Part 2: Project Restart and a Surprise!
Life was particularly hard after the storm. We spent long days sifting through the dirt on our property, looking for anything we could salvage. We were "grabbing at straws," so to speak. To give you some perspective, there were no houses left on our block, or most other blocks in our neighborhood for that matter. When I first got back, a week to the day after the storm, it looked like a million Home Depots were put into a blender and then dumped onto out street! Picture a nuclear detonation. Everything was demolished. However, there is always the opportunity for the peculiar!
One day, a couple of months later, I was talking to some workers while I was standing on the neighbor’s lot, two doors down from our place. I happened to be standing next to an old engine short block. I had seen that block many times prior, but did not pay much attention to the rusted hulk. This day, as luck would have it, I glanced down as I was chatting and, as it registered in my mind slowly, like coming out of the fog, it hit me like a ton of bricks – crossbolts! Ho!# S#!+ that’s a 427 sideoiler!! I just about fell down in shock!
I knew that the Doc who owned the place had some car parts stored in a back shed. I had no idea that I had been living eighty feet from a 427FE short block for years!! I went and got my van and had the workers help me load it into the back. I then called the Doc to let him know I found his engine and asked him if he want me to bring it to him? Once he understood that I knew what it was, he said, “You can keep it.” I got all excited, especially when Bill Parham said it was rebuildable! Hmmmm… maybe a 427 car isn’t such a bad idea!
Then again, no… the 289 car is my thing now. Maybe I can sell it to help fund the 289 car! I took the block with me to visit my brother in Vermont who had a neighbor that worked on cars, and the guy helped me tear it down. Next, I took it to Homecoming, and passed it off to Bill for further examination. Some of you may remember seeing it. It turns out that the engine had come from a boat that was used out in the Gulf of Mexico. Unfortunately, some nutcase decided to bypass the heat exchanger and ran salt water through the block. The water jacket was pretty rusty, but Bill was optimistic. After much effort, Bill pronounced that it was too far gone to use for anything other than a drag-race engine, filled with something like Hard Block. So much for the find of a lifetime… easy come, easy go! The Salt Life is a bi+(#!!
Next we can revisit the color situation…
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