I’ve been think about doing this but the rules seem a bit tough to come up with. But I’ll give this a try.
I’m looking for some project car posts from the readers. Your projects. Anything from a huge wreck of car project to something smaller (bigger then an oil change). It has to be your car and you are doing “some” of the work on it. That the only hard and fast rule.
I’ll need a couple photos and some brief details. You can post them up here or find me on Facebook and post the them up or email them to me (timsweet@cox.net). I’ll post them here and then on my website (www.tucsoncarevents.com) for everyone to look at.
If I get enough entries I’m pick a car of the week the week and then out of the we’ll vote on the car of the month (if I don’t get votes posted up I’ll have one of my regular readers pick it. The winner the car of the month gets a $100.00 online gift card as an auto parts dealer (Summit Racing or even on tailored to your car). Simple as that.
So let’s get started. Remember anything from a total wreck to just a transmission swap, body work, paint, interior upgrade, hood swap. That all works. Sorry Pdawg giving Burt a bath and vac isn’t going to cut it (but he could use one!!!…just kidding). It doesn’t have to be done and I don’t need a before and after, just what you are working on.
I’ll this run until I get at least for to choose from, then we’ll vote.
Note: If you noticed my site is not commercial, there are no ads, no click through links, no pop ups. It’s just me type to hear myself type and a few of you reading it. I like it that way.
3/15/1960 Mercury Comet is brought to dealership windows.
3/17/1949 Porsche appears as the Geneva Auto Show and Gottlibe Daimler born in Germany in 1834.
3/18 a couple of notable birthdays. Andy Grenatelli was born in Dallas (1923) and a little bit before that Ruddy Diesel was born in France in 1858. Ok..Rudolf ….only close friends were allowed to call him Ruddy. Guess what Ruddy is famous for?
Follow the steps and you’ll be able to remove those rusted exhaust bolts and it makes using an easy out on broke bolts…um…well… easier!!!!
1. Heat the bolt or stud with a torch errrkkk….”Yo…us averaged guys don’t have a torch set!!!!” Yeah, I know…I use a regular propane torch from ACE Hardware. ….errkkk Double nut the studs.
2. Once it hot…doesn’t have to be glowing red, touch a candle to it, until there is wax penetrated between the threads.
3. Remove the bold or apply the easy out and you are home free.
Ok, I’ve been wanting to do this for a while. I have a couple of muscle cars and cars that aren’t but get “dressed up” like muscle car peeves.
So here are three right off the bat.
1. Don’t put Yanko strips on your 2003 Dodge Neon. It doesn’t look right, and you aren’t fooling anyone.
2. I have nothing against body kits added to a car. I, personally, wouldn’t do it to the two I have, but I’ve seen some pretty nice jobs done on Corvettes, especially. I’ve even seen a lot of imports that look good with body kits. But here’s my peeve, don’t put them on the car if you aren’t going to paint them the right way. Save up the cash and get it all done at once. And one more note on body kits, why would you want to take your Honda Accord and make it look like a 1946 pickup truck? (OK, I’ve never seen one, but you know what I mean).
3. I recently saw a 1970-something Camaro, mounted on the frame of a raised Chevy pickup…almost monster truck size. Why people…WHY???!!!
Okay, there are a couple of mine muscle car want-ta-be peeves.
Post up some of yours. Come on, I know you’ve got them!!!!!
I thought I’d take a minute and drop a couple book titles at ya!!!
These books are extremely helpful with average project that you can tackle on your cars. I have complete several of them on my 70 Mustang and my 84 Vette.
The books are from MotorBooks. They are a series called MotorBooks Workshop and they are extremely well written
I currently have the following titles (had I’ve used them!!!!)
101 Projects for Your Corvette 1984 – 1996 (Excellent)
101 Projects for Your Mustang 1964 1/2 – 1973 (Excellent) (Although it says Mustang, many of these projects you’ll be able to do on similar Fords..so no you won’t find one for Mercury Cougar Station wagon (love the car Mr. Sears) but the under-pinnings are very similar.)
How to rebuild and Modify Your Manual Transmission (I haven’t used this one yet…I waiting to buy a test transmission to work on first…but finding one is tough for my 70 Mustang and then there’s $$$$ plus $$$ shipping.) (Excellent)
I just pick up Weekend Projects for your Modern Corvette C4-C5-C6 (not very good – mostly C5 and C6 )
Each one has projects and it includes skill level you need may need (naaah….who needs skill when you have pictures!!!), tools you might need, time it will take and other handy tips.
Now, I keep saying I’m an average guy with an average skill set and frankly there’s no one I know that will argue the point. That being the current situation, it doesn’t mean that I don’t try to pick up new skills, I do.
So since I also have an average guy’s budget (selling cans back to the recycler for car parts…ok…just kidding there) I don’t have what I’d really like to have for “training purposes”. If I did however, I have two of each car (in this case a 84 Vette with a Crossfire engine –has to be exact there and a second Mustang with a V8) and I’d experiment with parts cars until I get it right and then I’d work on its twin. Of course that’s not affordable, so I next like to have a spare Crossfire engine to mess with and a Ford V8 do to the same. Now that might be possible, budget wise (I know a couple of guys that will let me pick up a an old engine for free) but I have an average garage, with my cabinets and work bench, I can only get one car in there–nope no 3 bay garage for me.
My garage with the Vette in it.
(Was I kidding???? NOPE!!!) Errrk…..And don’t think I haven’t approached the subject…but the misses doesn’t see the need to move to a larger house just so I can have a place in the garage to play. So having two engines on stands won’t work out too well. So how do I get around this……I purchase a part to “study”. Back in the day you’d have to go to the junk yard and pick your part and you can pretty much do that today as well. There are drawbacks to that, though… here in a AZ during the summer time…taking the parts off the a hot car is a killer…not stolen…but a car that’s been sitting in the sun when it’s 110 degrees out. Those metal part will be a bit warm…trust me. But the Internet is a great thing and I’d like to take a minute and personally thank former Vice President Al Gore for inventing it…nicely done sir!!! I’ve found most of my training parts online. But don’t over look the local car clubs either, you can get help and I can assure there’s one or two guys there that have or know a guy that knows a guy that has the part you are looking for.
When I first got my Mustang, it had a 1 barrel Weber carb, so I purchased an old one online to take it apart and look it over. Then I order the kit and rebuilt the usable one. I’ve done the same thing for my C4. I needed a rebuild of the fuel injector towers, so I went online and found a set for $20 plus shipping and took them apart and back together and used them as a model for when I did the real set. Worked perfectly.
Here is my next piece:
84 Vette Crossfire Intake Manifold
Which is seen here on the Vette:
Corvette Crossfire Engine
The manifold is unique enough that I wanted to learn more about it before messing with it. Now if you’ve been reading my blog since the beginning or are new and went back through my older posts, you’ll know about my psychological issue with breaking it myself. So the test part makes it even odds…ok..fine 40 – 60 that I won’t screw it up. (That’s a 60% chance that I’ll eventually have to take to someone and have it fixed when I’m done fixing it myself.) Now I’ve mentioned that an up and coming mod will be to put on a newly designed manifold for the Vette, but I need to keep the original and will eventually rebuild it myself…or attempt too. Look this picture over and you’ll see why I love working on my C4:
Hood up.
Yeah..no fenders to lean over!!!! It’s great. Easy access to the engine. Just toss an old blanket (STOP..NOT THE ONE ON THE BED..NO NO..BAD….) over the wheel and you are home free.
Thanks for reading. Always up for a comment or two.
This is a new thread that I’ll post from time to time, similar to the Auto Factoid. Wrench’in Tips will some help hint, short cuts and even some alternative ways to help finish the job.
The key here is that these are coming from a guy with average skills and knowledge so to you ‘hardend’ professional they may seem lame or you’ll have a ‘well….duh, OMG, like everyone knows that!!!’ In which case…KEEP IT TO YOURSELF!!!! <GRIN> Kidding of course, always let me know what you think.
So here is the first one.
I hate electricity, not the benefits of being able to use it, it’s super when it stays where it’s suppose to and goes where it’s suppose too. What I hate is when it stops being or doing what is should. I absolutely hate working on electrical problem anywhere, homes, appliances and cars.
I can say that I once had a bad experience and that would be true, but the other problem I have (besides the physics of it all) is that I’m color blind. Anyone who has looked at a wiring harness in a car will know what I’m talking about. The are all kinds of colors, but unless they are only black and white – like the extension cord and light I made back in 4-H, 1.5 billion years ago, I’m stuck.
Now older cars like my ’70 Mustang aren’t too bad, they pretty much conform to black, white and one or two other color, but the ’84 C4 it has wires everywhere….hey…I’m not kidding EVERY WHERE!!! There are no less that 10 pairs of wires you have to remove just to take the door panel off. In the 84 Vette, the adjustable windshield wipers are on the drives door and if I remember correctly it has at least 6 wires. Then the are the wires for the door lock 4 there and there are the wires for the electric window that might be 4 more. Add to that the wires for the door courtesy light and the speaker and amp wires (the awesome BOSE stereo system had 5 speakers with individual amps). errrk….here’s a factoid the 1984 Corvette and Cadillac were the first cars to have a custom BOSE stereo system. The story goes that GM asked if they would put BOSE radios (back then just AM/FM and Cassette) in the cars and label them Delco. BOSE wasn’t crazy about the idea so instead offered to design a system for the cars….end of errkk.
So one of the first problems I had with the Corvette was the electric window stopped working on the driver’s side. So I assumed that I would have to replace the motor. So I get home early from work one day and I decided that I’d knock this out real quick. I began by taking the panel off and found all the pairs of wires and I sure I used a four-letter word didn’t start with a D or S. I noticed that a couple of the wires were a bit worse for wear and need some attention, I also noticed that the wires were short and you had to balance the door panel on something to be able to disconnect a couple components. Being the genius that I am, I figure that if I made the wires a bit longer I would haven’t to disconnect the components every time I need to remove the panel, I’d only remove the screws and the door panel would rest on a towel or something on the floor.
NOTE: Don’t worry, not every one of my tips will be attached to a long story….umm…I don’t think.
Of course the wires I needed to repair and additionally make longer weren’t your basic black and white, I’m not sure but I think one was sea-foam green and one was burnt sienna (I don’t really know…but I remember that burnt sienna was a crayon color when I was a kid- before Microsoft Paint.
Oh…so here is what I did.
I took about 1/2″ strips of white duck tape and a marker and folded one each side of the wire that I was going to splice to repair and lengthen. I labeled the first wire A and A and the second B and B (pretty sure you could have figured out the pattern). Then I cut and spliced them with wire connectors.
It worked out great and I left them labeled when put the door back together.
Oh..just so you can have some closure, I did all that work and the problem wasn’t with electric window motor, was really just the switch on the middle console…4 screws and pop in the new $15.00 switch. It’s that the way it always goes? Seems like it.
I plan on getting back to the pieces on drag racing, as I have a couple more parts to post. However, I have two projects coming that I thought give you all a heads up on.
The first is a new dash for the Mustang. Dashboards were never made to last, even back in the 70’s. They sure as ‘heck’ don’t last here in the Arizona sun. It doesn’t matter what that the dash is made up of, the heat will eventually mar it or destroy it all together. Painted metal with fade, at the least, if not peel off. Plastic will crack and the vinyl composite like the original dash in my Mustang will crack and curl up.
Take a look:
This the Dash with the custom cover.
Now it’s going to get ugly. Beware, send the children from the room and hide pets. Disclaimer: I’m not responsible for malfunctions of pacemakers, prosthetic limbs or dental work fall out of your head when you gasps at the next few pictures. Don’t view if you are in your lasts trimester or if you spouse in her last trimester. Side effects are severe headaches, nose bleeds, loss of voice and black-outs have been report but rarely occur. (Law school – money well spent!!)
Split dash on speaker cover.
Grand Canyon
Son of Grand Canyon
Tough to see here but the corners are curled up.
HAD ENOUGH?!?!?!!? Yeah…I thought so.
So I order a dash sometime ago and I’m ready to get it put on. …..eeeerrrrkkk….don’t get a cap (dash cap), they are the worst!!! They almost never fit right and they are normal waving and the glue doesn’t hold…especially here in the big AZ. I tried one on my ’74 Torino (I loved that car…I’ll tell that story another time…someone remind me!!!!) and it did all of those things plus it looked cheap. If you can buy the orignal equipment, NOS (New Old Stock) do it. Of course you can for Mustang’s and other popular cars and keep mind some fit other models of the same make. If you can’t get NOS then look for the advertisements where they are using the original tooling (molds etc.). Those are the best…. end of eeerrkkkk… While I’ve got the dash apart I’ll redo any wiring necessary and place all the bulbs. I might even replace the original speak which isn’t hooked up to the new stereo. And I’ll do some cleaning as well.
All this I will film with digital pics and digital movie clips and post them up. Every one can follow along. And if you are in area you can swing by and see the progress.
The second project I’ll be doing with a few professionals at Dynamic Crossfire Solutions. Met these guys through the Arizona Corvette Enthusiasts club (ACE). …eeerrrrk…..For an average guy with average skills, car clubs are a great resources…end of errrkkk… These guys, Tom and Jim have developed a new intake manifold for the lowly crossfire engines. I’ll talk more about that in the another post, but for a fair price, I having the newly developed (first of its kind) intake manifold for my 84. The Corvette will get a new fuel pump and the injectors will be modified to allow manual adjustments and a fuel pressure gauge will be added to help refine the flow. Why???…more HPs car peeps, up to 50 more for, what is really, just a bolt. Tom and Jim are going to let me turn the wrenches and I’ll be filming that was well and will share it here.
I have a new contest coming up (looking at $50.00 gift card) and some tips that might help with the project you are working on.
