Thanks everyone for the comments and I hope everyone has had a little enjoyment out of my poor attempt to humor and hopefully tell an interesting stories and memories of my first car..
<span style="font-weight: bold">The summer of ‘96</span>
High school is coming to a close and the last great summer is on the horizon; I’m enjoying the crap out of my 69 as much as I can but with the preparation of deciding which college I am going to attend in the fall and working 2 jobs to save enough spending money for said first year of college my time is limited behind the wheel of the 69. Dad and I would spend Saturday nights going to local cruise-ins and hangin’ out with other car people in the area. One night we are heading home from going to the Sonic cruise-in; I’m of course in my 69 and dad & mom are in the green 68.. It was an extremely rare occasion for him to break out the ole green machine as he had just finished the first of 2 pace cars. Now to set the stage of this memory I am in the lead position and we are coming up Hwy 70 towards Lebanon from Mount Juliet and we come up to a 4 way intersection of Hwy 109. As I would at just about every stop sign or light; I’m scoping out looking for the man, po-po, 5-0.. When it’s my turn to go I roll into the throttle and the tires break loose and I bang a few gears.. As I look back in the rearview mirror to see how many lengths I was ahead of dad & mom and I see what looked like a scene from the end of days type of movie. I swear I thought I saw fire and brimstone flaming out from under of that 68 as it was bringing Armageddon from behind; the headlights are spotlighting the stars in the sky and the tail end is skating around like it were slicks on ice and he was coming.. FAAST!!
One other thing I realized that night ; as many before had, that when power drum brakes got hot they sucked.. And I don’t mean in a good way.. I remember hailin’ booty down my parents’ road after taking several hot laps on some other back roads; as I quickly come up to the turn in to our driveway I press down on the brake pedal and its solid.. Problem was I wasn’t slowing down.. I let of and apply the brakes again.. Annnnd nothing.. As I go screaming by the driveway I get it slowed down turned around and get back to the house.. I get out and see this smoke rollin’ out of the passenger side wheel.. Yeah the disc brake swap was waaay overdue..
<span style="font-weight: bold">Whhoooaaa Breeeeaakkksss..!!!..</span>
As I mentioned previously, the brake swap/upgrade was overdue.. I had a day off from both jobs and it was a nice hot day so I thought why not go ahead and swap it over.. Pops was a work and I was gonna do this swap on my own.. I’m wrenchin’ it up and gaining progress and its now around 4:30 in the afternoon and I’m tightening up the last of the bolts as dad pulls in the drive. I had a big ole look at me smile on my face as he gets out and I ask him; “you ready to pump some brake pedal..?..” He steps back and I swear it wasn’t but for just a split second he looks at me and says, “Sure… But its not gonna do any good..” I know I had a look on my face like this guy has lost his mind..!!!.. I say “what do you mean; Im done!!” He grins and with a chuckle says “you got your calipers flipped flopped..” I swear if this was a cartoon my head would have changed into a donkey head.. I thought to myself; you jackass!! So after a few minutes I had the calipers on the correct side and we were finishing up and out test driving before dusk.
<span style="font-weight: bold">Not long after the disc brake swap.</span>
