PennSilverTaco's "Perfect 5-Lug Regular Cab" Build, Aspergers, and General BS MegaThread!

Neither had I, and someone built a Taurus SHO wagon...

 

Back in 1982 they did so they changed to GT, the early change over had a sticker where the badge was.

 

The first gen Taurus SHO's with Manual Transmissions were kinda cool for a family car.

 

Yamaha-built engine...

 

Yep they were, I recall them having some weird looking intake manifold if memory serves me.

 

How about a turbocharged, 5-speed stick minivan?

 

I worked at a Pizza Place and worked with a guy that had a Manual Caravan but I cant remember if it was a turbo or not.

 

My uncle had a manual Caravan; CLICK HERE!

 

Wow, super cool!

 

I seriously think this guy became a member just to ask the status on my uncle's Caravan...

 

When your friend finds out you have carpentry skills lol. Charlie I seen a silver reg cab like yours today pulling a small trailer. I didn’t get a pic though.

 

There's a landscaper in my area who drives a truck just like mine, though it's an older (2005-2008) model, and it is beaten to shit even by old Tacoma standards; He pulls his zero-turn mower around on a single-axle trailer...

The truck originally had a rear slider, but one of the panels got busted out, and he drove around with a piece of cardboard taped in place for the longest time; A year or two ago, he finally replaced it with a conventional non-sliding rear window. The truck is covered in dents and scratches, and the fuel door is missing, along with most if not all of the center caps; The owner is also kind of an asshole...

I have had two encounters with this guy; The first time, I parked next to his truck in the supermarket parking lot and he happened to come out as I was going in; I asked him what year his truck was (he could clearly see that I had pretty much the same truck), and he gruffly responded "1942"...

The second time, I was walking my boss's dog on a really hot day; I just taking Tully around the block so she could use the bathroom, and my plan was to bring her directly back to the house because it was to hot to go for an actual walk. Mr. Self-righteous pulled up curbside and says "It's too hot for your dog, dude" and then drove away when I tried to explain that I was doing...

What am I supposed to do, let the dog piss and shit in the house just because it's 95 degrees? Seriously!

 

And I wish I could say that's the only time I've had an altercation with some self-righteous so-called animal lover on a hot day, but it's not; Another time, I had taken Tully out for the sole purpose of taking a dump, after which I would bring right back to my boss's air-conditioned house. This woman in a Subaru Forester sees me walking Tully and slams on her brakes in the middle of an intersection (I would have laughed if she got rear-ended), put her window down, and yelled "It's too hot for that dog!" I became incredibly angry, and started to say that I was taking the dog out to use the bathroom; Unfortunately, she drove off before I could explain the situation, probably because she realized she'd stuck her nose where it didn't belong, and someone not as nice as me would have taken out her back window with the nearest rock...

Luckily, my boss and her husband bought a beautiful house a secluded piece of property, and letting the dogs out is as simple as opening the back door and letting them into the backyard; I haven't been there in probably three months because of the whole Coronavirus thing, but once the pandemic has calmed down I plan on bringing Porter over there to play!

 

It's worth noting that my uncle's 1990 Caravan is one of only two stick shift Chrysler minivans that I've ever seen in person; My uncle bought the van featured in this thread in either 2009 or 2010 and it sold it no more than a year later...

The first one was at a fair in Maine back in the summer of 1999; It was a 1984-1986 model, and I was only ten years old at the time so me peering through the window probably looked a hell of a lot less suspicious then than it did now! It was white or some lighter color, it may have had the faux wood paneling that was so popular well into the nineties, but I don't remember; It had the same hubcaps with the pentastar emblem that my aunt and uncle's '86 Voyager had, and I can also tell you that it did not have air-conditioning! That's right, I walked past this van in a parking lot, happened to glance through the window and realize it had a manual transmission, and then looked close enough to realize it did not have A/C! I was shocked that even an older minivan didn't have A/C, as I'd never seen one before...

I went to Maine regularly from 1990 to 2016, missing only two out of those twenty-seven summers, and I can tell you that vehicles without A/C are relatively common there! The same goes for neighboring New Hampshire...

In 1999, I saw a 1980s Bronco II and a 1994-1996 Dodge Dakota that did not have A/C in Milton Mills, New Hampshire; I saw a 2nd Gen 5-lug Taco RC with no A/C in Freeport, Maine just a few years ago! I can also remember seeing a late 1990s Pontiac Sunfire 4-door with no A/C, on a Buy Here Pay Here Lot in Sanford, Maine in about 2003...

The only place where I saw more vehicles without A/C was Oak Harbor, Washington (lived there from 2000-2002 when my dad was stationed at NAS Whidbey Island)!

 

I think there are two reasons vehicles without A/C were common in that part of Maine; One reason was because it wasn't really needed for a good chunk of the year (most houses in York County DO NOT have central air), and the other reason (combined with the first reason) was because that part of Maine isn't exactly the richest and a good chunk of the area's revenue comes from out-of-staters (like my Grandma) who own vacation homes and typically only went there in the summer, so people simply wanted reliable A-to-B transportation and didn't want to spend money on luxuries they did not think they needed.

I was born in 1989, and my earliest memories of spending summers at Grammy's lake house begin in 1992; My uncle made a compilation of movies from our first summer there as a family in 1990, and when I watched it for the first time in late 2007 I had absolutely no memory of it because I was barely over a year old...

By the time my childhood memories kicked in, most newer vehicles in that part of Maine did have A/C, 5-6 years ago I can remember seeing "late model" vehicles (like the aforementioned 2nd Gen Taco in Freeport) without A/C!

 

Nice work.

 

1999 was the first year I really started paying attention to the world beyond Grammy's house in Maine when I visited; We were in the process of moving from Northern California to Virginia Beach in the summer of 1998, so I did not go to Maine that year

Vehicles without A/C aside, one thing I immediately noticed was that Grammy's house did not have cable. This was also the first time I can remember that I'd ever spent an extended period time at the Maine house without my parents; I forget what the hell they were doing, but I think they were house-hunting in Washington, and I spent a good two or three weeks with my Grandparents that year!

When my parents were around, I was too busy doing other things to watch TV; My dad regularly took me out on the boat, either just the two of us or with other family members. Grammy was not totally behind the times, as the Maine house did have multiple TVs with VCRs, and internet (thought it was dial-up until the early 2000s); When it was raining or dark out, my cousins and I would watch movies. With my parents clear across the country, the boat stayed on the trailer in the garage. Mr. P (for those of you just tuning in, this is what I called my step-Grandpa) would take me with him when he ran errands or just take me out driving for the hell of it, but when I was home, the inability to watch Nickelodeon quickly grew old. By early 2000, Grammy had cable in the first lake house, and then when she bought the second house that same year she also had cable TV hooked up...

 

I was only supposed to help replace some planks. All the planks were rotted the previous owner used cheap material. The lawn man sounds like a dick face

 

In 1999, I met a lot of my grandparents' friends, and friends of their friends, and one thing I immediately noticed was that most older pickup trucks around there did not have A/C! My dad's daily driver at the time was a 1990 Mazda pickup, which did in fact really good A/C; It was not as hot in New England as it was in Virginia Beach (where we were living at the time), but it was still pretty warm. The lack of A/C in houses didn't bug me in the slightest, but I can remember not understanding why so many vehicles (not just trucks, but cars and vans too) did not have A/C!

Mr. P drove a 1993 Lincoln Continental, which had phenomenally cold A/C (as in "walk-in beer cooler", or "see your breath even on a 100-degree day" cold); 1993 was the last year FoMoCo used R-12 in its vehicles, and the A/C in Mr. P's Lincoln never required servicing during the decade he owned it. Grammy's 1987 Mercedes 300E was a different story; The A/C in that car worked flawlessly until 1997 or 1998, and then it developed a leak. Grammy hates heat, and since she got her license at the age of about 25 she has never owned a car without A/C (even the first Chrysler Newport she owned back in the 1960s had A/C).

Coincidentally, I could not ride shotgun in the Lincoln because I was under 12 and it had dual airbags, so even though Mr. P did not like the Mercedes very much he kindly drove it when we went out on adventures because he knew how much I liked being in the front seat next to him. Some people reading this may be too young to remember the summer of 1999, or did not live an area that was affected, but many states on the East Coast were going through a record drought at that time...

 

I wouldn't mind a bit of a drought, feels like its constantly raining.