VicCrownVic's 1989 Colony Park - Large Marge

[DerekTheGreat]

They look too.. new? The car has a vibe going, I can't place it, but I don't think those wheels fit said vibe.

[VicCrownVic]

I don't disagree, Derek. Nice wheels, but somehow fit the look of The Scab better. The Scab is now rocking the steelies and Mountaineer centers and looks a bit too rugged now.
Next year I'll get the HPPs back on Marge. I think they will be a good in between of the rugged steelies and too shiny teardrops.

[DerekTheGreat]

Yeah, how it is in your signature is a good look. Those tear drops are in really good shape though.

[VicCrownVic]

When you need to buy a ladder, you of course have to take the station wagon to do so.
I had been borrowing my uncles ladder since last fall and finally took it back a couple weeks ago when it was safe (salt washed off the roads) to drive the wagon. Of course, after I took my uncle's ladder back I found another need for the ladder. Werner MT-22 is what my uncle has and it was perfectly sized for my house and garage needs. FBMP the cheapest I found that ladder was $150, but I have very little desire to deal with trying to sync schedules with people. I found Home Depot had that model for about $300 including tax. Didn't want to pay that much so I kept looking for options. Lowes had a comparable Little Giant M-22 that ended up being a little over $200 with tax. An extra $50 not to have to sync up with someone? Sold. 80 mile round trip, because I now live in the middle of nowhere, and I now have my own ladder.

On the way to Lowe's I noticed the check engine light came on when I took off from a stop. It only did it once though. (Not the red replace engine light.)
Did some more driving with Marge today since I wanted to not have hot exhaust on the '98 so I could work on that. The light was coming on from most stops today. Spent too much time working on the '98 today so I'll have to see if I can determine the cause of Marge's problem another day.

[DerekTheGreat]

You should've asked around. I've got some big-ass, telescoping ladder you can have if you want it. I bought it years ago for if I wanted to get on my roof. Well, one of the smaller ladders I have works just fine for that, so this thing is actually in the way.

[gadget73]

I actually need to transport my extension ladder, but I can't really do it with my truck. Ladder is just too long to fit in the bed. Only way I could actually make it work is to tie it under the stupid truck from front bumper to rear, or get a big blanket and lay it on top, then try to get the ladder on and off the truck without destroying it and lash the thing down. Or use the trailer.

Fairly absurd when an enormous vehicle can't move a stupid ladder, yet if I had a station wagon with a roof rack this would be a very simple task. Modern trucks are stupid.

[DerekTheGreat]

I remember seeing a Ford Sport Trac for the first time back when they debuted. I thought they were just a smidge above useless, "Why not buy the damn Explorer? WTF are you going to put in that ~4ft box? That's going to be a failure.." Needless to say, I never thought such a useless configuration would end up taking over the full-size truck world..

[gadget73]

yeah, the Avalanche was the early full size version, but mine is a regular 1500 with a 5 1/2 foot bed. The S10 had a 6 foot bed. Not that either are useful to move a ladder thats 16 feet long. Even if I put it on top of the cap, I'd need to take a 6 foot ladder with me to get the thing on and off of the truck because its annoyingly tall.

I can move it on the trailer but it seems a little absurd hauling an 18 foot dual axle trailer around behind a 4x4 full size just for one stupid ladder.

[Tiggie]

I've made several trips to the home improvement store to buy ten foot sections of PVC pipe. The wagon fully eats it with nothing hanging outside. Try that in a "bitty bed" truck.

[DerekTheGreat]

To me, a 6ft box is small and the smallest I'd consider OK on a full size truck. Come to think of it, my regular cab short box K1500 looks like an S10 compared to modern full size trucks, yet has a larger bed. Our F-150 with a similar configuration was mistaken for a Ranger the other day. "That's a nice Ranger you've got there." Flare side, but still 6ft in length. Almost useless, but that's the point in it's case. It's not trying to be a work truck and wasn't sold as one.

[Arquemann]

To toot into the echo chamber, I hauled an Ikea kitchen in my Caprice. Counter tops too, with the front passenger seat reclined and rears folded, I had over 3 meters of flat-ish load space and a 2.8m counter top fit easily.
The "not a proper truck" -thing is kinda funny. Not a real truck without an 8ft bed, needs a HEMI and still nobody buys long beds and people complain that new trucks are too big and thirsty, yet buy one ton crew cabs with honkin huge gasoline V8s to tow a boat twice a year. Too expensive with unnecesary luxury and still only fleets and contractors buy base models.

I find roof racks kinda inconvenient even on regular size cars, too tall and stuff is kinda hard to tie down properly.
Small trailers and hitches on cars is still a very prevalent thing here. The light trailer we have is 130x260cm and has a max load of ~500kg. So not much different to a half ton pickup, except I don't drag the bed around when not needed.

And I'll leave this here because it's a funny pic:

[sly]

Yeah... 16 foot ladder would be a mount on the expedition luggage rack. I managed to slide the 10 foot ladder inside, but it was an inch or three from the dash. And yeah... would definitely need the step rails to do that. Thing is 81 inches (6'9" - little over 2m) tall.

[VicCrownVic]

This is the ladder I bought: https://www.lowes.com/pd/Little-Gian...der/1001839874 22ft reach, fit in the back of the station wagon no problem. I suppose I could have used the luggage rack, but it's less work to throw it in the back.

[sly]

I've got the 17ft HF version of that one. Heavy bugger. My 10 foot A shape ladder for the shop is lighter though more awkward. That said, I've only used the long reach mode of the little giant knock-off maybe a dozen times in the decade or so I've owned it... mainly to get on the roof of the old house and clean out the roof vent for the dryer. So glad I don't have to do that at the current house.

[VicCrownVic]

Oil changed and ready for the weekend.