My friend that I bought my '72 Grabber back from and I drove it from his house to my house. About 4 miles. We had to put a new fuel pump on it and it had not been driven in a long time. So I gave him one last drive in the car while I followed. Do not feel bad for him. One of the reasons he sold it back to me was he had picked up a real clean '71 Grabber.
Drov it home, but didn't shift right, found out 5 ears later the only problem was a stuck kick down linkage.. a little WD40.. viola!! I've put more miles on it, ( around 500) this year than the combined total previously since '98
Ohh man, let's see. I bought my first Mav, the '74 Grabber from Terry (Hawkco). We made a deal that he would haul it up here on his car trailer. On 4/6/05 (31 years to the day after it rolled off the assembly line brand new), I got a phone call from Terry. Said he was in my neighborhood but wasn't sure which house was mine. I remember while I was telling him where my house was at, I went outside and what do you know, he had by chance stopped right in front of my house. We unloaded the car and work began the next day. I later drove the car more then 9,000 miles. In May of 2005, I got my '76 shell from Terry. Me and my grandpa drove down with the old car dolly and hooked it up. We drug it about 150 miles on the car dolly up I-675, I-75, I-575 and Hwy. 515 before it arrived in my grandpa's field where it still sits today. In either May or June of '05, I got my '73 4 door parts car. My grandpa came down from NC with his car dolly again, but we were able to air up the tires on the car, put some transmission fluid and a battery in it, and drive it 110 miles to NC! My grandpa followed me with the car dolly just in case it broke down. On November 26, 2005 (man that's been almost a year ago already), I rode to Charlotte, NC with Terry to Clint Deal's house (cdeal on here) where we met up with Allan Small to exchange some parts. Clint and I had been going back and forth for a few months about a '72 parts car he had sitting in his back yard. This was the perfect oppertunity to check it out, and I did. We decided at that time that December 1st would be the best time for me to come back and get the car. I took the title back home with me that day. Just three days later on the 29th, I wrecked the Grabber. On December 1st, still sore from the wreck, My grandma, grandpa, and brother piled in my grandpa's truck with the car dolly in tow, and I drove about 510 miles round trip getting the '72. I drug it around 250 miles back with no engine or trans. It was in the low 40's the entire day we went to get the '72. We spent the next month working on it whenever we could swapping parts from the wrecked '74 Grabber to the '72 and I drove the car home from NC under it's own power on January 3rd or 4th, 2006. I now am closeing in on 16,000 miles on the car since then. My '69 1/2 was bought from Frank, I went and looked at it for the first time in April of this year with the understanding I would be back to pick it up within a month. Well, it took me close to two months due to some chick running a red light and totalling my mom's car. Frank, being the nice guy he is held onto the car and I picked it up June 29th, 2006. I towed it with no engine or trans all the way from Macon, GA all the way up to NC on the old car dolly. I think it was around 400 miles round trip. We drug it up the normal interstates, I-75, I-675, I-285, I-575 and on up 515 to NC. Everyone on the roads seemed to like that car alot, I have never got so much response while towing a car as I did with that one. The '73 2 door stands as being the furthest I have drove to get a Maverick. It was over 650 miles round trip. The car was at Earl Branham's parent's house in South Carolina where it had been sitting for over 10 years. My grandpa and I put new tires on the dolly the day before, got it hooked up and left at 5 AM on August 16th, 2006. We got there around 11 AM and had the car drug out and on the dolly by 12:30. It was extreamly hot and humid that day. I was beat by time I got the car loaded up, and I still had to drive over 320 miles back to NC. We made it back without issue and I had the car running and backed it off the dolly the next day. My latest '76 parts car we got for my friend Bryan. The thread with the story of getting it home should be easy to find by search still. He gave up on the car about a month ago when the valves seized up. We hauled it on the dolly to NC last week where it will be totally stripped and donate parts to both the '73 2 door and the other '76 shell to make it a running driving car again. That's it, for now...
i bought it in kentucky,. drove it 1750 miles home to tucson arizona when it had the 170 3 speed... got 35.6 mpg all the way home.. never had a problem except valve trian noise.. put rizlone in every stop and it was fine.. then i hauled it on a trailer out here to iowa earlier this year.. trip was uneventful.
ST just curious that valve train noise, how bad was it?; was a rattling noise or just a mild tick. I have a rattling noise, and I just had the carb and timing set, so I dont think it is timing.
PS My '75 I had in highscholl had 70K on it and it had a little bit of a tick, but this is a rattling noise under load ( under acceleration)
my 70 was delivered to my front door. the 71 was picked up in glendale, az with my flatbed. the sprint was picked up in gilbert, az. and the 73 i picked up with my flatbed at corbin johnson's house in calif.
I rented a pick-up truck from Enterprise RAC, and a friend of mine who worked at a U-Haul at the time, set up a tow dolly for me to pick up near the town where the car was, so i didn't have to drive to Oklahoma with a dolly flapping about behind me the whole way. Left here on a Friday night, drove till about 4:00 a.m., stopped for about four hours, got to the car about 1:00 on Saturday, and drove home a little more carefully, cause the tires were in bad shape on the car, very dry rotted. Anyway we got back home around noon on Sunday. Would do it again if I had to.
The 250 I have in my '72 out of the old Grabber has always had a little bit of a tick/knock at idle for the past 26,000 miles I've been driving it. My brother dosen't like it, and we are about to swap the engine. However I plan to continue using the engine in my car in the future. I have never heard of nor used Rislone, so I couldn't say. It sounds to me like a timeing problem or bad gas. In my experience, pinging sounds like a rattling noise. If it dosen't make noise at idle, I can't see it being an internal problem in the engine. You say you just set the timeing, but did you verify that the balancer hasn't slipped? The balancers on old 6 cylinders are not to be trusted until you verify that the timeing mark is at TDC when piston #1 is. The rubber can deteriorate over the years allowing the outer ring to slip.
