Introducing Garfield Sep 10, 2007
Per has got a pending sale on the Saabaru and in partial trade, it comes with this little gem, an original paint Sunset Orange 1974 EMS. Sounds like we can fix it up as a driver to use daily while the rally car gets more wild. Now to figure out how to get it down here from the Irvine, KY area, and the Saabaru back up there.
Our friend Jason helped us get the car down here from Kentucky this past weekend. Lee Grimes of Koni is the son of the owners and also helped get the car loaded onto Jason’s trailer.
One of the neat things about Garfield is that it comes with the last set of Koni shocks that were made for the 99.
Our plans for the car are to simply treat it as a survivor and get it back on the road as a fun daily driver.
It turns out that the original owner of Garfield wasn’t an employee of cartoonist Jim Davis, it was Jim Davis. Jim owned the car and either sold it or traded it to a car dealership in Muncie, In. (Bradburn Oldsmobile). Richard Ramsdell (Lee Grimes’ step dad) purchased the car and brought it to Kentucky. At one point, a friend of the Ramsdells, Mark Garrett, owned the car for a few years, selling it back to Richard, who kept it until we bought it this past weekend.
It’s kind of fun to trace the history of a new-to-us car, especially when it passes through the hands of friends and relatively famous people.
Garfield goes to Florida... Sep 13, 2007
Garfield made it to Florida, and we immediately started cleaning and inspecting.
The only rust-through is a weird spot in the middle of the door, possibly where the inner door beam rubbed against the outer door skin. The rest of the rust is all surface and can be treated without welding.
The smell of varnished gas is pretty pungent. We've drained and removed the stock gas tank from the orange car and compared it to the one on the 77. The later tank is a little larger and uses an in-tank fuel pump. It’s also simpler in terms of hoses and return lines.
Paintwork On a Survivor Sep 16, 2007
Last night, we ran new fuel lines for the fuel injection system, as the originals were dry rotted and unsafe, then started on our rust and paint repair.
We cleaned off a few spots of surface rust with a Dremel tool, then treated them.
A brush and a jar of catalyzed paint made our touch ups a little more permanent. A lot of buffing and polishing brought back some shine, too.
The trunklid had quite a bit of checking from mismatched paint types. We carefully applied paint stripper and we removed the layers of paint until we were down to the original coat (which resisted the short-term application of the chemical) and the one area of bodywork that originally led to the cruddy paintwork.
We mixed up some of the Sunset Orange in a Dupont Centari and sprayed it using a Preval disposeable airbrush.
Some wet sanding with 1200 and 1500 grit sandpaper has started the process of blending in our new sections of paint.
Frankentank Sep 17, 2007
The tank from the Grassroots Motorsports 1977 Saab rally car went back in the 74 last night. We had to use the intank fuel pump and brackets for the 1977 in the older car, as well as rerouting a few fuel lines. We’ve got to connect a few more things and it should be good(er) to go.
Garfield on the Prowl Sep 21, 2007
We hooked up the fuel lines and wiring for the fuel pump. After a few cranks, the car came back to life. It starts, stops, steers and shifts!
We drove Garfield to work today. The brakes are a little spongey, so we didn’t take it above 45 mph, but it ran straight with just a little bit of “wiggle” from some pretty craptacular tires. We’ll be remedying both problems shortly. We’re going to refinish one of our sets of Soccerball alloys for this car.