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Please save me from myself!

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jsneddon

jsneddon

Jedi Knight
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I've been keeping my mouth shut because I want to snipe this ebay auction: https://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayIS...TRK%3AMEWA%3AIT

NFI and all that - I don't know the guy from adam.

a under-$300 beater spitfire with a 6 stuffed in it less than 60 miles from my house. Says it runs but the radiator leaks... sitting 4 years. No interior but seats. No top....

I've been thinking about grabbing it and beating it around town but the more I think about it I should just keep focusing on the 3 and not get involved with a second car right now...

but I also know that if at 6:30 on saturday night it is still below $300 I'm going to try to snipe it....

The bidding pattern shows that they are really being conservative and I bet $301 would do the trick....

Grrrrr... talk me out of it....

but then again... How much could I get a GT6 bonnet for?

but then again... 300 bucks plus registration plus 250 for a new top plus 3 or 4 for a gt6 bonnet is a grand I really should save and use on the TR3...

but then again when am I going to find a running beater LBC for under 500 bucks?

dang these little cars...
 
If you want to be saved from your LBC addiction, you're talking to the wrong group! Do a Google search for "Long Suffering Wives of LBC Owners" - maybe you'll have more luck. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
A couple of us LBC nuts at work just bought a MGB beater. When I told my wife, she rolled her eyes, shook her head, and got quiet. Later that night after brushing her teeth for bed, she got that serious wife look most of us have seen, and said are you bringing it home? The correct answer was "no". /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/iagree.gif I do agree. We do no want a cure for the addiction.
 
Jim -

Everyone knows that the first step to recovery is to admit you have a problem. Not sure if you're there yet (I'm certainly not!)

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/jester.gif Mickey
 
Th only problem I have is a lack of storage space...
At least that's the only one I'll try to correct. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/devilgrin.gif
 
[ QUOTE ]
If you want to be saved from your LBC addiction, you're talking to the wrong group! Do a Google search for "Long Suffering Wives of LBC Owners" - maybe you'll have more luck. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Something stolen from the Healey e-mail list that's applicable here too, perhaps:

You've made great progress, let's revisit the 12 step recovery program for Healeyholics Anonymous:

Step 1: Denial. You deny the fact that an Austin Healey is hot, sweaty, gas hogging, and obsolete, and are convinced that it can beat a 2002 Hyundai Sonata around the Sears Point Raceway. You deny to every rubbernecker that the thing breaks down all the time.

Step 2: Acceptance. Learn to accept the dependency and emotional or psychiatric illness of obsolete car ownership, and accept the need to develop and practice a personal program for fixing your Healey without pissing off the wife or looting the kids' college funds.

Step 3: Help. Choose a source of help and decide to use that source of help for fixing your Healey. That source of help may be referred to as a "Higher Power" or any other name that feels comfortable, but the "healey email forum" is probably sufficient.

Step 5: Identify Assets and Liabilities. Your Healey is probably a pretty good asset. The liability is your unwillingness to sell it, even if you are 4 months behind on your mortgage payments.

Step 6: Change. Work with a personal source of help (Higher Power) to strengthen the personal assets for your Healey by fixing it up per Factory Spec and ignore the fact that you'll never sell your Healey, unless you intend to buy a better Healey for cheaper of course, which will probably be never.

Step 7: Mend Relationships. Identify people who have been negatively affected by your Healey Disorder (the wife), work to mend those relationships. The best way to do this is to take her for a nice long drive (without the kids) and attempt some version of contortionist 'what-not' in the back seat (if you have a 2+2 of course).

Step 8: Maintain the Healey and Prevent Relapse. Continue to fix the Healey (even if it doesn't need any more fixing) and remove liabilities that pose a risk by continuing to work with a personal source of help (Higher Power or "healey email forum").

Step 9: Help Others: Share with others who experience this maniacal disorder by posting useless information about which BSF threaded 4-branched "whats-it" attaches with what UNF castle-nut "doohickey" to run the hydraulic switch "what-not" because "that's the way the factory did it." Advise others against putting in the 49 cent JCWhitney plastic replacement and blow $356 in parts to install the 4-branched "Trafficator bushing relay (part No. AEC4599885X)" that costs $356.


I've never seen the missing steps... guess they were playing with the car and missed them.... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/jester.gif
 
Go for it! Once you get it running and hit the gas pedal, you won't regret it! I bought a Spit6 a year ago to play with over the summer. I was supposed to sell it before winter so I had some garage space. Nope...couldn't let it go! I drove it today!...:smile:
 
But surely someone has a spare bedroom for Jim should it come to that.

I had a similar test of will a couple of months ago when a little old lady who I had been pestering 6 years ago to sell me her TR3 finally decided to part with it -- for next to nothing. Unfortunately I no longer had the garage space I had back then and had to let it pass me by.
 
[ QUOTE ]
for most of us the LBC addiction rehab program is spelled.....WIFE

[/ QUOTE ]

Indeed...

I use her ebay account because she's got the feedback and I've never bothered.... so she got the answers to some questions that I asked him....

I got home the other night and had this conversation:

"Are you buying another car?" not really - I'm just kinda looking.

"How much is it?" Under 300 bucks.

"What are you going to do with it?" Drive it to work on sunny days....

After she got up off the floor from laughing she said "who's going to come and get you every time it breaks down? And what's wrong with the one you have that you never drive to work?"

Women... can't live with 'em... wouldn't trade 'em for the world.... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
Some possible options;
1) With all the support you get here. One of the "guys" will surely buy it if your wife beats you up too badly.
2) You can always say you plan to do just enough work to get it on the road, then flip it for a handsome profit.
#2 presents you with additional options;
2a) "Just enough work" takes an extended period of time. During which you're happily driving the car.
2b) Mysteriously no one is interested in buying the car when you are ready to flip it. This presents her with the opportunity to poke semi-malicious fun at your foolishness. Wives thrive on that kind of thing. It gives them something to complain about to their friends and they feel like they have the upper hand in the household. All the while you appear to be suffering when in reality you are enjoying your new toy.
 
bob, you've done this before /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cheers.gif however i can store the car at my place /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/canpatriot.GIF and you don't even have to tell her. actually i would like to store a mk1 gt6 at my place /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/devilgrin.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/angel.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif. any takers? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
rob
 
[ QUOTE ]
2) You can always say you plan to do just enough work to get it on the road, then flip it for a handsome profit.
#2 presents you with additional options;
2a) "Just enough work" takes an extended period of time. During which you're happily driving the car.


[/ QUOTE ]

LBC Ownership Axiom:

<ul type="square">
[*]My British car is not running and hasn't done so in quite some time.
[*]I ought to sell it, but its not worth much if it isn't running so... I need to get it running to sell it...
[*]Ah, it so much fun to drive the car again... I really can't sell it now, its running so well...
[*]It quit working, I really should sell it, but its not worth much when its not running. I ought to get it running again....

[/list]

And its goes on, and on, and on.... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/jester.gif
 
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