To avoid jacking it up twice, the theory was take off the e brake and when the dollys hit the gravel they would stop and the car would roll off smoothly across the gravel.

I didn’t even really look close at the fenders as I was juggling the kid and doing this, but nothing was immediately noticeable.

Watched a a YouTube video of someone hitting their key with a rubber mallet to fix the stuck steering lock, tried it, the internet failed me. Also tried filing down the key and WD40, no dice. We planned on closing and a 1 day rent back so I could close at 3pm Monday night and call AAA Tuesday but now I’m getting pressure from the buyers not to rent back, so not 100% sure the next step, but AAA is my first choice right now.

Hard to push when you can’t steer, if it could steer I would probably drag it.

Problem is the VATS, I don’t even know if I have the right resistor yet. I opened and dug through 1 box my wife packed and still no keys, but she has a shitload of boxes of crap she packed from our bedroom so hopefully the keys are in another box. Signed rent back for 1 day, $60, so I’ll have AAA tow it Tuesday then use the dollys and the quad to push it into the new garage.

Moved!

So the buyers got me up the *** 1 more time, this time not a tiny ***** of a guy who probably hasn’t picked up a screwdriver in his life, but with a fist. I’m ******* exhausted.

When they jacked me for $8500, I decided I’m not leaving my tractor for them anymore and sold it. Well on their final walkthrough the day of closing, they noticed it’s gone, so they decide that the house and property must be EMPTY. No paint cans nicely labeled by room, no spare trim, no drywall left to finish the laundry room, no flower planters, no tomato garden, and no spare lumber that’s been accumulating from various owners for the past 40 years nicely stored under the shed, I have to get it all out. I have 1 day rent back and they just made it so I had to spend it cleaning up 40 years of **** on the property rather than moving my own stuff and leaving it broom swept clean per the contract. Oh, and the house was “disgusting” and they wanted a professional cleaning service of their choice up to $500, even though my wife scrubbed everything with organic cleaner for his cancer, it was spotless (just 40 years old).

Their threat? Push closing 1 day. Doesn’t sound like a lot, but they saw that we had no beds for kids set up, nothing in the house, knew we had no family close by (why we wanted rent back) and pushing closing the day would have been a nightmare with 2 little kids and no family around to stay with. Oh and they had the roofers there taking up the driveway and cul-de-sac making hauling **** harder. And they bitched the grout had cracked so I had to regrout the kitchen and made me sap 3 switches to rockers to match the rest of the house.

So luckily my buddy Zach took PTO and my dad was here with his truck and I had barrowed a friends 5x8 trailer so we made a huge dump run, crammed the trampoline and **** in the uhaul and made it out exactly at the deadline of 3pm. I redid the grout, switched the lights, and stole all my LED bulbs from the house. Called AAA had the camaro towed, had them put my 355 on the back of the flatbed, it’s all done now. And I had my neighbor take all the firewood because **** them.

Took some creativity to get the car into the garage, used the quad to winch it in as far as I could, then a 2x4 from the quad to the core support to shove it the rest of the way. Used the dollys to push it close to the wall, and that’s where she will sit until we can find the ******* keys. I’ve been reluctant to give up on finding them and rip out the ignition or do damage, still quite a bit of boxes to unpack. I need to build some storage racks in the garage and basement to hold all my crap so we can put my wife’s car in the other side, or I need to flip a car or something to fund building my planned 12x25 shed. The good thing about this move is there are no “improvement” or “fix broken ****” projects we have to do, but there’s a lot of little projects that still eat up money that I wanted to use to get the car on the road. I’ve been scouring craigslist for new tires, I can’t stomach spending $800 on brand new tires for something that maybe gets driven 1000 miles a year, but my old strategy of buying new wheels with tires would mean ditching the O.Z. Monte Carlo wheels on it now that I love. Wagon wheels are everywhere, but I really like these.

Aside from the keys, this is my list:
tires that hold air
finally do the LS1 front brake swap
register it as an antique
install the LS1 aluminum driveshaft
find an intake that will clear my carbon fiber hood that doesn’t lose the efficiency of the LS1 lid
pull the intake and seal the back oil leak on the China wall
install the magnaflow catback
clutch

That gets it back to DD status, then to finish the 355:
measure the chamber size of my ported heads
appropriate head gaskets
injectors
ALDL cable
swap motor
download tune
Get all the bugs worked out on the existing 10 bolt being easy on it
9”
new seats that are not half eaten by mice
paint

then it’ll be done for a while. Maybe in 5 years when my kids can help. Need to schedule that vasectomy to make sure no more kids dampen that plan.

I learned a lot in this house buying process. This is my 3rd house I’ve bought.

First house I was new to the DC area and searched for houses under $200,000 within 20 miles of DC in 2010 when houses were cheap, did no research on the area I was buying, was just looking at initial purchase price for something I could flip. The first realtor that showed up to sell a house I used for the whole process, should have shopped realtors more. Ended up buying a short sale in Waldorf MD for $150,000. Realtor didn’t give me any advice and kind of just wanted the sale. I didn’t pick my own inspector and kind of blindly followed him and missed a ton of ****. I never got on the roof, neither did the inspector. A month after moving in I found that clogged gutters had rotted a corner of the roof and that was a bitch to fix, should have called insurance. We lived in that house while I did a total rehab, and learned that houses built before the mid 70s had dick for insulation, the AC couldnt keep up in summer, and if it were not for the wood burner I would have had huge winter heating bills. Waldorf never recovered like the rest of the areas housing market because it was the ghetto, we learned to really scope out areas before buying. To sell it, I made the mistake of hiring my customer’s wife as a realtor. NEVER hire a realtor you cant yell at. She was awful, she just listed it, gave out the PIN to the lock box, never really "sold" the house. Realtor should put a positive spin on everything, like a used car salesman, and give the seller feedback from buyers, like the bitch should have told me 2 deals fell through because of the roof. Once I found that out, I replaced the roof, and it sold. She sucked, we stayed for the last walk through and I sold the house, got $216,000, so a good $50,000 profit for the next down payment.

Other mistake we made, knocked up my wife BEFORE I finished all the projects and sold the house, thinking it would sell quick. The house sat on the market for 4 months, so we had a ton of time to research new places to live. Loved Warrenton, but when the house finally sold, she was 8 months pregnant, and we had to just pick from 1 of the 3 houses on the market at that time. Should have honestly stretched my budget a little farther and gotten something that needed a little less work, because basing your purchase only on the initial price, and not considering if you are dumping $500 a month in upgrades, we should have just taken the extra $300 a month mortgage payment and gotten something better. Also should have considered that on the 1st house. We did shop realtors a little, I liked the guy we used, he didn't make me sign anything and was really patient with us. I inspected the **** out of that house, and knew what I was buying. Problem was we didn't do any rent back, so we did dual closings, and had to get everything we owned on a Uhaul and in trailers, and had to be homeless for 4 hours with a 38 week pregnant woman.

This house I stretched the budget and bought a newer house so I wouldnt have to spend so much on upgrades per month. I should have picked a different realtor though. This was her first sale, and she was really sweet and nice and now her and my wife are friends, but you want a ruthless bitch of a realtor. If I could do it again, Id pick someone in their 40s, divorced, possibly one with multiple divorces, a heartless bitch is what you want. You want someone who can really play hard ball with the buyers, and not back down from another ruthless bitch realtor. The buyers realtor was that bitch, and I have to give her credit for getting her buyers so much out of me.

So lessons for all those out there wanting to buy a house:
1. Research the area you are buying, do night time drive bys, look for kids in the neighborhood, look at the demographic. Drive around during traffic, see how bad traffic can be. Talk to the neighbors, look in neighbors lawns and yards. Go into local stores to see how people act.
2. Walk the roof. Check the gutters. Check the drip edge on the roof. Check every inch of a basement or crawl space for water. Water is the enemy. Just needing a roof is fine, but finding that leaks have caused other damage gets costly and is a PITA.
3. Hire a ruthless bitch of a realtor. Never sign something tying you to a realtor. You want to be able to yell at them or fire them if they are not doing a good job.
4. Consider how much youll be spending in upgrades per month, when figuring out your budget. Sometimes its worth swinging the higher mortgage payment in a better area than the lower one and having to spend money on carpet, fixing roofs, replacing heat pumps, plumbing, **** that doesnt add value and are just repairs.
5. Negotiate 5% commission selling, don't be a sucker for the 6%. I did that on the second house, saved me $4,000.
6. Hire a really good inspector.
7. Knock up your wife AFTER you are moved.