Hi Everyone!
Ive been reading through this forum for a couple years now - never actually joined, but this is the first place I thought I'd ask my question since im finally in a place where I can start this near 20 year old project!
Ill ask the question first to cut to the chase, but im going to give some other info and history for those of you who would like to know more etc:
Q: How can I get a title for a vehicle I found in a junkyard in 1999 - no title was offered at the yard (and I was a dumb kid, still kinda dumb - heh you decide
History:
When I was a younger man, I used to take trips to the local junkyards with a couple of friends and we used to quiz each other on facts, the usual "what engine options were in a LeMans.. what color is that car? ... what options made that one stand out" - the kind of stuff that we thought was interesting and fun. Occasionally we would go to the yards to get parts for our vehicles of course (we all had old ancient things for the time - we never had any money and when we did, we would spend it on our vehicles. My first vehicle was a 1976 Chevy Van 10 - Dark blue, had shag carpet and one of those beds that converted into a table and seats. She had a 350, th350 trans and a q-jet that we "tuned" heh. Loved that van, but it didnt last many winters here in Minnesota - someone borrowed it and didnt heed my advice to let it warm up first when it was cold (some of you may recall the the #8 cyl in those didnt get oil for a long time, especially when cold).
Anyway, moving on, I digress.. one day in 99' we found a Firethorn Red TransAm (No t-tops, but with the honeycomb wheels and the 4-speed manual) in a local yard. We knew it had not been there long because we had been there not long before, maybe 6 weeks. The paint was GREAT (for a Minnesota Car of its age), but the front grill's were mangled and the nose bridge was cracked, looked like it had been gently pushed into something in the yard.
I had been the Pontiac fan of our group, after my Chevy van died, I had a Black two-door 91 Sunbird (4-cyl), not long after that died I had found a white 92' GT model Sunbird with the 3.1V6 and a 5 speed stick - someone nailed a deer with it at 80-90 - I took the entire front clip from the black car, and moved it over to the white one, lost the cool GT concealed headlights :/ they were mangled anyway.
Again I digress, you can imagine when I say the 76' T/A what went through my head! I rushed into the yard office, and asked about it - the surly old guy who ran the yard said: $700 and its yours, but no Title for it - parts only.
That gave me some pause for sure, I talked it over with the guys, one of my friends had an uncle that restored cars and thing like this happened all the time I was told - shouldnt be too hard to get a title.
Armed with that information, I had to figure out where to get $700! I asked the guys what they could spare, we were able to come up with about $300, the rest I was able to get in advance from my folks after some prodding (too eager as a kid). I asked my uncle if he would be willing to help me dolly it back, was about an hour's drive - he agreed and I was delighted, over the moon!! we grabbed it and towed it home slowly, no keys either, steering wheel didnt lock straight ahead.
Its early summer in Minnesota at this point, friends come over and the three of us had saved up a little more cash, we picked-up some oil and pugs/wires/cap/rotor - just covered all the stuff we figured should go into it. Yanked the battery out of my Sunbird (yeah its ok laugh) which had side-post mounts anyway, got into the drivers seat and remembered the "key issue". We took apart the column pretty fast, took the locking plate out and manually actuated the ignition switch at the base of the column - IT CRANKED!
One of my buddies grabbed a cap from an old WD-40 can, put some gas in it - and dumped it down the carb - we hit it again, and it fired and ran, for a short time of course.
Now we went under the car, found the rubber gas line, siphoned/drained the talk of some REALLY crummy looking fuel and gave it about 5 gals of new stuff - dumped more gas down the carb and it was ALIVE! Let both my buddies drive it down the long dirt road I lived on, it lacked alot of power, still wasnt running good for some reason - then we got tho the end of the road and my friend revved it a bit more and got the tail loose on the gravel to get us going back down the road where we came from; the muffler fell off about 3/4 the way through the 180 and all of the sudden: POWERRR!! (Clarkson voice here). Then we each took turns driving it again, it would make ruts in the gravel in all 4 gears without much issue and that shaker scoop sounded like it was going to devour us if we got close enough (I didnt realize at the time that those Q-jets are 800CFM!). We drove it until it ran out of gas, and pushed it back into the driveway (nearly nobody else lived on this dirt road but relatives).
At this point we all realized that none of us now knew what to do with the car, we wanted to get it running and drive it - but frankly we all had crappy jobs and this is Northern Minnesota, the great salt state - our cars were mostly for transportation and we knew we would be tempted - I tried to drive it down the road int he winter once, back end is just too light - was a terrible idea, but kinda fun
.
Life now takes it course, I went into the military(didnt work out for medical reasons), left the car with one of my friends. When I got back from Basic I asked my friend if it would be ok if I started working on it and took it again and he agreed, he didnt have time to do anything with it either. I took it back home, and there it sat in my parents driveway for a winter, in the snow - couldnt stand seeing it there every time I was there. I was able to arrange with a relative to keep it in his pole building in about 2001.
2001 was a hard year, lots to do, I met my wife (knew she was a keeper, she said I had to keep the car no matter what:); we went around the country doing jobs- I was into tech, but having a terrible time breaking into my first job. I really didnt have much time to think about the car at all, life had taken its strangle hold. I finally found a way to get into my career, moved to LA - worked there for about 3 years, then the company I worked for was bought by a huge corp in Redmond WA, so I moved to WA state. Life in WA was difficult for a country boy, but regardless we started a family and stayed there 11 years.
We recently decided we wanted our daughter to be closer to her grandparents and other family, I was able to get a job working remotely and we moved back to the general area we grew up in. My wife and I made a list of things we wanted in new house/property - I of course wanted a nice garage, somewhere I could work on this beast (in the last 5 years I started a project to put a 3.5L Rover V8 into a Mazda Pickup, thats another story) - we found a smaller house, with about 3 acres and a HUGE (to me at least) garage 3 stalls (4 really, just no door on #4), two levels - long and deep with drains in the floor (for washing off salt in the winter) - heavily insulated and with a nice heater
Ive typed too much, this is probably boring - but the short of it is that the T/A is in my garage, waiting. But I want to be smart and get a title, before I start to restore it or spend much money on it.
Thoughts? Advice? even if its hard to hear I want to know.
-The Ginger
