It’s Wrenching Wednesday! This week, we extend an extra-hearty welcome to our newest members. We’ve just had a three-digit surge in sign-ups, and we deeply appreciate the support! Wrenching Wednesday is your opportunity to participate in an open forum about all things car repair/maintenance/modding related. Where the convo goes is entirely up to you, but it’s fun to have a prompt to get things rolling. So let’s roll!
The wrenching we do to keep our daily drivers daily-driving their best can be very rewarding, especially as you stack up the dollars you didn’t spend for someone else to do the job and watch the miles of reliable running roll up on the odometer. But when it comes to slinging sockets for maximum smile inducement, nothing beats making progress on a project car. There’s no pressure to get it running in time to get you to work on Monday, and other than one ride to the office to show it off when it’s done, it’s probably never going to work on Monday–project cars are for weekend driving. For today’s Wednesday of Wrenching, let’s talk about the project cars, trucks, and motorcycles you’re currently moving closer to completion–and/or the projects machines not yet in your clutches but are short-listed for someday.
My project-car dreams tend to be all over the map, but two recurring themes are always running hot in my imagination. First up: a vintage Beetle-based kit car, the more exotic-looking the better. Kid-me could never reconcile that my Dad A. had a Beetle and B. had adult money but was completely immovable on the idea that we should be building a Fiberfab Avenger GT-12. “Can we at least send one dollar for a complete color brochure? Come on!”
The other dream is to go Full Power Block and put together a big-cube V8 with all the fixin’s. What will it go into? I dunno man, I just wanna build it. Then maybe it can just look dope on a stand in the “rumpus room.” It was fun when I did it with a Revell Visible V8, I want the thrill of building the real thing.
Let’s talk projects!
Take my Cadillac to Quality Body to have the driver’s side mirror replaced. It’s destruction at 70 mph by an oncoming vehicle was one of the most terrifying moments of my life.
I’d like to have another ’68 Charger some day.. but maybe Tesla swapped? At least engine/trans swapped with something more modern and reliable. Something already done would actually be preferable. Between the kids/fam and the two jobs.. I don’t have much time. Also interested in getting a SW-20 MR2.. but concerned I won’t fit in it.
TL/DR – 1971 Porsche 914, 2012 Range Rover Sport (daily driver getting control arm bushings/ball joints, 1995 Defender 90 ROW that just arrived from Poland’s famed Fire Service)
I will keep it simple. I have a 1971 Porsche 914 that was recently completed (uh…still some minor paint touch-ups to do). My daily driver is a 2012 Land Rover RRS that is up on blocks while I replace the front upper/lower control arm bushings and ball joints (Pro-tip – spend the extra $$ and buy the entire control arm with all new parts instead of trying to press out/in, you’ll save days of effort and contribute a lot less to the swear jar, but you will spend additional $$ and acquire new tools for the future).
And I just imported a 1995 Defender 90 300tdi that was in the Polish fire service for my next project. Pro-tip, don’t assume that if customs lets your car into the country that you will easily be able to title/register it. Although they are a law enforcement agency, apparently you need a different law enforcement inspection which has a backlog of 60-90 days for inspection (ugghhh!!).
My recently acquired ’05 GTO does suffer from low quality stitching so some seams in the back seat are coming apart and one area of droopy headliner so going to get some interior work done as the first major work. Beyond my skillset. Replaced the battery as the old one was of unknown age and those cars have a known issue regarding battery drain so having a known fresh one and a device to maintain it gives confidence when it sits for a bit. Also replaced the hood struts.