While the title of this post may sound odd to those unfamiliar with Purgatory, regular readers know that Barbie refers to our rather large Ford F150. We bought her used the day after we closed escrow on the ranch and she has been most useful over the past two years. She helped move some of our household items down from SF, tows the trailer with The Bus during race weekends, and is much more practical for shopping excursions than the Carrera or M Coupe if we want more than just 2 bags of groceries and some milk.
Unfortunately, when she came to us, she was in need of some love. Whoever owned her before us was a rather large person who liked their chewing tobacco and was not fussy about spitting the slime into the driver door pull handle. Agent Smith spent quite a bit of time disassembling the plastic bits and cleaning the entire door to remove as much as the residue as possible.
Then there was the matter of the seat. In the four years the previous owner had Barbie, they pretty much crushed all the springs in the driver-side seat bottom into complete flat submission. Now that things were quiet project-wise for a bit, Agent Smith went over to the Ford parts website and sorted out some replacement parts. A few hours later, we are pleased to say extended periods out with Barbie do not result in a sore bottom and back.
