Preparing for Ba/be Rally 08

This will be the third time around for Team Trashwagon in the 3rd annual Big Apple to Big Easy banger rally.

We are going in Team Babe Patrol's from last years 87 Subaru Wagon, which is returning this time as TrashWagon9

Our car is a 1987 Subaru GL FWD 5spd wagon. this car was ran last year by Team Babe Patrol, a band of high school kids who rustled up an old soob with no title from CT and registered it in NH

They were going to abandon it at the airport in New Orleans, so since it is a subaru and i am Miles Fox, we have this car for this year.

my buddy had the car initially and painted over the 'babe patrol' paint job. once i acquired the car i turned it into a right and proper TrashWagon. TrashWagon9 to be exact.

Since We have had this car it has seen 2 driver side hubs, then eventually the entire fromt suspension from my wrecked 88 gl sedan.

The alternator has been replaced with a more stable unit and now we have a big ol' honkin deep cycle marine battery that came from an industrial floor scrubbing machine.

The rear suspension has a little help from some generic helper springs wedged between the trailing arms and the body. The exhaust is now complete with a cherry bomb and taiplipe all the way to the rear bumper.

We had just made the final touches by spray painting the hood and the addition of some nifty Baja lights. Thise completes the look of our car; anything left to be done wil be for creature comforts and convenience of acommodation of 4 dudes and a week's worth of stowage.

Abrief history of the car:

since i had the car i drove it for about a week, and then it quit running exactly the day after i got my sedan back on the road. i figured the timing belt had broke and towed it home, never finding the time to have a peek. i parted off the alternator and battery for my sedan until i wrecked it over thanks giving. this car sat around all wonter until my buddy needed to borrow it as a car to drive. turns out the set screw had fallen off the rotor, that was it.

my buddy drove the car a round for a bit and the front hub stripped out. i donated a front hub from my stash of parts and it was good to go. after a month or so my good buddy getsout of this 200 dollar car and into a 12,000 dollar lexus, so this car sat behind a garage until spring.

So my dude gives me a ride down to where the car sits. we try to start it and the battery is dead. al the lights and fan and radio were on so i turned them off. then he proclaims you have to turn everything on or the laternator wigs out and the voltage spikes. so we jumpstart the car with a spare battery and she fires right up, and proceeds to voltage spike and blow out both headlights and one rear taillight.

so we had to drive it blindly to walmart a few miles away. i noticed the heat wasnt so great, and then the temp gauge going up. so i had to pull over to add coolant. we got to the wal mart and fixed the bulbs and i have been driving it since.

the car came from NH with no title since a title is not req'd for a car older than 15 years there. for me to get a title in WI i will have to show a proof of registration. So far i have renewed the plates to the late Trashwagon6, since it also was an 87 subaru wagon with black and white paint. so its a matter of trying to find this registration or using the leftover dashboard to the car the plates are registered to, whichever comes first.



The rally kicks off Wed My 21 from Staten Is NY, we will be heading out on the 18th or 19th.

I will post our teams progress as we go!

Meanwhile here is a vidoe of last year's hauling out: