some of you readers have been very generous to make me feel that you're interested in my R/T and the 8 track installation. Well, it's still not finished, so, here's a little update

here's the installed Channel Master Deluxe (yahoo!) 

as it ought to appear... with a cool 8 track cartridge in it. It's an unused 8 track player someone was selling on ebay, and I got lucky to get it for about 45 dollars. Necessary? No. Waste of money? Not quite, everyone seems to get a kick out of the fact that I bought it and am installing it in the car.

 A nice guy named Rudy was biking down the alley my garage was in, and stopped to chat, and we laughed about it, and we talked about the cars we liked in the 70s, and cars we've had, and fixed up.

 Then he mentioned that he just learned last week he was told by his doctor that he has liver cancer, and isn't bummed out, cause he still gets a joy out of life, like biking around and finding cool old cars and dudes like me to shoot the shit with.

Made my day, and made his. Over an 8 track. Fuck. That just hits me in the feels.

made to appear a bit nicer with a long view. not perfectly centered, but the factory carb cold air cable handle takes priority. It's purpose is to open and close the hood scoops cold air flow to the carbs when it's really cols outside, and instead pull hot air off the exhaust area so the engine heats up faster

I just noticed this, it's a coincidence that the 8 track holder that I bought at the swap meet darn near matches the center console of my car! That's pretty cool

and here are the 8 tracks I bought at the swap meet. They probably are too worn out to enjoy, and I'm a bit worried that the soft foamy bits in the 8 track cartidges will fall apart and then mess up the player. But, hey, it's simple to take apart and clean, and 8 tracks are cheap to buy at the swap meets. 1 or 2 dollars apiece.

and while I was there, I figured this was a good time to feature a little fun thing I've done, making the ashtray as close to what you ought to expect from a 1969 Dodge as possible... so here are the things I put in it:

I raided my small coin collection, as I've come to believe that a coin collection was something our parents generation hoped would be worth a surprising amount of money. Turns out, they were wrong, and the price of silver has only held it's own vs inflation. The coins never were the right few that are worth ridiculous money, and the whole thing was a waste of storage space. Stamps too. Hell, the local coin shop went out of business. That's a key indication that unless your family was rich, and collected gold coins, you're not going to get rich from the coins they found and held onto
  Anyway, I grabbed mostly late 60s coins, and a 50 cent piece, and a dollar, and think... that's a good representation of what you would expect to find in an ashtray of a 1969 muscle car

and a cool old matchbook, that's a good find, and period correct - if you'll notice the phone number

here is my radio, just for kicks. I think it's nice, and I'm lucky that the car came with an AM FM. Not that I've used it, I listen to the exhaust instead