I Love My Wife...

Here's what she got me for Christmas...it arrived today...



I took this image off the website but it looks just like it!!!

It'll be great with my new T5z...can't wait for the spring!

Don

I should add that the reason I know what it is already is she was so excited to see if it was the right one she made me open it early so she could call and reorder today if it was the wrong one.

you are a lucky man, you must ahve dropped a hint because those mgw's are the most expenisve and nicest shifters out there.

That's what's so amazing! I mentioned it this past summer while whining about having to rebuild my T5. I said how it would be nice to have a new shifter as the stock one sucks. I then went off on a tangent about how I'd read about this shifter by MGW and that I'd read it was totally awesome. I obsessed for probably 20 minutes or so...you know how it is And that was it. I never mentioned it again and BAM here it is.

SOOOO I ask her how she knew and she told me she remembered the brand because MGW is close to MGD which I order to drink when we're out to eat. So my taste in draft beer kept it in her mind. She said she surfed the net and then called and told the guy what I had for a car/tranny and it was on the way.

She's great...remind me to tell you all about the time she took delivery of my rear axle...

Now, how do I connect that Blue Thunder dual quad intake with something I eat? Hmmm

You are one lucky bastard Don. My wife has absolutely no interest in my car and even had the nerve to call it ( gasp! ) ugly! It's a good thing I can control myself or I'd be spending xmas at the crowbar hotel right now and for the next 20 to life lol.

Yeah, I am a lucky SOB. We started dating when I was 18 and building my 1967 Fairlane GTA. She actually helped me reassemble the engine. She installed 4 of the pistons and all of the connecting rod caps (I torqued them down). Then when I set the motor back in she held the headers in place so I wouldn't crush them.

She loved that car but too many Michigan winters destroyed the subframes so I ended up selling ti to a guy who was restoring another GTA.

When we went to look at the Fairmont she said, "that's a cute car, I think you should buy it."

detroitiron2000 wrote:

When we went to look at the Fairmont she said, "that's a cute car, I think you should buy it."

You're too close to the situation. Your wife is warped, man. Don't get me wrong. She's warped in the best possible way, but she is warped all the same.

The best thing about your wife is that, when she buys you car stuff, she buys you the RIGHT car stuff. My wife used to try, but she gave up because she would buy *almost* the right thing. Like the time that I really really wanted Global West rear lower control arms (which are pretty awesome, by the way), and she got me some Lakewoods. I gave her credit for the attempt, and I would've loved to keep them so that she would've been all happy with herself, but two polyurethane bushings just aren't the same as a spherical rod end on the front, and a delrin/aluminum bushing at the back. Now she just asks me how much money something is, and if she can afford it, I get it.

"Never use a Gatling gun in the house."

Later,
Mike.

Just eat Blue cheeze dressing during every Thunder storm......hmmm!! That could get you that intake....

detroitiron2000 wrote:

That's what's so amazing! I mentioned it this past summer while whining about having to rebuild my T5. I said how it would be nice to have a new shifter as the stock one sucks. I then went off on a tangent about how I'd read about this shifter by MGW and that I'd read it was totally awesome. I obsessed for probably 20 minutes or so...you know how it is And that was it. I never mentioned it again and BAM here it is.

SOOOO I ask her how she knew and she told me she remembered the brand because MGW is close to MGD which I order to drink when we're out to eat. So my taste in draft beer kept it in her mind. She said she surfed the net and then called and told the guy what I had for a car/tranny and it was on the way.

She's great...remind me to tell you all about the time she took delivery of my rear axle...

Now, how do I connect that Blue Thunder dual quad intake with something I eat? Hmmm

Warped? I can go with that! She writes everything down and forgets nothing!!

The rear axle story...

So I "need" an 8.8 for the 'mont. I call around and find this 8.8 from an '88 TC with discs and only 16k miles on it. They'll sell it complete with all brake parts and control arms for $450 shipped if it can go to a business address. Well, my wife works for a towing company/auto repair place in their office and they let me use them for drop shipments. Well, just so happens that the day the axle arrives is a blizzard here so all of the guys are on the road doing towing work so she's the only person there to help the trucker unload the axle. So he slides it to the back of the truck and hops down and she grabs one end, he grabs the other and they haul it into the shop. Now that's true love! I went over after work to pick it up and the owner asks me how it is a 120 pound woman can lift half an axle LOL. I told him, she may be tiny but she's a powerhouse

Now where that Marzetti's dressing?

Thats awesome man, I hope to find a woman like that

I restored a '67 Fairlane GTA for a cop buddy of mine that always wanted one. Used the original S code block and ported heads, 427 solid cam and kit, aluminum 428 PI intake, '69 428 CJ exhaust manifolds, 2 weak springs in the dist, 3K converter and 3:25 Trac-Loc. Car absolutely hauls. I think I've got some pics of it here somewhere...

Nice shifter BTW.

-Mike S.

When I built my GTA I used a "mirror 105" block and took it out to 428 cubes, 427 med riser heads ported/polished, tri-power intake, Hooker headers, Mallory dual point dist, 3k converter and 3.90 Trac Loc. I had the C6 rebuilt at Tracy Performance in Sterling Heights, MI (a Corvette shop) by the guy that used to build Gene "The Snowman" Snow's trannys. It was set up just shy of being a manaul automatic. When it shifted...man, the slams...leads to another funny wife story...

The first night I had the car out my wife (then girlfriend) asks if she can drive it. I say okay but only on side streets until she gets used to the power. Well, she drives around for a few blocks and says she's headed out on the main road. She decides she has to turn left which means she has to cross two lanes of traffic and a left turn lane. We're from metro-Detroit so you can imagine the traffic is heavy. I keep saying, "turn right," but she insists on heading back toward home so it's left. Finally she sees this tiny break in traffic and hits the gas hard. We come screaming off the side street, tires squealing, car sliding sideways...she's yelling and asking me what to do, I'm freaking out cuz I just got the car on the road...well, thank goodness traffic stops and lets her get it all under control. She makes a right into the first parking lot she sees, get's out and tells me she never wants to drive the car again. And you know what? That was 1980 and I had the car until 1993 and she never did drive it again. That car hauled ass but what really made it tough to drive was the constant gear slams because the tranny was so damn tight.

Post up the pics of the GTA!

Don

I did this car about ten years ago. It was a rust free AZ desert car, but everything that wasn't steel was crispy from years in a back yard in south Phoenix. I removed most of the original interior with a shop vac. It had to be taken down to a bare shell and brought back up from there. It's a somewhat rare color combo, with the side trim from a base model 2dr sedan installed at the dealer when the car was new. The owner wanted it to look completely stock and original, right down to the Firestone Wide Oval bias ply tires, so that's what he got. He had the car for years before taking it to me, and in that time, he bought loads of NOS parts back when you could get them reasonably - trim items, grille, headlight doors which are GT/GTA specific, tail panel, taillight buckets, all lenses inside and out, even an NOS dash pad. Restoring the instrument cluster was one of the most complex parts of the process, it was disassembled, the gauges rebuilt by a specialist in Georgia, and the plastic parts were restored and replated in Canada. The plater company was even able to make a new decal that had all the correct white lettering on it for the heater controls, and it's a radio delete cluster. It came to me on a trailer and in three pickup trucks. It's a neat car, and the handling and braking is much better than I would have expected with that heavy-ass FE and on those tires. The pics aren't up to modern standards because 1.5 megapixel was the order of the day, how far we've come since then in digital photography.













-Mike S.

Sweet car...love to have one myself.