire yards – easily a couple square miles. We dutifully opened our bags at the entrance so they could search the tools we came in with, and began our search. The place was organized by types of vehicle – SUVS here, coupes here, trucks here. I tell you – post-apocalyptic. Steam rising from the refineries, occasional yelling matches over two people picking over the same vehicle, trucks propped up on tires, old playing cards from road trips, a doll left in a crib, VHS copies of “Princess Bride,” puddles of glistening motor oil, and a gas-powered cruncher presiding over it all.

You do get a sense of what vehicles are good and which aren’t. I tell you there were more Jeep Cherokees there, more Ford Escorts. Nary a Toyota it seemed. But we did find our 93 – which turned out to be an 89. Reed went back to check the truck to make sure it was a good fit. I pulled the door. And also the letter “A” at the end of “Toyota” which I was missing. And off we went back to the double-wide functioning as an office.

“Hundred dollars,” the pockmarked dude said.
“You said 80 on the phone,” Reed said.

“80 dollars.”

And 80 it was. We had ourselves a door. Reed also had himself a vintage container of French furniture police – currently filled with linseed oil, which he emptied out.

Back at the shop I grinded away on the truck, having fun with fiberglass mesh and Bondo, not having much clue of what I was doing – but hell, the rust was coming out. And it felt satisfying, watching the pond-colored rust disappear to reveal the silver steel beneath. The speed of the fiberglass hardening. The ease with which Bondo can be sanded.

I also bought brake pads and rotors, which we attempted to change, but ended up dumping a bunch of brake fluid out onto the gravel. That could wait.