[ramairthreegto]

After almost thirty years in the military I had lived in the barracks, an apartment, a townhouse, a small single family home with one car garage, and a home with a 19 foot wide two car garage.






A few years after retiring from the Army my new job allowed for a house with a thirty foot wide garage. It still had low ceilings.

I finally got a detached garage started a couple of years ago.


In retrospect, a few feet wider would have been even better.







And finally a lift.




I still have to pull something out to work in there.

But it basically took until I was 50 to have a garage with a lift.

[Gen2guy]

First thanks for your service and second yup you sure enough got a nice garage and very nice cars. That RR with that hole in the roof is a rare bird for sure.

[SRR]

Nice!

[necdb3]

No matter how big you build it, you'll wish you built it bigger.

Looks great!

[dpoltzer]

Well done RA3! Looks great.

[ramairthreegto]

Originally Posted by Gen2guy

First thanks for your service and second yup you sure enough got a nice garage and very nice cars. That RR with that hole in the roof is a rare bird for sure.

Thanks. The factory hand crank sunroof is cool.
But I have to help it with my other hand while I crank. It also leaks bad. I want to replace the worn gears and and pieces that force it into sealing, but they are impossible to find. Nobody makes the correct headliner either.

It was in pieces and going to be parted out. I saved it, have it together with a junkyard 318 from a 70s truck so I can drive it around. Driveway body work and paint. New gas tank. New exhaust. Front end redone and brakes gone through. I have been planning to stroke a 360 to 408 for it, and finish the interior, etc. Too many hobbies, too many projects, and still work full time.

[400 4spd.]

Originally Posted by ramairthreegto

Thanks. The factory hand crank sunroof is cool.
But I have to help it with my other hand while I crank. It also leaks bad. I want to replace the worn gears and and pieces that force it into sealing, but they are impossible to find. Nobody makes the correct headliner either.

It was in pieces and going to be parted out. I saved it, have it together with a junkyard 318 from a 70s truck so I can drive it around. Driveway body work and paint. New gas tank. New exhaust. Front end redone and brakes gone through. I have been planning to stroke a 360 to 408 for it, and finish the interior, etc. Too many hobbies, too many projects, and still work full time.

'73, '74?

Around 1977 I worked for a guy who had a black '74 Charger SE 360 with the crank driven sunroof. He said the car with that roof was very rare, one of a few hundred I believe.

[fyrffytr1]

Nice setup you have there. I am 69 and still don't have a lift!I make sure I have every tool in the shop on the floor before I get down to work on one of my cars!

[ramairthreegto]

Originally Posted by 400 4spd.

'73, '74?

Around 1977 I worked for a guy who had a black '74 Charger SE 360 with the crank driven sunroof. He said the car with that roof was very rare, one of a few hundred I believe.

It’s a 1974.
The ‘73 had those cool vents in the hood by the windshield.

The original owner died. His nephew inherited it, had it shaved, body work and primer, but I still have the function side marker and fender turn lights.
He ended up with some legal issues and I got it before it was parted out. I ended up grabbing a free rear sear and interior panels for a 73 satellite serving. I had to modify the rears for the 74 seat belt and they have the holes for rear window cranks but I have the fixed rear windows, Front buckets are the right frame but wrong covers and color. I had the dash, gauges, and console. I had to bypass the ammeter as it went bad and got smoky.

Like the 360 Javelin SST next to it, which I save from being cash for clunkers after it had sat since 1988, the Roadrunner is one of those cars I want to make a lot nicer,
Beyond just running and driving. But they are sort of like having a non numbers matching Lemans or base model GTO. Making them nice ends up costing a good bit more than they are worth.

With a numbers matching RAIV or judge or Superbird or something you can put a ton of money into it and still have it worth more than you put into it.

The 70 is numbers matching and restored and really nice 455 car.
The 69 is a dinged up, non matching, originally automatic real GTO that was not a factory RA car. It was recused from a junk yard in the 1990s by the previous owner and has a new rear quarter and floor pans. With a nice RAIII spec engine.

So, it’s cool that three of the cars are rescues and still exist and in driving condition. But I am coming on like eight or nine years on the Javelin and RR without doing much besides getting them driveable.

[1965gp]

Great shop- congratulations on putting it together.

Great cars too- need more pics of the AMC

[OCMDGTO]

Very nice setup and cars. I can relate, just finally built a garage myself a couple years back. Mine is a whopping 24x24 that was as big as I could go with property line restrictions.

[ramairthreegto]

My driveway paint job looked great for a couple of years.

But I think it got too cold after a surprise weather snap the first night and for a few days after.

Within a few years of living outside it looked like crap.

Went from this

[1965gp]

I dug the paint scheme

[ramairthreegto]

For years I had heard there were about 150 73 sunroof RR and 90 74s

There were a decent amount more than that

1974 Ply. Satellite/RR – Manual sunroof cars produced in the US: Approximately 1402. (Based on 1975 Ward's Automotive Yearbook data).
Individual model numbers below are very, very rough estimates.
• Available on all Coupes and Two-Door Hardtop models with vinyl roof.
• Satellite Coupe (RL21) - A handful at best.
• Satellite Sebring (RH23) - Approximately 250.
• Satellite Sebring Plus (RP23) - Approximately 800.
• Road Runner/Road Runner GTX (RM21) - Approximately 350.

[tooski]

All I gotta say is: wow! For both the garage and the cars.

[Bob Timmermans]

Have the Original parts of the sunroof scanned and then 3D printed.
You can even correct where there might be a weak spot.

[Bills Auto Works]

Congratulations on the garage & thank you for your service!

I loved the line "A few feet wider would have been nice"

We all have that addiction & it doesn't matter how big they are, we still want or make them bigger! When I moved out in the country 15 years ago, I wanted land & a shop on my own property as I had rented a building for my business for 20 years. Mine was 40x88 with an upstairs for storage in the center section. Fast forward 13 years...it needed to be bigger so I added 16x88 to it & just the other day I thought to myself...Damn I wish I would have added 20 instead of 16!!!

Also love the AMC, I have a 67 Marlin & a 66 Ambassador.

God Bless
Bill
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/...closed.614419/

[77 TRASHCAN]

Originally Posted by 1965gp

Great shop- congratulations on putting it together.

Great cars too- need more pics of the AMC

X2 on the AMC pictures!

I too, thank you for your service!!!

I used to have a pretty regimented thought process of cars I liked and did not like. Nowadays I like them all, I own my TA and some old Chevy pickups. It’s so cool to see something going down the road, like any of yours these days, you know the owner Has to be a Motörhead to be driving it!

Have you thought of finding a 401 for your AMC?

[ramairthreegto]

It was definitely great as we went from apartment, to townhouse, to small house with single car attached garage, to bigger house with two car garage.

Now it’s awesome with the 30 foot attached garage, house, barn and the detached garage.

I paid like 2500 bucks for the Javelin. I patched a hole in a quarter panel, bought 15 inch rims, new tires, put a pertronix in the original distributor, rebuilt the carb, replaced leaking valve cover gaskets, rebuilt the transmission, (probably the only Borg Warner M11 anyone will see in ages, found and M12 I can rebuild if I need it it, and have a 4 barrel intake and carb for the 360 I keep meaning to get on. Also found a guy with the cards to do a dual exhaust. Had to replace the gas tank. No one makes them. I used an eagle tank that fits but had to cut my Javelin straps, get some eagle straps, cut them, and weld a set that worked. Plus I found a kit to convert my front drums to discs. A factory set would have been a ton. This literally uses small ford truck parts I. The conversion. If only my paint had not gone to crap. I also welded in some sub frame connectors. Oh, and new wiper motor, resovoir, , and blades. Everything on it was original.

It’s saved and still exists in this earth and I can drive it. But I think I will never do the whole restore. I am pretty sure I already have spent more on it than it is worth.

I had originally planned to have a muscle car era example from every Company that was involved, but no longer exists.

I obviously have Pontiac covered. And also AMC and Plymouth.

I had always been keeping my eye out for a two door post 68-72 Cutlass/F85 with a bench seat and column shift was was going to sneak in a killer Olds 455 instead of the 350 or whatever would be in it.

For mercury, instead of the obvious Cougar, I always had an ear listening for a Marauder X100.

Not because I don’t love Pontiac, Chevy, Oldsmobile, Ford, Mercury, AMC, Buick, Dodge, and Plymouth examples from that era a lot overall,
I’ll probably end up just keeping the two GTOs just from time and space, etc.

If I won the lottery,
I would probably go full Jay Leno and a Ron of cars from between 64-74 from all of them.
I’d literally but another path of land nearby, build a huge garage/showroom, and it would have full time employees. I would show up and drive whatever, bring it back when I was done, give them the run down like a pilot when I got back, etc.
And I would have a half mile track around it.

I guess it could be like a museum for part of it and people could come look. It would have a real diner.
It would served grilled cheeses, hot dogs, bacon cheese burgers, great fries, real onion rings,
And when I order a chocolate shake, it would be made with chocolate ice cream. Not soft serve. Not vanilla with chocolate syrup. And they would leave the big silver mixing cup with my glass. And when you order a hot fudge sundae, it would not have chocolate syrup and processed whip cream. It would have real hot fudge made there and the same with the whipped cream.

It would. Not make any money and probably cost me a million in the hole a year.

But hey, if you win some million dollar lottery, who cares if half of it is spent one some cars, garage, and a diner and your own employees before you die!

People get jobs, cars get saved and taken care of,
And there might be a few less savages in the world that think soft serve is a real shake, don’t know the difference between a shake made from the right ice cream vs syrup, and learn the majesty of real made on the premises hot fudge instead of chocolate syrup.

[FrankieT/A]

Ramthreegto,

What are the dimensions of your garage? I thought it was mentioned 30 feet wide. Its looks like you have 2 two car garage doors and a single, but that doesn't add up...